Recently, Meitu's AI digital human generation tool DreamAvatar launched the first phase of the "AI Actor" digital human service, which is powered by AI to serve productivity scenarios such as video content creation, film and television processing and editing.
Although DreamAvatar's "AI actor" function is Meitu's first attempt in the film and television industry, the application of digital humans in the film and television industry has become quite common and is just needed. Digital humans are mainly used to replace or assist real actors to achieve some effects that are difficult or impossible to complete with real people, such as face change and deformation. For example, in the movie "Avengers 4: Endgame", Iron Man's digital man replaced the role of the live actor in space.
At present, the generation of digital humans is divided into two technical routes: CG and AI, but the digital humans generated by CG technology are more expensive than those generated by AI technology. According to public information, traditional CG film and television as a special effects character not only requires professional equipment investment, but also requires a lot of time and budget. For example, an ordinary robot or monster special effects often takes weeks or even months and costs tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. AI technology uses deep learning and neural networks, without human participation and intervention, and can automatically generate high-quality and diverse digital humans, thereby saving labor and time costs.
The generation of DreamAvatar "AI Actor" digital human can be easily done with a mobile phone without the need for professional equipment. Users only need to import the captured video footage, specify the characters in the video, and let the AI operate the rest. AI will detect, track, erase, replace, and repair the human body, automatically replacing real people with digital people. Using 3D human pose estimation and driving algorithms, DreamAvatar's AI actors can perfectly synchronize their movements with real people; AI will also use camera pose estimation and tracking, as well as lighting estimation algorithms, in parallel, to make digital humans and environments naturally blend and make them more realistic. Finally, the previous series of AI processing is summarized into 3D rendering and output, and the special effects blockbuster of AI actors is born.
At present, DreamAvast "AI Actor" supports the conversion of up to 10 seconds of video, and has launched a total of 11 digital human images with different styles in the three themes of robots, orcs and humanoids, each of which has been refined in different directions from the modeling style and rendering style to give users a variety of experiences and choices.
The function of DreamAvatar "AI Actor" greatly improves the efficiency of video creation, shortens the production cycle in days to hours, and saves labor costs such as professional equipment costs and modeling and rendering, improving production and operation efficiency while reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Not only professional users, but also mass users can easily create digital human video blockbusters with the help of DreamAvatar's "AI actor" feature.
In addition, another scenario of DreamAvatar, "AI Anchor", has been launched in the Meitu Matrix Shooting App, providing more diversified content expression methods for video voice creators. In addition to video creators, different brand customers can also create brand-exclusive digital humans by accessing APIs and SDK interfaces.
In the future, DreamAvatar will continue to explore the landing scenarios of digital human + AIGC, expand usage scenarios, and serve more industries.