Tencent has teamed up with Epic Games and other collaborators like 3Lateral, Cubic Motion and Vicon to unveil a digital human which is christened Siren. The digital piece of technology is a high-fidelity, real-time virtual “human,” that is designed as a more effective, timesaving alternative for creating hyperrealistic video game characters. The character was first unveiled at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March but just got showcased in China.
This is different from digital simulations which are noticeably fake, in that with ‘Siren’, the collaborators hope to bridge the gap between CGI and real life to produce models so lifelike, you might not be able to tell the difference. Siren is modelled after Chinese actress Bingjie Jiang and has the ability to mimic even the slightest of body and finger movements, including facial expressions. It moves in sync with the person wearing the motion capture body suit at 60 frames per second.
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Interestingly, the character looks so real facially. ‘Siren’ even has beauty “imperfections” like pimples and visible pores. As a result, it is difficult to differentiate the character from the real actress from whom it was created. Indeed the technology holds huge potential. Just imagine future television shows using ‘Siren’-like models in place of actual actors. Yes, that sounds awesome but if the technology lands in the wrong hands, it could spur a whole, uncanny generation of fake news. Check out the demo from the video below.
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