[HN Gopher] Facial hair tracking for high fidelity performance c...
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       Facial hair tracking for high fidelity performance capture
        
       Author : staindk
       Score  : 108 points
       Date   : 2022-07-24 12:03 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (studios.disneyresearch.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (studios.disneyresearch.com)
        
       | dotancohen wrote:
       | This article assumes that only male actors have facial hair.
       | That's rather nonprogressive of Disney.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | kepler1 wrote:
         | How unprogressive of you to focus on male/female, while
         | neglecting people with facial deformities or people who have
         | excessive hair growth in non-traditional facial areas. You
         | oppressor.
         | 
         | I'm glad you're injecting these considerations into every
         | possible topic. We need more of it. That way I have someone to
         | accuse of being inconsiderate, by finding the next category
         | that we'll divide people up by.
        
         | pid_0 wrote:
        
         | sashahrzg wrote:
         | Real talk, most people have some amount of facial hair, male or
         | female. A lot of work goes into recreating it as it adds a lot
         | of realism to a render
        
           | dahart wrote:
           | Disney animation and Pixar are both well known for doing that
           | work, adding subtle hair to female faces in the movies they
           | produce.
        
         | smiddereens wrote:
        
         | zapdrive wrote:
         | Lol.
        
         | charcircuit wrote:
         | No, it doesn't. Eyebrows are considered facial hair for this.
         | It mentions that currently males need to shave off their
         | mustache or beard, but that is different from saying women
         | don't have facial hair. Most people haven't shaven off their
         | eyebrows.
        
       | staindk wrote:
       | I've linked to the publication but be sure to check out the video
       | they've embedded.
       | 
       | Out of the handful of new publications they released today this
       | one was the most interesting to me - I guess it's because this
       | problem is in many ways more focused and less complex (seeming?)
       | than the others (I'm not an ML/neural networks buff but do find
       | it all interesting).
        
       | vanderZwan wrote:
       | Very cool stuff.
       | 
       | This is a bit of a tangent, but why are the captures all
       | toothless? Is there something in teeth that makes it hard to
       | capture them? Or is it a conscious choice to remove them? I have
       | the same question regarding the eyes.
        
         | dchftcs wrote:
         | My guess is that the teeth isn't visible throughout all the
         | frames, so it's hard to reconstruct accurately in 3D. In fact
         | the parts that look like gum and the tongue don't seem to be
         | correct, far from the reconstruction quality of the face
         | itself.
        
         | t-3 wrote:
         | They're not? You can clearly see the teeth in the frames where
         | they are visible in the raw. Teeth are just not commonly seen
         | outside unnatural facial movements.
        
           | dymk wrote:
           | At 1 minute in the video in the mesh reconstruction, the gums
           | / tongue are modeled, and there's clearly no teeth
        
         | pfranz wrote:
         | The short answer is that they're only showing meshes that are
         | deforming. Teeth are rigid and would be put back in based off
         | the jaw and skull position. If memory serves, eyeball position
         | tracking isn't great with this approach, it's not all that hard
         | to add back in, and they often want to cheat eyelines anyway.
        
         | staindk wrote:
         | I think pfranz is on the right track - in one of the other
         | publications they released today they show off how their tech
         | does jaw positioning based on certain constraints (it seems to
         | know where the jaw hinges and how the jaw bone interfaces with
         | the skull).
        
       | antegamisou wrote:
       | I suspect this is likely to be met with significant kickback, but
       | I'm glad there are people publishing and researching ideas
       | outside the cutting edge, yet easier to get grants for, ML/DL
       | stuff. Not to mention that many researchers have noted the
       | dubious quality of many papers in big ML conferences and no I
       | don't believe they complain because theirs didn't pass peer
       | review.
       | 
       | Reading about CS research here, as well as in other media, has
       | become akin to TV zapping and always ending up with the same type
       | of show on every channel.
        
         | dahart wrote:
         | This is graphics research done by a private company, not funded
         | by grants. Siggraph is one of the pickier CS conferences, even
         | when it comes to applied ML. I'm not sure I understand why you
         | think this would get any kickback, or what you mean by that?
        
           | antegamisou wrote:
           | I supposed my original message might come off as anti-
           | intellectualism towards ML research. This is personal but I
           | think AI research* has become incredibly over-hyped, so for
           | me reading about contributions to other fields is something
           | more exciting now.
           | 
           | *referring mostly to applied disciplines. I cannot speak for
           | theoretical ML research as I have not looked into it in
           | depth.
        
         | UncleEntity wrote:
         | > I suspect this is likely to be met with significant
         | kickback...
         | 
         | Why do you think people would have an issue with them tracking
         | us furry humans?
        
           | garyfirestorm wrote:
           | I think the implication is that 'women don't have facial
           | hair' and that's going to be the reason for kickback.
        
             | knicholes wrote:
             | I've seen plenty of women with facial hair.
        
               | kadoban wrote:
               | Basically all women have facial hair, unless they've done
               | something to remove it. I'm not sure if this technique
               | would work on it though, it tends to be difficult to see
               | clearly from a distance.
        
           | antegamisou wrote:
           | I was talking about being a party pooper for not getting very
           | excited by ML research.
        
       | jeanlucas wrote:
       | I love whenever Disney makes things like this public. Last one I
       | saw was about snow rendering, some months before Frozen was
       | released
        
       | xattt wrote:
       | Although this link isn't it, I'm anticipating a time when facial
       | hair tracking may become a proxy measurement mental health well-
       | being - ie individuals who are usually clean shaven all of a
       | sudden start having a five o'clock shadow.
        
         | atlasunshrugged wrote:
         | What about people who usually have beards who suddenly become
         | clean shaven?
        
           | iasay wrote:
           | When I do that I'm usually up to no good.
        
           | mabbo wrote:
           | Signs they've got interviews scheduled and will be leaving
           | soon.
        
         | mabbo wrote:
         | I read your comment, and rubbed my chin, noticing the unusual
         | scratchy beard starting to grow.
         | 
         | I think I need a day off.
        
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