In the past two years, virtual anchors and virtual avatars are very popular around the world. A Korean girl in the United States has become the most popular game anchor during the epidemic in the United States, watching 7,000 people online every day and accumulating more than 700,000 followers, becoming one of the most popular game anchors on the Twitch platform. However, it’s not the girl who is popular, but CodeMiko —— the 3D virtual digital person she controls.
The popularity of virtual avatars
CodeMiko is not the first virtual anchor to appear in the image of digital people, but it stands out from several digital people anchors with its delicate expression, delicate digital modeling, and strong real-time interaction. Compared with traditional live broadcasting, especially in some website platforms with strong two-dimensional and three-dimensional atmospheres, virtual anchors are no less attractive than the popular celebrities in the traditional live broadcasting industry, and millions of fans have become the upstart in the live broadcasting field.
Moreover, as the cornerstone of the construction of metaverse content, virtual digital human is the earliest and most sustainable development of the metaverse segmentation mature scene. At present, virtual idols, e-commerce with goods, TV host, virtual anchor, and other commercial applications have been recognized by the public. In the metaverse world, one of the core contents is digital people, because virtual avatars are not only the “embodiment” of real-world humans in the metaverse but also one of the important vehicles for various interactions in the metaverse.
Virtual avatars are a highly anthropomorphic multi-technology comprehensive product. At the present stage, virtual avatar production mainly involves three major technologies: modeling, AI drive, and rendering. First, 3D modeling is the foundation of building virtual avatars image, focusing on the fine reduction of details; second, the capture of collected action to virtual avatars is the main way of 3D virtual avatars action generation, the core technology is motion capture; finally, rendering technology used to improve the fidelity of virtual avatars, real-time interaction also needs to achieve real-time rendering.
Technology companies are increasing their layout
Now, the virtual avatars industry has entered the growth stage, the technology may no longer be an important barrier to the industry, the application scenarios are gradually broadening, the manufacturers flock to it, and the golden era may come. The booming virtual digital person business is triggering the increased layout of technology Internet companies. It is reported that WIMI Hologram Cloud Inc (NASDAQ: WIMI) is the world’s leading holographic AR digital technology company, focusing on computer vision holographic cloud services, for one of the world’s holographic cloud industry-leading scale, covering the industry chain, leading performance. WIMI relies on the continuous accumulation of data, algorithms, scenes, and other core advantages, the company has built a virtual technology marketing method for real-time virtual digital human technology and virtual studio technology, and provided enterprises and brands with customized virtual digital human creative, virtual scene, special effects display and other diversified ideas.
Specifically, to gain technology innovation-driven in the virtual digital person track, WIMI, based on cloud AI face recognition technology, provides a more free “photo generated 3D face” than face pinching. Users only need to input a few photos, can complete the face high-precision 3D model reconstruction, skin physical attribute generation, and then through the WIMI cloud platform AI computing power and rendering ability, can generate lifelike high fidelity 3D virtual image within a few seconds. In terms of digital human drive, WIMI captures the face expression and active form in the real environment through the naked eye 3D camera and adopts several self-developed AI technologies and computer image algorithms, combined with cloud super AI and computing power to process videos in real-time, which can drive digital people to express and interact vividly and freely.
Industry application accelerated landing
It is worth noting that, in the long run, virtual digital human is a new round of IP incubation and commercialization. Similar to real stars, the core of virtual avatar building lies in the operation of IP and the cultivation of personality. The release works and produces content to increase exposure, and accumulate a certain number of fans before realizing it. Therefore, in the process of creation, the head enterprises usually build from IP as the point of force. Based on this, for the vast market space that virtual avatars can open up in the future, WIMI will continue to promote the virtual IP business, broaden the IP matrix, and expand the virtual avatars market in entertainment live broadcast, live streaming, cultural tourism, brand marketing, advertising games, and other fields.
Up to now, WIMI has a comprehensive holographic IP equity content library. The format of virtual holographic content covers from 3D models to holographic virtual products, nearly 5,000 holographic virtual IP equity content, covering a wide range, including holographic animation, virtual live broadcast, virtual idols, and virtual social networking. At the same time, WIMI cooperates with various content owners through brand cooperation, content authorization, copyright sharing, sales sharing, accelerating the commercialization of high-quality IP and other forms, and its virtual image IP services are in the top position in the virtual technology industry.
Overall, digital virtual avatars may later become a very large, relatively independent industry. As the core concept of the new wave in the metaverse, it is believed that shortly, there will be virtual digital people with different functions, realizing collaboration, communication, learning, and entertainment experience, coupled with application scene mining and content ecology construction, will certainly form a certain scale effect. In the future, digital virtual avatars will develop in a more realistic direction, and the facial expressions, costumes, and dynamics will be more and more smooth and vivid. Digital virtual avatar application scenarios, including personalized costumes, will be more and more diversified. As the technology iterates, the experience virtual avatars give fans will only become more and more real.
