Apple's new iPhone X ads tout animoji karaoke & Face ID

AppleInsider

Apple on Monday released four new commercials for the iPhone X, all of them concentrating on the device's TrueDepth camera.

The first, "Animoji Yourself,", is a 39-second spot depicting a woman and several animoji singing along to the Big Boi song "All Night." Of the same length is "Introducing Face ID," which highlights Face ID's convenience, ability to see past fashion changes, and use in Apple Pay.

Two 16-second ads -- "Opens in the Dark" and "Knows You When You Change" -- are self-explanatory and stay on the Face ID theme.

Apple has made the TrueDepth camera a marketing tentpole since the iPhone X was first announced in September. The product's other signature feature is a 5.8-inch, edge-to-edge OLED display, which necessitated swapping a home button for touch gestures and commands using the volume and sleep/wake buttons.

At launch the product was in extremely short supply. New U.S. online orders are delivering between Dec. 11 and 18 however, and some retail stores may have units in stock.

rogifan_new

Twitter users posted much better examples of Animoji Karaoke. I showed them to family & friends over thanksgiving and they thought they were very cool. What Apple should do is come up with an easy way for people to create short karaoke clips. Heck maybe incorporate it into the clips app or something. I’m assuming if the music clip is only a certain length there wouldn’t be copyright issues?

spamsandwich

Apple should REALLY take advantage of their lead here and sell "Animoji" packs with different licensed characters (like Disney characters, Pixar characters, Warner Bros. animation characters, etc.).

mknelson

SpamSandwich said:

Apple should REALLY take advantage of their lead here and sell "Animoji" packs with different licensed characters (like Disney characters, Pixar characters, Warner Bros. animation characters, etc.).

Maybe some caricature characters along the lines of Spitting Image?

spamsandwich

mknelson said:

SpamSandwich said:

Apple should REALLY take advantage of their lead here and sell "Animoji" packs with different licensed characters (like Disney characters, Pixar characters, Warner Bros. animation characters, etc.).

Maybe some caricature characters along the lines of Spitting Image?

Absolutely!

analogjack

To paraphrase CS Lewis listening to Tolkien reading aloud from LoTR.... Oh god, not another fucking unicorn. I just want to punch that unicorn in the snout. Why are these anomojis so insipid. Imagine if you build a face in say ZBrush and rig it to the animoji frame and load it in. That would be awesome.

spamsandwich

analogjack said:

To paraphrase CS Lewis listening to Tolkien reading aloud from LoTR.... Oh god, not another fucking unicorn. I just want to punch that unicorn in the snout. Why are these anomojis so insipid. Imagine if you build a face in say ZBrush and rig it to the animoji frame and load it in. That would be awesome.

This is why I'd love to see Animoji opened to developers, just like the stickers and such for Messages.

bluefire1

I much prefer the ads during the Jobs era.

dick applebaum

SpamSandwich said:

analogjack said:

To paraphrase CS Lewis listening to Tolkien reading aloud from LoTR.... Oh god, not another fucking unicorn. I just want to punch that unicorn in the snout. Why are these anomojis so insipid. Imagine if you build a face in say ZBrush and rig it to the animoji frame and load it in. That would be awesome.

This is why I'd love to see Animoji opened to developers, just like the stickers and such for Messages.

...or public figures like Wolf Blitzer, etc.

eriamjh

I hope to god that someone comes out with a better use for the faceID camera than animojiis.   JFC! 

asdasd

The holy grail of animoji is getting a realistic avatar of your own face I think.

marvin

SpamSandwich said:

analogjack said:

To paraphrase CS Lewis listening to Tolkien reading aloud from LoTR.... Oh god, not another fucking unicorn. I just want to punch that unicorn in the snout. Why are these anomojis so insipid. Imagine if you build a face in say ZBrush and rig it to the animoji frame and load it in. That would be awesome.

This is why I'd love to see Animoji opened to developers, just like the stickers and such for Messages.

The Face API ( https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit/creating_face_based_ar_experiences ) is open to developers but it takes quite a lot of work to map the data. The iPhone X provides a lot of data with the mesh and 52 blendshapes. There's someone here experimenting with it: 





It needs a model that is rigged with animatable blendshapes, this would normally be made by a professional rigger.



Then a developer has to map the data that comes from the iPhone to that model. It would be a good idea to get the likes of Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks/ILM to provide properly rigged models. They could sell the characters on the store.

Having the ability to just submit models for Animoji and not have to make an app would be a little easier but it's still a lot of work building and rigging the models. Even a professional rigger would take a few days mapping and testing dozens of blendshapes per model.

http://www.iphonehacks.com/2017/11/developer-digs-into-animoji-api-to-create-a-standalone-app-with-longer-recording-duration.html
https://twitter.com/simonbs/status/927290671542820865/video/1

The workflow will improve the more people experiment with it though.

spamsandwich

Marvin said:

SpamSandwich said:

analogjack said:

To paraphrase CS Lewis listening to Tolkien reading aloud from LoTR.... Oh god, not another fucking unicorn. I just want to punch that unicorn in the snout. Why are these anomojis so insipid. Imagine if you build a face in say ZBrush and rig it to the animoji frame and load it in. That would be awesome.

This is why I'd love to see Animoji opened to developers, just like the stickers and such for Messages.

The Face API ( https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit/creating_face_based_ar_experiences ) is open to developers but it takes quite a lot of work to map the data. The iPhone X provides a lot of data with the mesh and 52 blendshapes. There's someone here experimenting with it: 





It needs a model that is rigged with animatable blendshapes, this would normally be made by a professional rigger.



Then a developer has to map the data that comes from the iPhone to that model. It would be a good idea to get the likes of Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks/ILM to provide properly rigged models. They could sell the characters on the store.

Having the ability to just submit models for Animoji and not have to make an app would be a little easier but it's still a lot of work building and rigging the models. Even a professional rigger would take a few days mapping and testing dozens of blendshapes per model.

http://www.iphonehacks.com/2017/11/developer-digs-into-animoji-api-to-create-a-standalone-app-with-longer-recording-duration.html
https://twitter.com/simonbs/status/927290671542820865/video/1

The workflow will improve the more people experiment with it though.

Apple's Face ID is so good, I could imagine a point in the very near future where it's possible to create near-broadcast quality cartoons using one's iPhone for the heavy lifting on the face animation. Just amazing.

timmerk

As I watched the first commercial, I thought to myself: "Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave."

dick applebaum

SpamSandwich said:

Marvin said:

SpamSandwich said:

analogjack said:

To paraphrase CS Lewis listening to Tolkien reading aloud from LoTR.... Oh god, not another fucking unicorn. I just want to punch that unicorn in the snout. Why are these anomojis so insipid. Imagine if you build a face in say ZBrush and rig it to the animoji frame and load it in. That would be awesome.

This is why I'd love to see Animoji opened to developers, just like the stickers and such for Messages.

The Face API ( https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit/creating_face_based_ar_experiences ) is open to developers but it takes quite a lot of work to map the data. The iPhone X provides a lot of data with the mesh and 52 blendshapes. There's someone here experimenting with it: 





It needs a model that is rigged with animatable blendshapes, this would normally be made by a professional rigger.



Then a developer has to map the data that comes from the iPhone to that model. It would be a good idea to get the likes of Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks/ILM to provide properly rigged models. They could sell the characters on the store.

Having the ability to just submit models for Animoji and not have to make an app would be a little easier but it's still a lot of work building and rigging the models. Even a professional rigger would take a few days mapping and testing dozens of blendshapes per model.

http://www.iphonehacks.com/2017/11/developer-digs-into-animoji-api-to-create-a-standalone-app-with-longer-recording-duration.html
https://twitter.com/simonbs/status/927290671542820865/video/1

The workflow will improve the more people experiment with it though.

Apple's Face ID is so good, I could imagine a point in the very near future where it's possible to create near-broadcast quality cartoons using one's iPhone for the heavy lifting on the face animation. Just amazing.

The other shoe waiting to drop is a TrueDepth rear-facing camera, say on a 2018 iPad Pro with an A11X.