Sure, actors have been re-aged in motion pictures before – the faces of Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Chris Evans, Keanu Reeves, Mark Hamill and Ewan McGregor have all been subjected to various forms of digital manipulation in recent years – but Metaphysic’s new proprietary technology, dubbed Metaphysic Live, uses innovative techniques to eliminate much of the workload that made those previous efforts so costly.
The tool will allow filmmakers to create high-resolution, photorealistic faceswaps and de-aging effects on top of actors' performances live and in real-time, without the need for further compositing or VFX work. See Metaphysic Live in action via the video below: Ridiculous, right? Metaphysic says that the technology – which maps photorealistic content onto real-world scenes at up to 30 frames per second – is a “dramatic advance [...] that will be essential to creating immersive AR/VR, gaming and entertainment experiences” in the future. And by the looks of things, the company isn’t wrong to think so.
In addition to Zemeckis, Metaphysic has teamed up with one of Hollywood’s leading talent agencies, Creative Artists Agency – which counts Margot Robbie, Harry Styles, Chris Hemsworth and Madonna among its clients – to “unlock creative possibilities for artists using AI across film, television, and entertainment.”
What that means, exactly, is still unclear – but we suspect that the AI-assisted VFX on show in Zemeckis’will be just the start for Hollywood’s association with Metaphysic.