AICONTACT F.A.Q. - Eye contact for video calls

Windows:

1. Download and install AICONTACT.

2. Launch AICONTACT and sign up for your free trial.

3. Follow the steps in the AICONTACT Settings panel:

1. Adjust your real-world lighting (the brighter the lighting, the better you look) and camera locations to make sure the camera is not below your chin or above your eyebrows.
2. Select the eye color you want (choose from brown, green, blue, or grey).
3. Adjust the Iris, Sclera, and Pupil brightness sliders (you'll only have to do it the first time, unless your lighting and camera resolution changes) to match the values of your real eyes in the split-screen view. 
4. Start recording if you want to and it's legal in your area.
5. Close splitscreen view and close the Settings panel otherwise it will be visible on your call.

4. Open Zoom/Teams/Meet or the video call software of your choice ON YOUR PC and in preferences/settings select FaceStream Virtual Camera as your video source or as your camera.

5. Make sure your streaming settings and WiFi are set for maximum quality; the effect won't work well if your video quality is below 720p

6. Move your head around to become familiar with the range within which AICONTACT operates optimally. Make sure your webcam is not positioned too far below your chin or above your eyebrows, or too far to either side, and try not to let anything move between your face and the camera, such as strands of hair, your hands, or pets. Cats tend to be the worst interlopers. Additionally, limit any sudden, dramatic movements as the tracking software will have trouble keeping up.

7. Share a screenshot of yourself with AICONTACT turned on and off to your favorite social media with #AICONTACT.AI so others can see how well it works for 3 free months of usage.

MacOS

FIRST:

1. Download the AICONTACT 2.0 zip file, either on this site or from the Apple store.

2. Double-click it to extract FaceStream Virtual AR Camera and AICONTACT 2.0.

3. Install FaceStream Virtual AR Camera and move it to your Applications folder.
4. Double click on FaceStream Virtual AR Camera to install it before opening AICONTACT. MacOS will pop-up a message saying "FaceStreamAR Virtual Camera Installer 2.app is an app downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?" Click "Open".
5. Click on Install button; a popup will appear to allow this camera extension from system settings.
6. Go to Privacy & Security system settings and click on Allow FaceStream Virtual Camera Installer and virtual camera will be installed on your MAC OS. (AICONTACT requires FaceStream Virtual Camera to work!)

SECOND:

1. Move AICONTACT to Applications folder.
2. Double click on it to open AICONTACT.

3. Follow the steps in the AICONTACT Settings panel:

1. Adjust your real-world lighting (the brighter the lighting, the better you look) and camera locations to make sure the camera is not below your chin or above your eyebrows.
2. Select the eye color you want (choose from brown, green, blue, or grey).
3. Adjust the Iris, Sclera, and Pupil brightness sliders (you'll only have to do it the first time, unless your lighting and camera resolution changes) to match the values of your real eyes in the split-screen view. 
4. Start recording if you want to and it's legal in your area.
5. Close splitscreen view and close the Settings panel otherwise it will be visible on your call.

6. Open Zoom/Teams/Meet or the video call software of your choice ON YOUR MAC and in preferences/settings select FaceStream Virtual Camera as your video source or as your camera.

7. Make sure your streaming settings and WiFi are set for maximum quality; the effect won't work well if your video quality is below 720p.

8. Move your head around to become familiar with the range within which AICONTACT operates optimally. Make sure your webcam is not positioned too far below your chin or above your eyebrows, or too far to either side, and try not to let anything move between your face and the camera, such as strands of hair, your hands, or pets. Cats tend to be the worst interlopers. Additionally, limit any sudden, dramatic movements as the tracking software will have trouble keeping up.

9. Share a splitscreen screenshot of yourself with AICONTACT turned on to your favorite social media with #AICONTACT.AI so others can see how well it works for 3 free months of usage.

MacOS and Windows (2015 and newer) running Zoom, Teams, Meet, or any video call software. 

All Webcams although 720p and up will have better results.

Eye contact on iOS and Android are not supported at this time.

AICONTACT can match your virtual eyes to your ambient brightness automatically, and also has built in sliders to let you adjust the brightness of your iris, sclera, and pupil to match your ambient lighting. As long as your webcam is capable of at least 720p resolution and your environment isn't too dark, AICONTACT will work. However, for best results, we recommend you use a high-quality webcam capable of 1080p streaming and make sure you are in a well-lit environment (not too bright, either).

1. Don't place your webcam too high (above your eyebrows) or too low (below your chin), as that will limit AICONTACT's ability to realistically re-draw your eyes towards camera; you will look sleepy if the camera is too high and wide-eyed if it's too low. Similarly, don't tilt your head too far back or down; there is a sweet spot of movement that AICONTACT looks great within, but turning your head too far left, right, up or down obviously makes it impossible to make realistic eye contact, and the effect will be ruined. Test it out the first time you use it and be conscious of the limits before using AICONTACT in important meetings.

2. Try not to rub or cover your eyes. Anything getting between the camera and your eyes will force the software to look for your missing eyes and that can cause some strange glitches to appear. That includes hairstyles that cover one or both eyes, and even gestures like brushing loose strands of hair out of your eyes, taking glasses on and off, etc. Definitely don't play peek-a-boo while using AICONTACT unless you want to terrify the child.

Yes! On the right side of the AICONTACT window when the Settings panel is open, you'll see two  icons. One is the webcam icon, which is selected by default, to allow AICONTACT to work through your webcam. Select the other icon to open pre-recorded video into AICONTACT, and you can then apply AICONTACT to the eyes of the person in that video. Once you've adjusted the settings to your liking, play the video and record your screen (by pressing the timer in AICONTACT settings on Windows, or by pressing Command-Shift-5 on Mac) to create a new video with eye contact by AICONTACT.

1. Manual override button to make or break eye contact when and for the amount of time you choose on any video call.

2. Counter to let you know how much more eye contact you made more than usual.

3. Slow Gaze - slows and smooths out your eye movements, reducing darting, for an even more confident and enticing look for remote dating.

4. Hypnotic pulse - Subtle effect to help calm and gently entrance your audience for remote learning, remote work, sales, and pitches.

Yes! We will give you 3 months of AICONTACT free for every person you refer who buys a membership and stays active for at least 6 months.

While we can only speculate at the workings of Apple's and NVIDIA's eye contact solution, what we have seen from footage on the internet of both systems in action indicates that while both use very advanced software and hardware to make the user's eyes very realistic, they have utterly neglected in the job of making them move like HUMAN eyes; their solution makes you stare into camera like a psychopath, whereas AICONTACT gives you the perfect combination of making and breaking eye contact for maximum empathetic impact. 

AICONTACT is working on improving the realism level of the AR eyes, but even now 80% of our tests on unsuspecting Zoom call participants did not notice anything out of the ordinary even while an AICONTACT user spent the entire call with our AR eyes on. 

Additionally, AICONTACT can be used by nearly any laptop or desktop made in the last decade, Apple, NVIDIA, and Microsoft's solution only works on their most advanced computers, tablets, and phones. 

AICONTACT works and is available to many more people, and as we build better and better versions, we hope to become the preferred gaze-alignment solution by the rest of the world.

All legal documents are available at https://facestreamai.com/legal