Be anyone you want with Avatarify.

Zoom Gives Users a Touch of Celebrity with Avatar Application

So you and your book club decide to have a Zoom meeting. All of your friends log in and then you log in as Elon Musk. Or Steve Jobs. Or any other character living or dead that you want to be. It possible with Avatarify. An article from Micheal Kan writing for pcmag.com explains what the buzz about Avatarify is all about.

The programmer Ali Aliev showed off his “Avatarify” technology in a couple of demos uploaded to YouTube. In one clip, he uses the software to map his facial movements onto a picture of Musk during a Zoom video call.

“The deepfake technology then proceeds to animate the picture in real-time to match his own facial movements.  “Looks like I got into the wrong conference,” Aliev says, pretending to be Tesla’s CEO.”

Below is a video of how this amazing software works.

The Avatarify software works by taking a still image of the target you want to deepfake, for instance, an image of Einstein, and brings it to life using your own movements. The algorithms can do this by processing video footage of your face in real-time. As the video gets processed, the technology will create corresponding video images to match your facial expressions. Imagine, you could even be Eminem, Harry Potter or Snoop Dogg at your next video conference.

The results, while not exactly life-like, are still amusing to watch. Aliev is now encouraging others to try it out. Last week, he uploaded his software’s source code on to his GitHub page, which contains detailed instructions on how to use it.

This type of tech generated alarm when it was first used to put celebrity faces on pornographic videos. While the results were purposely grainy so it was harder to tell it was a fake, it still generated outrage.

So check out Avatarify for your next conference or friend sharing event online. Zoom had some issues early on with hackers, but they seem to be ironed out

In addition, you’ll need to download some third-party tools, including video streaming software. Finally, to pull the deepfake antics on Zoom, you’ll have to download version 4.6.8 of the video conferencing software, which still has built-in support for virtual cameras. You need a powerful graphics card to make it work, however.

It’s another way to take our minds off the current state of quarantine.

read more at pcmag.com