New AI Tool Unleashes Infinite Avatar and Game Character Creation

Software company specializing in life-like digital avatars Didimo has unveiled Popul8, an innovative AI tool designed to assist game developers and artists. The tool can rapidly produce a vast array of unique game figures cost-effectively, allowing creators to populate their games with diverse non-playable characters (NPCs) or primary characters.

Metaverse Post had an exclusive opportunity to interview João Orvalho, Chief Technology Officer at Didimo, to gain insights on how the AI tool can enhance avatar development.

“Didimo’s Popul8™ gives game studios a powerful AI tool to accelerate the generation, editing, and serving of high-quality 3D game characters with unmatched speed and scale. It was designed for use with 3D engines with a focus on the needs of games and metaverses,”

Orvalho said.

Orvalho added that the tool empowers artists to create and use characters to achieve their vision. Popul8’s character files are compatible with Unity, Unreal, or proprietary engines and work seamlessly with industry-standard tools like Mixamo, ARKit, and Amazon Polly. This allows the tool to provide an infinite variety of diverse characters at incredible visual quality for whatever artists are creating in 3D immersive spaces already.

The Power of AI in Avatar Creation

Didimo leverages proprietary AI-based systems within its platform. First, for character generation, it has unique advanced machine learning and computer vision methods so the platform can generate a base character that meets the designer’s vision, such as a middle-aged long-haired Chinese woman who comes from the countryside. 

The platform allows the designer to edit every aspect of the character with automatic rig readjustment or to ingest their design styles to further make the characters ownable to that environment. AI processes help to add and adjust wardrobe or accessories to characters and appropriately retarget if the character changes shape or style. For example, you can add a shirt to a human, change that human character into a giant ogre or a tiny fairy, and automatically adjust the shirt to the new character’s shape and size. 

Finally, Didimo has a proprietary way to serve and manage files to protect memory budgets, so games or metaverses can create dramatically more characters than they previously could.

By incorporating their game’s aesthetics, artists can ensure the generated characters fit the unique look and style of the game. Popul8 also offers a comprehensive range of character creation options, allowing artists to fine-tune characters to their specific needs. The tool’s user-friendly interface allows for batch creation and editing, enabling users to easily generate and manage hundreds of characters to populate entire worlds, levels, or specific experiences. Also, the unique trait randomization feature adds more variety to the characters.

The CTO explained that when it comes to character generation, Popul8 supports artists through every step of their process, from base character and face modeling generation to editing and rig adjustments, asset fitting, and file service optimization. 

“Very important to us was to create a system that gives character artists and game developers full creative control over design, allowing for fine-tuned characters in their environment’s unique style and specifications. And Popul8 offers all of this at speed and scale with the ability to generate hundreds of customized 3D characters in minutes. We want artists to be able to spend more time on creative vision, narrative design, and creating new methods of gameplay while reducing the rote mechanical steps that cause frustration or eat valuable time,”

Orvalho shared.

Didimo’s current clientele and partnerships include NOS Communications, Ceek, Colossal Order, AI Land, Soleil Game Studios, Sony, Grenoble Ecole du Management, tagSpace, Atom Stars, Unstitched, and several others.

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