Abstract: Systems and methods for animating an avatar are provided. An example method of animating an avatar includes at an electronic device having one or more processors and memory, receiving an audio input, receiving a video input including at least a portion of a user's face, wherein the video input is separate from the audio input, determining one or more movements of the user's face based on the received audio input and received video input, and generating, using a neural network separately trained with a set of audio training data and a set of video training data, a set of characteristics for controlling an avatar representing the one or more movements of the user's face.

Abstract: Systems and methods for generating a video of an emoji that has been puppeted using inputs from image, depth, and audio. The inputs can capture facial expressions of a user, eye, eyebrow, mouth, and head movements. A pose, held by the user, can be detected that can be used to generate supplemental animation. The emoji can further be animated using physical properties associated with the emoji and captured movements. An emoji of a dog can have its ears move in response to an up-and-down movement, or a shaking of the head. The video can be sent in a message to one or more recipients. A sending device can render the puppeted video in accordance with hardware and software capabilities of a recipient's computer device.

Abstract: A method of animating a digital character according to facial expressions of a user, comprising the steps of, (a) obtaining a 2D image and 3D depth map of the face of the user, (b) determining expression parameters for a user expression model so that a facial expression of the user-specific expression model represents the face of the user shown in the 2D image and 3D depth map (c) using the expression parameters and an animation prior to determine animation parameters usable to animate a digital character, wherein the animation prior is a sequence of animation parameters which represent predefined animations of a digital character (d) using the animation parameters to animate a digital character so that the digital character mimics the face of the user.