3 tools lowering the entry barrier to develop Avatars and AR applications
3-in-1: 3 digital news in 1 minute. On Monday. Episode 247
Discover 3 original digital news, invest one minute and be a better professional!
News 1: Epic Games MetaHuman Creator — setting the bar high on lifelike virtual Avatars
MetaHuman Creator from Epic Games lets users build digital human avatars in a browser, powered by the Unreal Engine. Users can design custom avatars from a collection of preset faces, hairstyles, body types etc. and also manipulate the models in real-time in the browser. The platform will be released as part of an early access program in the next few months. A demo video of the MetaHuman creator can be found on YouTube. Opinion for B2B: Virtual avatars are a trending topic. LG used virtual presenter “Reah Keem” at CES 2021, virtual influencer Lil Miquela with more than 3m followers on Instagram. Costly and complicated development and immature technology hindered adoption for business cases. MetaHuman Creator could be the gamechanger for virtual avatars. Pairing the Unreal Engine and the experience from game development with an easy to use web-platform.
Will 2021 be the breakthrough for Virtual Avatars?
News 2: Synthesia — generates videos from a text script
Synthesia AI is a platform to create AI-generated videos from a text script. The generated video is presented by a 3D-Avatar and can be translated into 40 languages on the platform. Edits are also made by changing the text script — without any video editing skills. The London-based startup focuses especially on corporate use cases e.g. training and onboarding videos. Opinion for B2B: Video content production used to be very time consuming and costly. A human presenter, recording and editing equipment is usually needed. Synthesia shows a great business case for AI-generated content and the use of Avatars.
A game-changer for scalable video content production! We use it, it’s great.
News 3: Unreal for Automotive
Epic Games is bringing the Unreal Engine to the car. Originally developed as a graphics engine for video games, Epic is now offering a complete suite of tools for automotive design and visualisation. Use cases include creation of virtual car models to test and iterate designs in real-time, digital showrooms or the design of digital interfaces for the infotainment system. Manufacturers using Unreal Engine include BMW, GM, Daimler and luxury car brand Pagani. Opinion for B2B: Who would have thought 2 years ago, that Epic Games would not only develop Fortnite but also deliver the basis for infotainment systems in car or virtualisation of a car design process? Epic Games, just like NVIDIA before on an other level, is now setting out to transfer its excellent technology out of gaming for other use cases and industries.
Gaming companies revolutionise other sectors, a fascinating development.
Author is the research team (10 trend scouters) at specialist Space and Lemon (Hamburg, Berlin) — scouting in main tech geographies, in AI development, virtual worlds and e-commerce. Excerpts of research are gathered here in original weekly news since 2016, always with a professional opinion — no re-write of TechCrunch. Research time: March 2021.
Come back next Monday and share your opinion.
