Onmind, a virtual human producer, introduced a Unity-based virtual human at the ‘Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2023’, the world’s largest game developer festival. Hyung-il Kim, CEO of Onmind, one of the leading virtual human-related companies in Korea, said that he was able to quickly and easily create high-quality virtual humans by using Unity’s digital human package 2.0, a real-time 3D content creation and operation platform.
In addition, Kim Beom-ju, head of Unity headquarters, said that Unity plans to focus on training Unity tools along with upgrading functions to create many cases like Onmind.
‘On Mind’, which presented virtual humans at GDC, chose ‘Unity’
On the 20th (local time), we met CEO Kim Hyung-il and General Manager Kim Beom-ju in San Francisco, where GDC 2023 was underway. Kim Hyeong-il, CEO of Onmind, who unveiled a new virtual human at GDC 2023, cited the fact that artists can easily develop it as the reason for using Unity to create virtual humans. Onmind is a virtual human production company that made an eye in the industry that introduced the virtual human ‘Nasua’ in 2021.
CEO Kim said, “I understand that Unity started with the motto that all artists can easily develop games in the early days. I also started out as an artist developer, so I chose Unity to make it easy for artists to develop.” said. It is explained that there are definitely aspects that are easier for artists to access than other engines.
In addition, CEO Kim said, “The biggest advantage of Unity is that the technologies of the Unity Digital Human Package 2.0 were very helpful in realizing various elements such as the skin color of the virtual human close to reality. In addition to the skin shader and eye shader, the hair It is said that not only is the ‘skin attachment system’ that is attached to the skin and follows it, but it also has a function called tension map that measures blood flow, sagging and contraction of the face.
Representative Kim said, “Unity Unity Hair was applied along with Package 2.0.” “Hair is the most difficult part in producing all human beings. Basically, there are tens of thousands of strands of hair, and it is difficult to express hair. It is a very difficult technology to simulate tens of thousands of strands of hair.” Unity Hair not only enables sophisticated simulation with very fast performance, but also is implemented to enable accurate rendering.
In addition, it is explained that Onmind’s competitiveness is to apply it quickly. Onmind created virtual humans Y and TK using Unity Digital Human Package 2.0 and unveiled them at GDC. In the case of TK, CEO Kim used all of these technologies, and people who have seen TK give an evaluation that it is difficult to distinguish from the real thing.” In addition, in the case of TK, Unity’s real-time transformation and simulation artist tool ‘Givada Dynamics’ ‘ solution to create high-level facial expressions in a matter of hours.
Make it easier and faster…even support education
Director Kim Beom-joo emphasized that Unity’s solutions have enabled virtual human developers to work efficiently. He said, “Unity has become famous for its catchphrase of democratization of development. The big thing is to make it easy for anyone to create high-quality creations in all areas, from games to movies, digital twins, and digital humans. I have a goal,” he said.
Next, Director Kim said, “Because we have such a goal, we acquired Giva Dynamics this time because we thought that based on machine learning, we could solve the awkwardness of facial animation, which we had the most difficulty with so far.”
It is explained that the goal was to save a lot of cost and time through this and make it available at a low cost. As can be seen in the case of Onmind, it is in the stage of producing results one by one. In addition, Unity plans to collaborate at any time with any company that has the technology to produce high-quality content, such as Givadynamics.
In addition, Unity plans to focus on education so that users can use this technology well. Director Kim said, “Education is important to understand and use real-time engines, so we are investing a lot in educational platforms.” Not only are we uploading, but we also have a customized curriculum because we have a separate education team.”
Combined with AI, 3D characters are perfect
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which has recently become a hot topic, was also mentioned. Representative Kim said, “Digital humans produced by Onmind are virtual characters produced in full 3D.” “In addition, there are various digital humans such as deepfakes, and the optimal form that can be combined with AI is a full 3D model. sure,” he said. He also added, “Because only 3D characters can actually exist in virtual space, I think there will be a great advantage in combining it with artificial intelligence.”
Digital humans created by image synthesis have clear limits. Representative Kim explained, “It is possible to transmit information through image synthesis, but it is impossible to interact in real time, such as holding a concert.”
Director Kim said, “Chat GPT is at a stage where it is being incorporated into daily life, and when digital humans are linked with Chat GPT, a situation where they talk and respond with voice will come soon.” Emotional communication will be possible if Onmind’s technology that can reproduce the story is included.” He said, “I think that developing into a digital human like a friend who can have conversations on various topics is what AI technology means to us.”
San Francisco (USA) = Reporter Seongwoo Lee [email protected]