Makes you look older — Instagram Filter Review

Published on Mar 18, 2019 | Filter name: "Twilight Years"

Filter creator: Marc Wakefield (@marcwakefieldards)

Twilight Years is a fantastic "looking old" style Instagram filter by Marc Wakefield and is one of my favorites when it comes to realistic simulation masks. This AR 3d mask turns a young looking face into an old person's one, so you become an old man or woman in just a tap away.

You start with your regular look. The developer added a "Tap to continue" message. When you tap on the screen of your Android or iOS phone while viewing this custom filter, you'll become older and more wrinkles will appear on your face.

It's not a new idea and it is used widely by mane single iOS and Android AR apps, but it was indeed executed brilliantly by Marc Wakefield and it's of course very convincing. I like the idea that the effect doesn't start straight away and gradually increases. This gives users the feeling of seeing themselves getting older in lightspeed, like 50 or more years passing by in just a few seconds - cool thing when you come to think about it.

AI-assisted Aging Simulation

Of course, this is just a virtual simulation and it is the same for all people who use this IG filter. It would be nice if there was an option to add an AI algorithm that actually tries to predict how you are going to age and apply different types of visualizations. 

I remember reading about an AI-assisted aging simulation that uses what is being called GANs, short for "Generative Adversarial Network". A neural network to try to perfect that aging result. You can read more about is in Science Magazine.

Basically, it compares the produced image to a photo of another person with the same facial attributes and at the projected age so it can produce more authentic looking results.

It would be great having an Instagram filter that works in a similar way, but for this, we need access to the cloud for processing and of course, in this particular example, I think many servers were used and the results are quite costly in terms of processing power needed to run them.

Bottom line, looking forward to the AI version of this filter, but it looks amazing nonetheless.

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