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Frame from The Mandalorian Luke Skywalker Deepfake Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

The Mandalorian Luke Skywalker Deepfake

Shamook
Demos
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this demo1 month2021–2024 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN cites it as an example of deepfakes producing a more convincing CGI human than the studio's own effort.

Deepfake artist Shamook's improved version of the Luke Skywalker scene from The Mandalorian season 2 finale, replacing the official CGI face with a deepfake.

“Youtuber Shamook did just that with the finale of the Mandalorian season 2.” (HN, 2021)

1 recommendations · 3 citations · Demos · partly dated

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@thereddaikon Aug 2021 Recommends
on HN thread Nvidia Reveals Its CEO Was Computer Generated in Keynote Speech
The best results I've seen are analogous to a modern version of rotoscoping. It involves creating a fully animated 3d model of a person and then using a well trained deep fake of the actor's face in combination. Youtuber Shamook did just that with the finale of the Mandalorian season 2. [this video] He actually got a job with ILM out of it. The future of CGI actors will probably involve a fusion of techniques like this in order to get it right.
Deepfake plus 3D model gives best CGI actor results

Citations, criticism and jokes

@abetusk Aug 2024 Cites it
on HN thread Hal Hickel on Creating Tarkin
Read more
It's a question of cost, knowledge and time. Avatar was in 2009 and the motion capture there was well beyond what was on display in Rogue One. My take on it is that ILM had their own in house animation process and rather than admit that it was costly, slow and gave abysmal results, they doubled down and tried to push it through. Again, there might be some excuses that can be made for Rogue One, but none for Mandolorian and the later Star Wars movies. The Luke Skywalker scene was deepfaked days after the episode aired [0] and, again, the DeepFake version is much better but still horrible because of the animation. [0] [this video]
Deepfaked Luke scene was better than the official one

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