YouTuber Who Improved Mandalorian‘s Young Luke Cameo Hired by Lucasfilm
A YouTuber who improved upon The Mandalorian‘s CGI’d (and highly scrutinized) Luke Skywalker cameo wound up with a job at Lucasfilm.
An artisan in “the latest and best in Deep Fake technology,” the YouTuber known as Shamook shared the news in a comment on their latest deepfake (of Robert Pattinson as The Batman), saying that Lucasfilm recruited them months ago, not long after the YouTube channel published a side-by-side upgrade of The Mandalorian Season 2 finale’s closing sequence (embedded below).
Lucasfilm has now confirmed the tapping of talent, in a statement to our sister site IndieWire.
“[Industrial Light and Magic is] always on the lookout for talented artists and have in fact hired the artist that goes by the online persona ‘Shamook,’” a rep for the film studio said. “Over the past several years ILM has been investing in both machine learning and A.I. as a means to produce compelling visual effects work and it’s been terrific to see momentum building in this space as the technology advances.”
As The Mandalorian‘s sophomore run came to an end, Mando, Grogu et al found themselves cornered on the bridge of Moff Gideon’s seized cruiser, with rows of Dark Troopers about to breach the door. A familiar X-wing fighter was then spied arriving outside, its cloaked pilot proceeding to board the ship and easily mow down the troopers with a lightsaber. When Mando allowed this Jedi hero to enter the bridge, we realized it was in fact a post-Return of the Jedi Luke, in the form of a digitally de-aged Mark Hamill.
Better as Shamook’s take on Luke may be, the YouTuber admits it could be better, if they had access to native elements and not just the Disney+ series’ final VFX.
“Unfortunately there isn’t much I can do to improve the animation/mouth syncing,” Shamook has said. “If I had access to the body double footage before they applied the CGI, deep fake would be a definite improvement. Hopefully they release some behind the scenes footage eventually so I can give that.”
Honestly…They both kinda stink! CGI humans still have ways to go. I suppose if just putting a face in a static pose, with very little movement is the goal, then great. But I don’t think there will really ever ever be full human CGI characters.
nah its only bad because the guy only had bad cgi to work with so he could only do so much to approve it. but deep fake technology is so realistic its scary. Look up the guy who does the Tom Cruise deep fakes if you wanna see cgi humans done right.
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You are not kidding it’s scary, no more seeing is believing ugh.
Did you actually read the article or just glance at it and come to complain about the CGI? We all know it’s not a CGI human, it’s a CGI face on an actual human body double. The article says as much. And as others have already told you, the creator admits that it could be a lot better.
But hey, who wants to read a whole article when they can just make an offhand comment and then others will give you the cliff’s notes version…right?
It seems his eyes and nose are a little brighter and easier to see in the right picture, but I don’t see all that much difference in the two otherwise
There is an entire video within the news story abovewards.
Thanks for the tip. You now have 100 bonus points to be used on your next purchase of a Plymouth Road Runner. :-)
I watched the comparison video, and while I definitely see an improvement–particularly with the nose and eyes–it still amazes me that people hold their noses at the original. I mean…they both still made Mark Hamill look better than he did in Jedi, after a real-life car accident scarred his face. Then again, I’m myopic, presbyopic, and astigmatic, so all I have to do is hold my phone 8″ away from my face and close one eye for pretty much everything to look the same!
Good for him, but I never get why some guy with his home computer can do a better job on a couple of weeks than millions of ILM dollars can do in months. Kind of like when they put a movie costume out that looks worse then your local convention cosplayer.