Business Insider recently published an article about Siren, a hyper-realistic human avatar created by a computer-vision company called Cubic Motion. This is NOT a video of a real human being; it is a computer-generated digital avatar, driven by an actor!
Titled “This company makes hyper-realistic ‘digital humans’ — and it could be the key to merging real life with virtual reality“, the video shows you what I think is the most realistic-looking human avatar we’ve seen yet.
Here’s another video showing you some of the behind-the-scenes work required to make Siren seem like a real person:
This is another short video showing an actor driving the Siren avatar, taken at the recent Game Developer’s Conference held in San Francisco:
Mind-blowing technology! According to the Business Insider article:
Wood estimates that “sooner than two years” from now, each person could have access to the technology required to create and puppet their own digital body double in virtual reality, from their own home.
“It could be done today,” Wood said in an interview with Business Insider. The hold up, he explained, is with the VR headset manufacturers that have yet to incorporate wearer-facing cameras into their products, a feature which real-time image capture relies on.
Can you imagine being able to drive your own avatar in one of the newer virtual worlds, using this technology? Astounding.
