Personalized Avatars
Personalized avatar apps bring virtual humans to a whole new level. They transform the digital avatar user experience into something highly memorable and unique through lifelike interactions with recognizable personalities. Thanks to the latest advances in artificial intelligence, personalized avatar makers have been simplified to the point that minimal skill and time are required to build sophisticated, authentic characters.
What Are Personalized Avatars?
The technology for creating digital humans has gradually but immensely improved over time. After first producing cartoon-like, awkward moving images, avatar makers began using a picture of a person to create dynamic, interactive digital humans that look like actual individuals. Personalized avatar creators take this a step further by giving them the ability to customize all the essential features of the character completely.
The foundation of the avatar is a simple, short video and vocal recording of the actual person. The resulting avatar has the face of that person, but in addition, the technology builds the virtual appearance and actions of that person so that:
- The voice is based on the audio segment to allow mimicking both sound and speech patterns.
- Body movements are simulated according to how the person moves during the video.
- Facial movements use a sample of the person’s expressions as they talk to animate speaking parts.
The final product is an avatar that closely resembles the “model,” complete with their unique mannerisms that reflect their personality.
How to Create a Personalized Avatar
Each platform uses its own method for receiving input data (i.e., the appearance and voice of the person) and generating output (what the avatar says and does). You’ll also notice differences between platforms in terms of image and voice quality and the kinds of integrations compatible with specific systems.
For example, in the case of D-ID’s Creative Reality™Studio, the process is quite simple. For a personalized avatar, the creator makes a one-minute video of the person who will appear as the avatar (five-minute videos are also used for higher levels of quality). A similar process is applied to generate a voice sample when the person reads a short message. D-ID even has a mobile solution for recording this content.
The last step is to upload the text you want to use as a basis for what the avatar says. For interactive applications, you’ll need to create a database as a question-and-answer source. D-ID uses generative AI to convert this information into responses to user queries. In addition, to give avatars a more complete experience, D-ID uses retrieval augmented generation technology (RAG). This enables the avatar to process queries based on the information provided in the database.
For more details, please see D-ID’s FAQ page.
How Do Personalized Avatars Work?
Personalized avatars are based mostly on the same technology used for other kinds of digital humans. This includes large language models, RAG, generative AI, natural language processing, and machine learning.
The most important innovation used to make a personalized avatar involves the facial recognition phase of creation. At one time, building an avatar’s face according to the appearance of a real person required sensors placed on the face, which were used to record all essential facial features and movements.
Now, with personalized avatars, artificial intelligence is used to convert the two-dimensional facial image transferred from a video into a three-dimensional model. The technology parses many parts of the face to recognize them and produce “copies” when creating a dynamic series. Then, AI analyzes how the person speaks and moves to generate a sample of various characteristics. Simply put, AI connects what you say with how you say it.
This data is put to work during the animation phase. Here, static information and characteristics are translated by AI into fluid motion. In addition, because a major function of an avatar is to speak, AI also connects a textual input (for example, a script or an informational database) to the avatar’s movements.
Through AI, the technology uses the text as a “code” that controls what the avatar does. For example, let’s say that the text is “avatar”. AI will analyze the movements recorded during the facial recognition process while the person pronounces similar word snippets. It then relates these movements to the avatar’s facial movements as it makes similar sounds. The same process is used for audio pronunciation and body actions. This goes beyond lip-synching, as the entire face changes according to what is said (at least for high-quality avatars).
Benefits of Personalized Avatars
Digital humans, in general, provide an enormous range of advantages. Compared to video media that use actual people and physical sets, synthetic videos are much faster and less expensive. In addition, editing and updating these videos is a matter of using the GUI and/or changing the textual database. Even the process of altering the characters and language takes only minutes.
The singular advantage of a personalized avatar is that it is a close copy of a real person. Whether for a business or personal application, your video will seem more authentic and engaging because it features somebody recognizable. If you use an avatar of a famous personality, your video will generate instant relatability and curiosity. Corporations can also include actual employees as personalized avatars to leverage branding opportunities and recognition for the “face of the company.”
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