More Imaginary Politicians

[firstfrost]

So, I took several people's suggestions for "a more random politician" or "someone we won't know what they look like already", and threw some more faces at him.

I still can't predict well which faces will clash horribly. Substantial differences in angle can blend out, as can facial shape - the guinea pigs in my morphman demonstration have very different shape, and for all that this one combines someone looking forward and someone looking over their shoulder, the face itself isn't bad. But of the five below, all picked to be basically the same straight-on shot, three look (to me) like plausible people, one looks a little off, and one looks like a morphing accident gone horribly awry, and I have no idea why.

I'm not sure this is still an Experiment, so much as a Messing Around. But it did teach me how to make just the face morph, and keep clothes and background from just one image, which makes for a much tidier picture than many of my previous examples. (Short answer: you have to physically transform the "background" image, so that it lines up with your merged image, but you don't transparentize it.)

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

These look much more like "people I know" than your other set, and I'm pretty sure I could guess the specific people you morphed with for at least half of them... I'm entertained with how much shifting of round/narrow face structure you've got going here.

I think much of the problem with the one on the far left is he can't decide whether his mouth is open or closed. :)

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

These look much more like "people I know" than your other set
I noticed that too. They're not algorithmically farther towards the other face than the first set is - I decided that maybe a familiar face is more visible when it's against a backdrop of an unfamiliar face, whereas for the Bush set, they all look *like* Bush in addition to like someone else.

and I'm pretty sure I could guess the specific people you morphed with for at least half of them
(You know all of them, for reference. :) )

Mouth closed/mouth open is a consistent weirdness with these - both the far left and far right have that issue, which also manifests as smile/not-smile and causes (I think) more oddness around the mouth, because a half-smile is a strange expression.

[desireearmfeldt]

I don't think it's because a half-smile is odd, so much as because this picture has very pronounced cheek-folds, which look natural with a broad smile, but just wouldn't be generated by a half-smile or closed-mouth smile, so the expression looks physically impossible (for the rightmost and leftmost pics).