In 2018, after Station B officially included Luo Tianyi under its command, it began its road to monetization.
It is understood that at present, Luo Tianyi has achieved commercial realization through virtual brand image endorsement, holding concerts, image authorization, live broadcast joint interaction and other ways. Among them, holding concerts for virtual digital people has become an important means of virtual digital people's operation.
However, with the explosive growth of virtual digital people in 2021, a second Lotian is not emerging.
Including the B station, there was no second Luo Tianyi.
Why is it so hard?
What exactly is a virtual idol or virtual digital person?
The virtual idol (host) itself technology is motion capture + sound source library.
First, such forms of presentation are not new, and Japan's Hatsune Mirai (2007) and Domestic Lo Tian Yi (2012) have long appeared.
Second, virtual idols are not only images, but also have people to set up and cooperate with a large number of content creations, such as Hatsune Mirai, Luo Tianyi is debuting as a virtual singer, there are a large number of musical works (live-action creation, sound source library synthesis), as well as many related anime, games, concerts.
At the same time, there are also a large number of daily characters to set the image display, forming a sense of existence similar to a real idol. None of this can be achieved overnight, nor is it a gap that can be bridged by technology alone.
However, starting in 2021, virtual idols will no longer be the patent of Internet manufacturers.
At the end of 2021, Hunan Satellite TV launched the first virtual host "Xiao Yang".
It is understood that "XiaoYang", as an intern host of Hunan Satellite TV, her birth lasted more than 3 months and gathered the inspiration and wisdom of more than 30 digital artists and engineers. After that, Xiaoyang will also appear in other programs of Hunan Satellite TV.
It is foolish to think that the traditional TV industry has entered the virtual idol field, on the one hand, it can be said to cater to hot spots and create explosive points, on the other hand, it is a close melee war against Generation Z, who are leaving traditional TV channels and are mainly characterized by two dimensions, in order to make it possible for new potential user groups to stay.
At the same time, some virtual digital people are no longer limited to show business.
Previously, Baidu launched the digital human platform "Xiling", and in the future, digital human production, content creation, and business configuration services will be able to achieve full-link production and tuning on one platform, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
Li Shiyan, head of Baidu's intelligent cloud AI human-computer interaction laboratory, said that the digital human industry has three core driving forces: user demand and technology upgrades, policy support and capital influx, and iteration of computing platforms.
But just for the debut of an idol like Xiao Yang, the current performance is mediocre.
However, as far as the current performance of Xiao Yang is concerned, there are positive and negative voices in its response, and the current ratings of "Hello, Saturday" have also been reduced by nearly half from the beginning to the present, and Xiao Yang's performance seems to be less than expected. Some people believe that it is the lack of technology and high cost that causes the audience to respond to the virtual host Xiao Yang presented by Hunan Satellite TV.
Foolishly, I think that Xiao Yang has just debuted and has a mediocre reaction, which is normal.
Virtual idols in the field of radio and television also have different attributes than virtual singers in the past, that is, the characteristics of their own news anchors.
However, as a "puppet dressed up", how to create a virtual idol who is really eye-catching and never rolls over and is always young for many realistic labels such as places, channels, and cultures is the most crucial link that needs to be broken through in this kind of cooperation.
However, it is conceivable that there will be more virtual digital people debuting later, referring to the showbiz model.
The reason is that the technical threshold is getting lower and lower.
At present, there are not too many technical barriers for virtual anchors, the technology of motion capture + sound source library has matured, and 3D imaging can achieve the combination of virtual and reality in real concerts, so the real technical barrier should be AI, that is, the deep learning that digital virtual people want to achieve.
In other words, the butterfly change from puppet (human manipulation) to Pinocchio (artificial intelligence) is the real technical barrier for virtual digital people.
At present, the mainstream virtual digital people in China are actually only virtual idol categories.
Basically, it is still in the form of a puppet, that is, a mascot that is no different from Hatsune Mirai and Luo Tianyi, and can move.
In the future, virtual hosts will appear as partners for real hosts, especially in the ice-breaking barriers with the younger generation.
At present, the current state of technology will not affect the development of virtual digital people or virtual idols, and what really affects the development is the expansion of business scenarios, such as the exploration and profitability of games, animations, concerts and even more fields on the derivative chain.
But it should be warned that this wave of virtual digital people may usher in a burst of bubbles, and the cause is above the metaverse.
In fact, the virtual idol layout had a large-scale attempt from 2017 to 2018 and then cooled down.
In 2021, many celebrities and celebrities began to break out after the overturning, and its essence is the habitual follow-up of the old problems of the technology Internet industry, and last year's outbreak also had the catalyst of the meta-universe and never overturning people.
In addition, the Internet manufacturers, but also have the meaning of early occupation and trial and error to accumulate experience, after all, is an outlet, try yes, but most of them are only a shallow taste, not the key breakthrough direction.
For example, Byte chose to join hands with Lok Wah Entertainment to work with virtual digital people, mainly lehua Entertainment is exploring the way.
Therefore, in fact, virtual digital people can not talk about real economic benefits at all.
The entire business prospect is also so far, that is, it is mainly for more business forms in the future such as meta-universe, artificial intelligence, games, animation, etc. to find a combination point and presentation method, and its commercial monetization channels will also appear in the above scenes.
If we talk about core competitiveness, we will also be in the future, but also in technology, namely:
The key to virtual digital people is that the more anthropomorphic the better, the closer the human design is to the real idol, the better, and the ability to jump out of the puppet ecology and truly have pinocchio-style artificial intelligence water standards.
The core competitiveness is still like that of live idols, which require classic works, distinct and penetrating personalities, and deep interaction with fans.
In addition, virtual digital people with virtual idols as the main ecosystem have another problem to solve: who will create content for them.
Especially at a time when artificial intelligence is not enough to independently create content, can we have a large and spontaneous external content creator like Hatsune Mirai and Luo Tianyi to tailor various works for them.
Under this premise, the top virtual digital talents may achieve the effect of cost reduction (using crowdsourcing mode to share with content creators) and exponentially expand their influence, while other virtual digital talents will eventually become passers-by and be eliminated due to lack of content.
(Zhang Shule, Columnist of People's Daily and People's Post and Telegraph, Observer of Internet and Game Industry)