In addition to multiple announcements, Disney has split a paper presenting an artificial intelligence with capacities that are, to say the least, promising.
Baptized “FRAN” for “ Face Re-Aging Network », this new tool developed in-house makes it possible to age or rejuvenate actors in the blink of an eye, with the added bonus of serious savings on post-production.
AI at the service of post-production
Until then a real challenge, the rejuvenation and aging of the actors could experience a certain upheaval… at least at Disney. In an academic paper, the research studio of the American giant has indeed presented FRAN, its neural network dedicated to this task.
Trained using a large database associating synthetic faces at different ages, this tool aims to save a lot of time when modifying an actor’s age. This process previously required finding documented footage of people with the same facial expression, as well as the same lighting and background, as evidenced by Harrison Ford’s facelift for the upcoming film. IndianaJones.
Armed with the information on which he has been fed, FRAN can split a prediction of the age of a character and modify the face accordingly. According to the Disney paper, it is ” the first practical, fully automatic and ready-to-use method to change the age of a face in a video image “.
A tool that is still in its infancy
Although quite convincing, this technology is still in an embryonic state. FRAN is for example not yet able to age or rejuvenate a face from that of a child. Similarly, graying an actor’s hair is not yet within the tool’s remit, as it was not part of the data collected during its learning process.
So, even though FRAN saves significant time (and money) on this point, the tool shouldn’t put special effects specialists on the sidelines for a while.
Still, the tool has a promising start and should therefore offer much more convincing results on the subject than previously known work. Like for example a rejuvenated Robert Downey Jr. in Captain America: Civil War in 2016 in a more or less convincing way.
It remains to be seen whether, research obliges, Disney plans to deploy this technology on a large scale before a while. Only the future and the quality of the faces of aged or rejuvenated actors will tell.
Source : DisneyResearch
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