Researching AI systems for production

 

Over the last few weeks I've been exploring synthetic Avatars.  Avatars that are synthetic in almost every way.  They are AI controlled, and offer various capabilities.  Here are some of the byproducts of that testing:

This is a Text2Speach applied to a still image generated out of Midjourney.  It can take any audio file and will animate lipsync, and apply some synthetic expression.   It's extremely limited in movement, but it only took 20 minutes to create.   I think as a chatbot or web-avatar there is an appeal to this very uncanny and synthetic approach.  It's creepy, but in a neat way!?  

This is a test I did awhile back with very similar tech.  Wav2Lip offers the ability to change what someone is saying on an exsiting video.  Not many frills, and the output quality needs some refinement after the generation.  But, it's just an impressive demo none-the-less.

Finally, this one I'm very excited about.  Motorica.ai is a platform that generates AI motion for your humans with very little effort.   I think of it like mocap-without-the-mocap.   I was very easily able to just move my little guy around here, process it in moments, and get back a fully animated character.

There are options for 'attitude', things like 'soldier', 'schoolgirl'..etc.  Also, the developers are open to you supplying your own dataset if you wanted a branded or bespoke motion.

I think what is excitng is being able to generate custom (human) animation based on need to apply to a Motion Matching setup for games, or interactive characters.   This demonstrates one done in UE.   The only other one i've ever seen this impressive was done by Ubisoft like 6 years ago.    Just incredible.

 

I'm all over the place these days with the speed in which AI is developing.  Generative AI for video and VFX, AI for chatbots and synthetic animation, and everything in between.   

I am having a blast trying to keep up with all the advancements, and even more excited at trying to wrangle these into capabilities for storytelling, interactive projects, and automated avatars!  Not to mention all the VFX effeciences for workflows.   

 

Exciting times.