-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
How do random people on YouTube do better deepfake than Hollywood professionals?
- Thread starter DiipuSurotu
- Start date
Because Hollywood special effects people went through years of training in the old ways, and are slow to pick up adapt to something brand new that an amateur with time on their hands might spend a few weekends playing around with.
The same way your average reddit user can make a significantly better movie poster than Hollywood professionals.
Yup. And I would argue the compression and lower quality of streaming works in covering up some flaws.
They're free to do whatever they want rather than being pulled in a dozen different directions, in terms of both editorial decisions and editing/cinematography decisions. People making a short can set their own rules and deadlines rather than having to fit their work into the design and schedule of a larger production. The lower image quality helps too.
dunno. Deepfake still looks blurry enough to be noticeable. it will get there, and ill agree that's it's bizarre Hollywood isn't using it.
also, i feel like it's just ppl like Disney being stubborn. Tarkin didn't need to be a full on CG character. the actor who did it looked similar enough.
also, i feel like it's just ppl like Disney being stubborn. Tarkin didn't need to be a full on CG character. the actor who did it looked similar enough.
Luke didn't need to be CG, just hire Sebastian Stan
exactly!
Different targets. Like the people at Lucasfilm had an actor to work with. The deep fakes don't and are riffing off of a finished product . So I wonder if its just deepfaking the fake face on screen.
The recent one on the manalorian don't look much different, about the same to me
The recent one on the manalorian don't look much different, about the same to me
Well some of the people on YouTube ARE also professionals, for one. They also are typically making those videos with no real deadlines, or budget, or oversight to speak of, and are probably picking a "scene" that is suited to what they are trying to do - not someone being handed film footage or design outlines and told what to do.
And yes, doing something on your own time also means a certain amount of agility in using whatever programs you want, whatever techniques you want, no established pipeline to conform to, etc.
And yes, doing something on your own time also means a certain amount of agility in using whatever programs you want, whatever techniques you want, no established pipeline to conform to, etc.
Completely different stakes? Same reason why good golfers can play put up professional scores at professional golf courses during their free time, but cannot actually replicate that at a major or on the PGA tour.
Last edited:
A lot of deepfakes are just targeting faces as well. Many movies and even TV shows often do full body CG creations which is a lot harder and more demanding of the artists time, especially if they're using things like mocap. That and of course the fact that professional SFX houses are often a race to the bottom in terms of who can put forth the cheapest bid for a project meaning things are often constrained because of budget and time.
ehhh, only some of the scenes and videos I've seen look decent. A lot of terrible deep fakes out there that look completely out of place. The ones that work are also specifically picked and they work in that moment, that's why the other ones are really jarring.
Not hating on the tech, because it is cool and its nice to see people play around with it and the potential is there to do amazing things in the future with it.
Not hating on the tech, because it is cool and its nice to see people play around with it and the potential is there to do amazing things in the future with it.
That was from 2016 when deep fakes and AI tech was at a different place.Isn't Lucas using motion cap with their deepfake
I don't think the software translates well.
There is also the factor of time. One of the things I've learned watching those Corridor Crew VFX videos is a lot of bad VFX is simply the result of special effects people operating under a strict deadline and simply not having the time to polish the effects. A guy making a Youtube deepfake video pretty much has all the time in the world to get the look just right.
Keep in mind that in those deepfake comparisons the deepfake is applied to the hollywood cg character. I imagine having that starting point helps.
btw. ILM sorta used something like deepfake for Rise of Skywalker where they just took the face from an old scene and applied it to a new one
www.youtube.com
btw. ILM sorta used something like deepfake for Rise of Skywalker where they just took the face from an old scene and applied it to a new one
ILM Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Take a look behind the scenes of ILM's visual effects work on STAR WARS : THE RISE OF SKYWALKER in this all-new breakdown video. The featured work was create...
www.youtube.com
Amateur Deep Fake -> The software is pretty straight forward and anyone that has time to go back and mess with deleting and splicing frames can do a fine job. especially when you aren't on a schedule. However most of the deep fakes are pretty simple, i've not seen anything where they are recreating from ground up
Hollywood -> They have a timed schedule, the software is usually made in house, the actual deep fakes are more intricate in terms of camera angles, source/reference of what is being faked, quality of the fake and viewpoints.
Hollywood -> They have a timed schedule, the software is usually made in house, the actual deep fakes are more intricate in terms of camera angles, source/reference of what is being faked, quality of the fake and viewpoints.
Is Hollywood actually using deepfake? Most of the time they're still using "3d CG rendered faces" rather than the deepfake tech (which involves feeding footage of the original face and then allowing an AI to apply that face to cover someone else's). A certain character in Mandalorian was referenced as "deepfake", but other articles say that it's still the same 3d CG mask technique used in the recent movies.
Youtube deep fakes really don't look good a lot of the time. It's a cool technology to see as clips but if someone did multiple scenes or a whole movie I think it would fall apart pretty quickly especially without youtube compression. Stuff like the irishman is much more impressive even if not 100% perfect.
I'm not saying this is better or worse than Hollywood movies, but I wanted to post it since it always makes me laugh.
I'd say it's this. Also, movie makers 4K+ resolution. Training a CNN in 512x512 is not the same as training one for such high resolution. Even without considering time, you may run into mathematical issues such as vanishing gradients and whatnot.
eh, imo, Tarkin's biggest problem isn't the face per se. it's very detailed. problem was animation/facial capture. He does the sadly very common upper lip going up.
I thought about this when watching the last episode of the Mandalorian
Luke Skywalker cameo blew my fucking mind, but that CGI face pulled me right out of it. Should have just hired Sebastian Stan
I think part of it is because the stakes are lower. In a major hollywood movie if you know that a deepfake is coming ("Here's the scene with Leia!" ... yknow months after Carrie Fisher has died), you're looking out for it and then you're looking for the times it's wrong or unseemly. But when you're watching something on YOuTube and know it's a deepfake, you want to believe the illusion.
I think about the first time I watched the Sopranos "Prosha Livuska" I didn't even think twice about Livia Soprano / Nancy Marchand's bizarre "performance," in the final scene between her and Tony. It was just a scene that I watched, and it didn't strike me as unusual in any way. And then much much later I learned about the full back story about how Nancy Marchand, the actress, died while that season was being filmed and so they had to kill off Livia in the show, and so that final scene was a mix of stitched together footage from other episodes and then a very expensive ($250,000) CGI Livia Soprano... and now when I rewatch it it's so obvious, the conversation is stilted, the cuts and shots are weird, you never see Tony and Livia in the same shot, and when it's just her in original footage she has like a Mona Lisa smile and it seems odd, like she's not looking at where Tony should be in the scene. ANd yet, the first time watching it, not knowing she died (one of the joys of enjoying a TV show in 1999, 2000... there were internet communities for the Sopranos, but as a casual fan of the show you wouldn't be exposed to it unless you were hunting for it) I didn't think about it at all.
My wife watched the Sopranos all the way through during COVID times, and she knew about Nancy Marchand dying and how there was a "deepfaked" final scene with her, and so even she was looking out for it, and after that episode she was like "ohh yeah that scene was really weird..." But if you weren't looking out for it, and it was 2001 or w/e, you wouldn't have even thought twice about it. Now it's inescapable when something stands out as unnatural because you're looking for it even if you don't know, wheneevr something seems "off" you know CGI and deepfakes exist and so it's obvious to you. I also felt that way about the sets in Lovecraft Country. Watching the show the sets looked otherworldly, like not natural to me, and I thought "oh, right it's probably all CGI, obviously..." and then it was distracting to me for the rest of the show, I kept looking for it.
Wow the visual transition they do here is seamless, it's amazingly creative. I actually had to run it back and be like "Wtf...... did that change or am I going crazy..."
I think about the first time I watched the Sopranos "Prosha Livuska" I didn't even think twice about Livia Soprano / Nancy Marchand's bizarre "performance," in the final scene between her and Tony. It was just a scene that I watched, and it didn't strike me as unusual in any way. And then much much later I learned about the full back story about how Nancy Marchand, the actress, died while that season was being filmed and so they had to kill off Livia in the show, and so that final scene was a mix of stitched together footage from other episodes and then a very expensive ($250,000) CGI Livia Soprano... and now when I rewatch it it's so obvious, the conversation is stilted, the cuts and shots are weird, you never see Tony and Livia in the same shot, and when it's just her in original footage she has like a Mona Lisa smile and it seems odd, like she's not looking at where Tony should be in the scene. ANd yet, the first time watching it, not knowing she died (one of the joys of enjoying a TV show in 1999, 2000... there were internet communities for the Sopranos, but as a casual fan of the show you wouldn't be exposed to it unless you were hunting for it) I didn't think about it at all.
My wife watched the Sopranos all the way through during COVID times, and she knew about Nancy Marchand dying and how there was a "deepfaked" final scene with her, and so even she was looking out for it, and after that episode she was like "ohh yeah that scene was really weird..." But if you weren't looking out for it, and it was 2001 or w/e, you wouldn't have even thought twice about it. Now it's inescapable when something stands out as unnatural because you're looking for it even if you don't know, wheneevr something seems "off" you know CGI and deepfakes exist and so it's obvious to you. I also felt that way about the sets in Lovecraft Country. Watching the show the sets looked otherworldly, like not natural to me, and I thought "oh, right it's probably all CGI, obviously..." and then it was distracting to me for the rest of the show, I kept looking for it.
Wow the visual transition they do here is seamless, it's amazingly creative. I actually had to run it back and be like "Wtf...... did that change or am I going crazy..."
Last edited:
OP
OP
Man what an awful decision to do that in Rogue One. I wanna say don't do that scene if your team can't handle it, but then again I am sure that is something you realize for sure when its too late.
But was it ever too late? Couldn't you have shot a version never showing his face?
Basically, unless motivated by the rest of the mouth, or when trying to sneer, our upper lips just cant go straight up. A LOT of cg characters, like what Disney did with Tarkin or Leia, do this.
Here's a Corridor Digital video about it a bit, on both Tarking and Leia. if the timecode doesn't work, it starts at 8 mins and 37 seconds.
I'm not sure that video is a fair comparison. The deepfake is using heavier shadowing to obscure the fine details of Tarkin's face.
I'm mainly looking at the eyes. Deepfake looks far more "alive" than the CG one.
Deep fake is probably not production ready and aren't CGI agencies always under immense pressure and ridiculous output milestones? They probably don't even have the time to invest in a new technology and pipelines.
Obscuring what looks wrong is a time-honored filmmaking technique.
Last edited:
People online have as much time as they want to play around with settings and tweak things until they get it right; professionals are working under tight deadlines for less pay than you'd think. Seriously, the VFX industry has rather notoriously bad working conditions.
Also, a heavily compressed YouTube video is always going to look more convincing than viewing a TV episode in 4K HDR, where every imperfection is immediately noticeable.
Also, a heavily compressed YouTube video is always going to look more convincing than viewing a TV episode in 4K HDR, where every imperfection is immediately noticeable.
We only get to see the examples that work really well, that have been done by amateurs. There are far more examples we never see because it looks terrible.
I suppose there's just production pipeline issues that make it more difficult than it seems on YouTube. I must say that overall I've found Marvel Studios has done de-aging well, or at least better than anyone else, but Stars Wars is just consistently striking out with it.
If I recall correctly from the Sonic the Hedgehog fiasco, the VFX industry has a pretty nasty crunch culture akin to the video games industry. I imagine this doesn't help the creative minds to dive into amateur level tech in the way YouTubers get to. Also, I think Sassy Justice is a pretty good example of the kind of output you get when you have a team dedicated to maximizing the tech.
Most deepfakes I've seen look pretty fake up close. There's usually some joins and issues with things like contrast that you can spot that would look terrible on a big screen plus they've usually cherry-picked the shots they use to get the best results.
Are there issues with some Hollywood productions in terms of this kind of stuff? Undoubtedly, whether because of budget, time or both. But I'm willing to bet on a big screen most of it will look better than all but the absolute best deepfake stuff out there.
Are there issues with some Hollywood productions in terms of this kind of stuff? Undoubtedly, whether because of budget, time or both. But I'm willing to bet on a big screen most of it will look better than all but the absolute best deepfake stuff out there.
My guess would be that the source images used for deep fakes tend to be owned by people other than the studio. Outside of the starwars example, it does make sense that it isn't used by the industry that mostly outsources vfx work.
Honestly, I can see a lot of issues with that clip. The colouring and contrast is off, the movement shifts out of place when they turn their heads, the lack of motion blur and other things.
Don't get me wrong it's really impressive what people can do, especially consider it's probably done on a home computer for no money, but to me it's not at a level where it doesn't look like someone's face plastered over the top of someone else.
In a few more years once the big FX companies really invest in the technology I'm expecting it to become the default way to de-age actors but to me there's still some hurdles that need to be overcome to make it convincing.