Practical overview
When it fits
Use Ganimation when you need a research codebase for experimenting with facial-expression animation from a still image and can prepare the required image and Action Unit data.
Who it is for
- Researchers studying facial-expression synthesis or GAN-based animation.
- Developers exploring an Action Unit-conditioned image-to-animation pipeline.
Documented uses
- Prepare image and Action Unit annotation data for the project’s training and test structure.
- Train the documented model pipeline on a prepared dataset.
- Test the implementation with an input image.
- Explore how Action Unit activation strengths and combinations condition facial movements.
Requirements & limits
The project is a public GitHub repository identified as GPL-3.0 licensed.
- The documented prerequisite is PyTorch 0.3.1, with Torch Vision and the project’s requirements.
- The expected dataset includes image files, OpenFace-derived AU annotations, and separate training and test ID lists.
- The repository documents scripts for training and testing but describes a code-based research workflow rather than a hosted interface.
- The README requests citation when using the code or ideas from the paper.
Check current requirements in the official documentation. Source-based guidance does not mean OpenViST has run or independently tested this project.
Prepare Action Unit annotations for a dataset
Create the AU annotation file used by GANimation’s dataset structure.
Before you start
- A dataset directory with images and per-image Action Unit CSV files.
- OpenFace for extracting Action Unit annotations.
- PyTorch 0.3.1, Torch Vision and the dependencies listed by the project.
Steps
Extract Action Units from each image with OpenFace.
Save each image’s output as a CSV named to match the image.
Run the command below to generate
aus_openface.pkl.python data/prepare_au_annotations.pyInclude the
imgs/folder, generated annotation file, andtrain_ids.csvandtest_ids.csvin the dataset directory.
Expected outcome
A dataset directory containing the image files, AU annotation dictionary and training/test image lists required by the project.
Guide limitations
- The repository’s documented data structure requires both training and test ID files.
- The guide covers data preparation; it does not verify model training or image output.
Sources & review
Source record details
- Source availability
- Active
- Sources checked
- 16 October 2026
- Original website title
- albertpumarola/GANimation · Official homepage title · retained in its source language

