Face2Face transfers facial expressions from one person to another in real time

If you watch TV a lot, you get the impression that people there are not real, and some imaginary virtual characters, talking heads, as if they are controlled like puppets. Innovative development of scientists from the United States and Germany makes it possible to precisely such remote control of persons on the screens.

The Face2Face program imposes the mimicry of the “actor” manager on any other person. This can be done live and inserted into the video broadcast. A person on the TV screen under the actor’s control is able to answer questions , frown, etc.

Video tampering has always been considered a relatively time consuming task compared to tampering photos. If in the photo you can quickly erase a person or remove a watch from your hand in “Photoshop”, then it is much more difficult to do such an operation on video, and it is generally impossible to do it live.
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But it seems that soon we will enter a new era of information technology, when there will be not only separate attempts to manipulate the mass consciousness, but also full-fledged clones, virtual people who live only on TV. They will speak live, answer questions, take part in talk shows or meet with voters. But this is only on the screen, and the character will be controlled remotely. Such prospects open up if you look at how the Face2Face program works. In the video, presidents of different countries manage the faces through a standard webcam.



The authors of the scientific work ( preprint ) are researchers from Stanford University, the Max Planck Institute and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.