Speech-Driven Animation With Facial Landmarks and Latent Keypoints
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for generating realistic speech-driven video lack realism and quality of animation, particularly in the synchronization of facial features and head movements with speech audio.
Innovation Solution
A system utilizing both facial landmarks and latent keypoints to generate video, employing a multi-stage pipeline with neural networks for predicting mouth and face landmark positions, pose generation, and video synthesis, ensuring natural and realistic facial and head movements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a single type of feature is used for face animation, then the device complexity is reduced, but the realism and quality of animation deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple feature types (facial landmarks providing geometric structure and latent keypoints providing appearance details) into a composite representation system. This composite approach allows the system to maintain both geometric accuracy for synchronization and appearance fidelity for realism, resolving the contradiction between simplified feature representation and high-quality animation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the face representation into distinct components: facial landmarks for structural geometry and latent keypoints for appearance characteristics. This segmentation allows each component to specialize in its strength while working together to produce realistic animation, avoiding the need to use a single complex feature type.
2Reliability
If multiple feature types are used for face animation, then the realism and quality of animation are improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary transformation process that maps between facial landmarks and latent keypoints through a learned correspondence model. This intermediary layer harmonizes the two feature types, allowing them to work together seamlessly without requiring complex manual integration, thus managing system complexity while maintaining realism.
3Ease of operation
If facial landmarks are used for animation, then the explainability and controllability are improved, but the quality of animation may be reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges facial landmarks (which provide explainability and controllability) with latent keypoints (which provide high-quality appearance representation) into a unified animation system. The combination allows users to control animation through interpretable landmark-based parameters while the latent keypoints ensure high-fidelity appearance rendering, resolving the quality limitation.
4Reliability
If latent keypoints are used for animation, then the quality of animation is improved, but the explainability is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a multi-functional system where latent keypoints serve dual purposes: they provide high-quality appearance representation for realistic animation while also being transformable into and controllable through facial landmarks. This universality allows the system to leverage both the quality advantages of latent keypoints and the explainability advantages of landmarks.
Data Source
AI summary
Apparatuses, systems, and techniques are presented to generate digital content. In at least one embodiment, one or more neural networks are used to generate video information based at least in part upon voice information and a combination of image features and facial landmarks corresponding to one or more images of a person.