Got given a ton of shots where they want the subject to look 10 years younger.
Do you guys use the tools inside flame like A2 and crok_beauty? We have around 150 shots and the client obviously barley has a budget!
Ben seriously this could be a very big ask, especially on 150 Shots! If i were you id identify exactly what part of the actors face they want to augment. Is it the crows feet, or creases, or earlobe size, nose, all the bits that make up the deaging effect. And concentrate on one asepct of it. If they dont have the money to spend then you need to really focus one one or two aspects that can be acheived. good luck! its ll about managing expectations and tell them how long it would take for you to take it all the way. Ie full head replacements, skin augmentations, and facial features being replaced. then pare it back to what you can achieve!
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Best case scenario, if you’re able to solve procedurally, yeah that’s easily 10hrs + per shot. Likely 20hrs. Any geometry reconstruction? 30-40hrs per shot. Minimum.
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Have you tried the Beauty Node in Davinci Resolve?
150 shots and no budget sounds like ML face keyer mattes fed into crok_beauty and they get what they get and they don’t get upset, IMO.
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That’s exactly what I was thinking…key the skin, crok_beauty or dollface and it is what it is. That’s a lot of shots.
For this many shots… Maybe one viable approach given a certain budget is to let AI handle it, create a massive copycat setup in Nuke paint a bunch if frames to deage then train the AI using a bunch of GPU horsepower…
Its a dangerous path to take but ive had a situation like that and I told the client we can try a AI approach that would costs you a grand total of XXX ( a lot less then the classic approach), then we can still go in and fix the worst offenders manually, but the risk for that would be on the client… and hey it turned out fine, this was similar work, but it was scary .
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That is scary. Not only because of the uncertainty but also because the algorithm will improve.
I wonder will it mean more nuke usage?
Less ops needed?
Or same ops and more complicated work?
mostly just taking over stupid tasks for now, but yes future and all… if you cant stop em join em 
🧙‍♂
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Hi Ben,
Sorry so late to the game, but the algorithms (Flame, AE Beauty Box, Resolve) won’t work and you’ll spend more time chasing the errors than it would if you just knuckled down and did it.
There are other solutions that are less intense though. First is outsourcing. And that comes with it’s own levels as well. You could get mocha masks back based on markups per shot and do the work yourself. Or you could go as far as getting all the work done remotely through offshore companies, but the taste level will differ from what western audiences are used to. If you’re going down that route or if you’re doing it yourself, you should follow the most important point below.
When doing de-aging, there are varying levels of what some clients see as 10 years younger. You ABSOLUTELY should do a test shot and agree on the level of retouching prior to doing any of the work. That test will inform you how much is involved in getting the subject to a place they like given the quality of the footage. Sometimes the DP is your friend, sometimes not so much.
Josh
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Thanks for that. Outsourcing isn’t really an option for us. The client is just going to have to decide which ones they 100% need doing within the budget.
We did 3 tests using a mixture of crok beauty, a2 and other things. They seemed pleased with the results and its the quickest way to get as many done as possible. It’s going to be a very hairy few weeks!
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