Giannis Doumanis: December 2009

Monday, December 14, 2009

Immortal Avatars - A very unique use of avatar technology

Sometimes I wonder if there will be any limits in the human imagination. Engineers at the University of Illinoy Chicago, are trying to immortalize human beings through the use of avatar technology. The realization of such attempt is the Alex the avatar(show above). Alex is the digital double of Alex Pothen the former director of the National Science foundation. All I can say is WOW!!! Just imagine in 10-20 years from now to be able to transfer yourself into an AI brain and to live forever as a digital entity. Would you do it if you had the opportunity? Only the idea creeps me out but future generations may consider it an acceptable practice. The whole concept reminds me of the movie the Lawnmower man where the main character becomes so intelligent through the use of Virtual Reality technology that manage to transfer himself into the WWW.

PopSImmci's Future Of: Imm

http://science.discovery.com/videos/popscis-future-of-immortal-avatars.html

Avatar Movie

I am truly shocked and amazed. Avatar is the BEST movie I have ever seen. The Na'vi characters are simply breath-taking and way out of the uncanny valley(see below for a definition). That's an important aspect of every system that integrates Virtual human technology. The more life-like a character is, the more believable it becomes and hence, it is easier for peopel to accept it in its assigned role (guide, actor, etc). Avatar is the most tangible evidence for that. So what can we (the poor Virtual human developers) do? How can we develop systems with Virtual Humans that people will accept? If you have access a computer with 80000 processors (that's what James Cameron used for the creation of avatar), you are in HEAVEN. If not, then what? No matter how beautiful and life-like your creation is, it will only go as far as the real-time engine can take it. I have reviewed several real-time engines in the past-years and nothing comes close to Avatar. Second Life has become popular despite its crapy graphics. But has anybody ever used Second Life for a serious application? There have been a number of research attempts for training people, but there is nothing serious for the common user (other than silly things to "kill" his/er time).

Def: The uncanny valley refers to the negative effect that is created when something approaches human (in appearance) but isn't quite there; it creates this creepiness. You can find an explanation of the term from James Cameron himself here: http://news.discovery.com/videos/tech-avatar-motion-capture-mirrors-emotions.html

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Industry Survey

Below is a list of Character Engines I compiled a long time ago:

Open-source

1) The EMBR project (http://embots.dfki.de/EMBR/)

2) Ogre3D- www.ogre3d.com. An open Source real-time 3D engine but without any kind of web player for content delivery.

Real-Time engines

1) Haptek - www.haptek.com The full suite of tools is the range of 7,0000-10,000 USD

2) Charamel - http://www.charamel.de/. A German avatar company, with very realistic characters but also very expensive tools. A very interesting product of this company, is the Charavirld that allows actual actors to controls Virtual characters in real-time. They ask 10,000 Euros for their main development platform along with the player. However, for research purposes they offer a 6 month demo license for only 300 Euros

3) QEDSOFT - http://www.qedsoft.com. A french company with a very interesting real-time 3D engine. Although I am not sure, their tools must be very expensive.

Real-time but without a real-time web player

1) DA Group - http://www.digital-animations.com/. The creators of Ananova. The company offers a range of real-time content creation tools but there is no player for real-time delivery.

2) Codebaby - http://www.codebaby.com/. A canadian company offering 3D characters through flash.

3) Cantoche - http://www.cantoche.com/. A french company with cartoon-like avatars again relying onto flash for content delivery.

4) VCom - http://www.vcom3d.com. An amazing technology for 3D character creations again using flash for content delivery

5) IMS Interactive - http://www.ims3d.com/ The company uses shockwave 3D for content delivery

6) Visage - http://www.visagetechnologies.com. A Swidish company with an interesting technology but without a web player for content delivery

7) Virtuoz- http://www.virtuoz.com. Another French company

8)SimGraphics - http://www.simg.com. A California company using a Wizard-Of-Oz aporoach for brining 3D characters to life.

Non real-time engines (Psedo 3D)

1) Guile 3D - www.guile3d.com. Recently the company created Denish a 3D photorealistic character with amazing visuals. There is no information for any kind of Web player for content delivery

2) Media Semantics - http://www.mediasemantics.com/. A very interesting and cheap technology using XML for character control and flash for content delivery

3) Gizmoz - http://www.gizmoz.com/. A photorealistic technology using flash for content delivery

4) http://www.karigirl.com. A virtual girlfriend

Face animation only

1) Crazytalk - http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/. A face-only creating tool using mainly flash for content delivery

2) http://www.lifemi.com/. Another face-only company using flash for web-content delivery

3) FaceFX-http://www.oc3ent.com/. A face-only tool mainly used for game development

Avatar communities

1) SecondLife http://secondlife.com/ Everyone knows secondlife

2) The Bluemars project (http://www.bluemarsonline.com/). In terms of graphics blue mars is far far better than SL. Download the installer (be carefull is massive 1,01 GB) and try it. The 3D worlds are simply AMAZING.... (that's me avatar in BM by the way)