Eye Contact Correction: Redirecting the eyes to look at the camera

Creepy and misguided. Do people stare at you fixedly and unwaveringly during in-person conversations?

And if they do, do you like it?

> Look Away: enable_look_away helps create a more natural look by allowing the eyes to look away randomly from the camera when speaking

For the demo video, try enable_look_away = true, look_away_offset_max = 10, look_away_interval_min = 1 and look_away_interval_range = 1 (then submit), which from the result I got should really be the default for a more natural result.

Usually looking away is part of a gesture which involves the context, like facial muscles and the information being shared ("Hmm, when was this?": makes the eyes looks up)

If you mean someone listening is actually staring (without changing their facial expressions), then of course that's weird, but if they are adjusting their facial expressions to show reactions without looking away, what's wrong with that?

> if they are adjusting their facial expressions to show reactions without looking away, what's wrong with that?

A whole lot. Even if they have varying facial expressions, not looking away is creepy as hell because looking away during conversations is actually an important aspect of the communication. Not looking away is sending a nonverbal message, and none of the usual ways that's interpreted are positive.

Okay, these options are far enough down the slippery slope to present a compelling argument that the whole thing is a Bad Idea. Short hop from here to suppress_yawns=true, and then breezing through enthusiasm_multiplier=1.4 on to enable_AI_avatar=true with bon_mot_interval=240s...

Are you talking about the people listening or the person speaking? I was talking about the former, whereas you seem to be talking about the latter.

Did you watch the transformed video with the settings above?

I think you misunderstand the role of "Look Away": it's not like it looks completely sideways, inventing behaviour that does not exist; instead it looks "away" _from the fixed point that would be dead-on camera center_ (that results in this "I'm gonna pierce through your skull with laser eyes" look), substituting it with "when looking - not aiming/scrutinizing - at something, even continuously, human eyes have saccades"

The whole premise of such software (which has already been implemented by Apple in FaceTime with great success) is to _restore_ the reality which is "I'm looking at you but the mechanical offset between camera and window-on-screen destroys the information that I'm in fact looking at you", not invent something that is not real.

Ideally it would even:

- notice actual saccades and reproduce them, only cancelling the offset (super tough, so the next best thing is to fake it, but since these are small, uncontrolled, random-ish movements the approximation is quite sufficient)

- take into account video window position relative to the camera so that if I'm looking away from the window then it stops compensating.

But hey, first implementations are often naive. I give them credit for implementing Look Away because that's one step beyond the naive implementation. I guess it's not the default + tuneables are there because it's still early.

I'm talking about both.

I guess it depends on how comfortable you are with what the speaker is saying. If you are not sure you agree or you want to think about something else, then it's normal to look away.