The depth of details on the face are much better on the new one. You can look closely at his mole or dimple to see that, but even his nose shape flattens a bit in the original. The color correction done likely by the final colorist to dampen highlights seems to have exacerbated it too.

The "improvement" has studio bright highlights and reflections in the eyes and that doesn't fit with the overall lighting of the scene so it stands out if you were watching more than a clip but it isn't horrible. It is made a bit worse because there is not enough lighting change when the head moves so the shadows don't have any temporal shift from frame to frame. The new version also broke the lip sync.

Overall, I'd say it is a wash, but the improved version definitely has a more appealing look with the brighter highlights even though that was not the intent of the scene. And there is no question the lack of depth of detail is the biggest problem with the original.
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Have you seen the Solo Deepfake where they put young Harrison Ford's face over the new guy? Those were amazing as well.
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To be fair this is all they (Deep Fake) do and they have gotten really, really good at it. I would think that the Mandalorian team kept Luke's appearance as hush hush as possible so it's reasonable that they wouldn't bring in outside talent.
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Thank you! I definitely noticed the lip sync issue, as I'm ridiculously attuned to that kind of sync and saw some of the color correction. I also noticed, even on my "best" TV, that the details around the face were a bit "smeared" but I figured that was done on purpose because more detail would have probably made it look even more like VFX.

That said, I don't think these new HP monitors provide that level of detail in order to see some of the other things mentioned. But I will say that the TCL 5 series 50" OLED TV I purchased recently is 10x clearer than the 75" 4 series I purchased just last year.

In "The Jedi", there's a scene with Din Djarin and Ahsoka speaking by the campfire, in which I can clearly see fingerprints on the Mandalorian helmet!

That's a little too much detail, IMO, and must be a nightmare on set.

Thanks again!
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Everyone has to sign an NDA to work on projects like these so it's really all about the budget and the time involved. Although, I will say that due to COVID, there have been very few leaks about, well, anything Disney and Marvel related and that's because no one with half a brain would email or text "Inside Info" and leaks.

Those are best left to face-to-face meetings so there's no electronic trail. That's the reason why I've had so little info this year because I haven't really been allowed to see anyone, outside of those in my household. I mean, I knew about the 10 new Star Wars TV series and a few other things but I was given very little detail.

Speaking of NDA's, I had to sign an NDA in August just to see who I'd potentially be working with and for! That's the level of secrecy these days in Hollywood. You'd think I was being passed national secrets!
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Really? Who gives a shit! Outstanding ending to the season. Luke taking the "kid" and a visit with R2D2 Incredible! Fuck the CGI! I loved it.
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After watching back through a second time, judging by their interaction, it's pretty obvious that Grogu and R2 have met in the past.
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Clearly several people did as it is a topic of discussion.
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Sure. I get that. I've had to sign NDA's before, and there are still things from my military days that I have not been given liberty to discuss (as far as I know) so I know that people can keep secrets. I'm just thinking that something like this would be heard to keep secret and the fewer who knew about it the better. But then Luke was my immediate thought as soon as I saw the scene where Grogu was sending his signal. Maybe even before that. I'm sure if I thought of it then a bunch of other people did too. If they are going to continue doing stuff like this than the Deep Fake crew would be the guys to work with.
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Good lord, The Volume is insane:

The MVP of the Trask set was being able to wet everything down and catch that reflective goodness. Would've been a nightmare on a greenscreen stage.

(Although we all know da real MVP of this ep is #FrogLady and @MissMistyRosas) pic.twitter.com/Q2w1VCdBQM

— Ian Milham (@Monkey_Pants) December 22, 2020

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Well here’s the thing, and UnderEJ is certainly far better suited to speak about VFX than I am, but “touching up” an already completed visual effect is a very, very different process than actually creating the effect. That takes a team of people working together with a singular vision and those people are "True" artists.

I mean, anyone can take a great photo and change it to look “better”, although 'better' is often times in the eye of the beholder. But creating a person's face using Motion Capture hardware and software while making it look “believable” is a completely different process altogether.

For me, the audio/visual sync was off on the DF version and immediately took me right out of the scene, which made it far more distracting than the original.

MoCap is getting better and better each year with faster processors and there are claims that Apple’s new ARM chip advances rendering time and complicated processes like these to a new level, so the future is brighter than ever before.
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:-)


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I hope either of Filoni or Favreau gets her spot one day.
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:-) Perfect
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