We recently had the privilege of being beta testers for Wonder Dynamics' "Wonder Studio".
Wonder Dynamics is an AI tool that integrates CG characters in real-life videos!
This platform is an #AI powered tool that automates the #VFX workflow of animating, lighting and composing CG characters into your live-action scenes. Seems too good to be true? We thought so too. We've seen many AI platforms that offered the moon and... well, they fell short. But we were very surprised, to say the least, to see how it works, even in its beta version! Here's our experience and some insights into the platform's performance and most anticipated features.
In order to test it, we created a short video featuring a quirky robot, called Beat-bot, exploring La Tour-de-Peilz, a small Swiss town. The project included 2,328 frames, 10 scenes, took approximately 8 hours to process and was filmed with an Iphone.
The video has no post-process, all the results are directly from the platform. We just filmed, added a song, some sounds and our robot's voice (also made with AI, but that's another story).
Without futher ado, here are some of the most anticipated features that "Wonder Studio" includes:
AI Character motion capture and 3D Camera Tracking: Streamlining the process of obtaining motion data for seamless integration of digital assets.
Clean Plates: Automated generation of clean plates, saving time and effort for VFX artists.
3D Character Pass: Providing a 3D character pass for easy compositing and scene integration.
Alpha masks: Automatic creation of alpha masks for smooth and efficient layering.
Complete scene in Blender: Offering the ability to export the entire scene into Blender for further editing and rendering.
For our test, for which we used a robot-avatar that was already included with the platform, we observed the following areas that could use improvement (some of them are already accounted for by Wonder Studios):
Image consistency: There were issues with the clean plates, resulting in some blurry images.
Motion capture: Drifting was observed, especially in the robot's feet.
Occlusion: The platform struggled to achieve convincing occlusion.
Render artifacts: There were color artifacts in the final render.
Contact estimation: Difficulties were encountered with accurately estimating contact points between the robot and the environment
Overall, considering this is the beta version, we can definitely say that it is amazing what it can achieve. The amount of time VFX artists will save using this platform is game-changing!
In conclusion, for us, having worked with VFX and animation since forever, what really caught our attention - in addition to the whole CG character animation and rendering - is that the platform delivers usable outputs, that you can correct or perfect if needed in your program of choice for your ad, short or film. Made by people who know the art, for people who do the art (seriously, check it out, even Steven Spielberg is on the advisory board).
We will continue to make some tests. Next time, we will try the facial motion capture and we'll share it with you. Stay tuned and follow for more info about the VFX industry!
Do you know of anyone interested in partnering in the making a movie with ai from a completed (age range>middle grade-young adult) fantasy novel? Story's done, just need to go to next step of writing the script (which it seems ai can do as well?) and making a short. My thought is to create the short and put it online to see if it generates enthusiasm. There is a new concept of fundraising online to help with production. Getting an agent/publisher is 1 in 6000, so I wouldnt at all mind truncating that process.
thanks guys and gals
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