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Perhaps realistic physically, but not emotionally. It's truly bizarre to watch these talking heads because their lips are moving, but their eyes and cheeks are

Perhaps realistic physically, but not emotionally. It's truly bizarre to watch these talking heads because their lips are moving, but their eyes and cheeks aren't moving along with them, except for blinking. Real people speak with their whole face, not just their lips. Of course, to do that "right", you need to actually understand the emotional content of what is being spoken. And I'm not talking about highly "emotional" content like in TV drama -- even in a technical presentation, the speaker's face contains lots of emotional signals. Whether warmth, or a sense of humor, or being proud, or excitement of what they're about to reveal, or curiosity about whether the audience understands, etc.

kleiba 2y ago
> It's truly bizarre to watch these talking heads because their lips are moving, but their eyes and cheeks aren't moving along with them, except for blinking. Not true?! Please rewatch the video at the top: especially the eyebrows are quite animated, and the contours of the face also change as well as the shadows that indicate muscle movement in the phase.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  It's just not looking real to me at all. Yeah there's a little bit of random movement, but none of the patterns of movement reflect the ways in which people's faces are actually expressive when speaking. They look kind of lobotomized, sure with maybe some random eyebrow raises thrown in. It's nothing like whole-face expression.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    I think the point of comparison should be news anchors and other "talking head" media, not real life humans emoting. Maybe it's just me, but people looking directly into and speaking in front of a TV camera about boring things also look lobotomized and uncanny. Check out your local newscasters some time and tell me they're really more realistic than these results.
czl 2y ago
You raise good points about the current version of this tech but trained on larger datasets it will likely become more emotionally realistic than the average person. Video filters for "tuning up" emotional expressions will likely be common in the future giving all the emotional range that talented actors have. If you want this ability it may be democratizing but for talented actors it may be dystopian.

kleiba 2y ago

> It's truly bizarre to watch these talking heads because their lips are moving, but their eyes and cheeks aren't moving along with them, except for blinking. Not true?! Please rewatch the video at the top: especially the eyebrows are quite animated, and the contours of the face also change as well as the shadows that indicate muscle movement in the phase.

crazygringo 2y ago
It's just not looking real to me at all. Yeah there's a little bit of random movement, but none of the patterns of movement reflect the ways in which people's faces are actually expressive when speaking. They look kind of lobotomized, sure with maybe some random eyebrow raises thrown in. It's nothing like whole-face expression.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  I think the point of comparison should be news anchors and other "talking head" media, not real life humans emoting. Maybe it's just me, but people looking directly into and speaking in front of a TV camera about boring things also look lobotomized and uncanny. Check out your local newscasters some time and tell me they're really more realistic than these results.

czl 2y ago

You raise good points about the current version of this tech but trained on larger datasets it will likely become more emotionally realistic than the average person. Video filters for "tuning up" emotional expressions will likely be common in the future giving all the emotional range that talented actors have. If you want this ability it may be democratizing but for talented actors it may be dystopian.