From technological innovation to industrial application, more and more virtual digital people are “on the job”
Market Information Network 2022-12-30 21:40:16 Source: People’s Daily Online Author: Ye Zi Comments:
With the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality, digital virtual humans frequently appear in the public eye. As virtual characters that exist in digital form in digital space and have anthropomorphic or real-life appearance, behavior and characteristics, how are digital humans developed? What are the applications?
into people’s daily life
“Hello everyone, Gu Xiaoyu is polite!” Recently, at the opening ceremony of the Deoksugung Palace Museum in the Southern Song Dynasty, a virtual figure dressed in ancient costume served as the host, attracting the attention of the audience. Take a closer look, this digital person has slender eyebrows, fluttering sleeves, elegant temperament, smart and cute. It is the promoter of Song Yun culture launched by Zhejiang Satellite TV, a subsidiary of Zhejiang Radio and Television Group.
“We launched Gu Xiaoyu, which is not only approaching traditional culture, but also approaching young people.” The person in charge of Zhejiang Satellite TV Gu Xiaoyu studio said in an interview with this newspaper that Gu Xiaoyu is the first digital national fashion product developed by Zhejiang Satellite TV. This product integrates Song Yun elements with new media, new technologies, and new applications, and innovatively creates the image of Gu Xiaoyu. “We hope to use amiable and lovely characters and tangible digital means to make the audience, especially young people, fall in love with Song Yun culture.”
Gu Xiaoyu has appeared on many occasions—in TV programs, he sang Song Ci and introduced Song Dynasty Cuju culture; during the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, he co-produced online with guests through H5; in the Southern Song Dynasty Deoksugung Palace Museum, he became a guide Staff members, answering tourists’ questions quickly… Recently, the cloud exhibition of “A Day in the Southern Song Dynasty” foreign cultural exchanges that Gu Xiaoyu participated in has been launched in Chinese cultural centers in New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands, Pakistan and other countries.
Similar to Gu Xiaoyu, more and more digital people are “on the job” in the service fields such as cultural tourism, finance, and government affairs, and have entered people’s daily life. For example, Tianyu, a national-style virtual digital person based on Dunhuang Feitian, has more than 5 million fans on the entire network; the new employee of CITIC Financial Holdings, which appeared at the 2022 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, can serve as a digital person Xiaoxin. The client’s exclusive wealth planner; open the portal of the People’s Government of Xiantao City, Hubei Province, and the digital human “Tao Tao” in red and white skirt is broadcasting video news and policy interpretations with a smile… “Digital Human Industry Development Trend Report (2023 )” pointed out that with the accelerated development of interactive intelligent technology, digital humans are moving from technological innovation to industrial application.
Interesting connotation cannot be less
How is such a realistic digital human created? Taking Gu Xiaoyu as an example, the digital human must first be “human-like”. According to the concept design of the characters, Gu Xiaoyu comes from Lin’an in the Southern Song Dynasty and was born in the rainy season, which has the beautiful meaning of “rain produces a hundred grains and thrives”. Zhejiang Satellite TV specially cooperates with the Song Yun Cultural Research and Inheritance Center, and invites relevant Song Yun experts to form an advisory group to provide professional guidance and checks for Gu Xiaoyu’s character modeling, image design, and content presentation. When appearing in a singing show, Gu Xiaoyu’s stage appearance is a set of modern and improved Song Dynasty Hanfu. The reference is the pearl makeup of ladies in the Southern Song Dynasty.
As a technical supporter, the Tencent team created a high-precision realistic virtual human with over 2 million faces to meet the diverse needs of large-scale stage program recording and intelligent multi-modal interaction. Liu Mingliang, the relevant person in charge of Tencent, told reporters that Gu Xiaoyu’s braids are composed of 300,000 strands of hair, and there are 5 layers of clothing made of different materials. The performance under lighting and different actions is very real.
In addition to “good-looking skin”, digital humans must also have “interesting connotations”. For example, before becoming a tour guide, Gu Xiaoyu conducted super-large-scale language model training with 400G of open data and 3 billion parameters. Coupled with the help of a large number of Song Yun literature and encyclopedia search engines, Gu Xiaoyu successfully mastered the Song Yun Encyclopedia Knowledge. In order to enable Gu Xiaoyu to have real-time audio conversations with tourists, the technical team used technologies such as speech recognition, natural language understanding, and speech synthesis to allow the digital tour guide to understand, answer, and understand more.
Gu Xiaoyu also adopts the voice-driven mouth shape technology. By adapting different types of audio input such as various timbres, singing, and modal particles, Gu Xiaoyu learns a wide variety of emotional voice data, and generates high performance with natural rhythm, rich emotional style and personalization. Powerful voice, coupled with smart and accurate facial expressions and mouth shapes, allows digital human voice to achieve an effect comparable to that of a real person.
Industry growth momentum is strong
At present, digital humans have been widely used in enterprise services, film and television animation, cultural media and other fields. iiMedia Consulting’s “2022-2023 In-Depth Research and Investment Value Analysis Report on China‘s Virtual Human Industry” stated that in the context of increasing entertainment demand and continuous iteration of artificial intelligence and other technologies, China‘s virtual human industry is developing rapidly, and the upsurge of metaverse is accelerating. Virtual digital human industry upgrade. The data shows that in 2021, China‘s virtual human-driven industry market size and core market size will be 107.49 billion yuan and 6.22 billion yuan respectively, and it is expected to reach 640.27 billion yuan and 48.06 billion yuan respectively in 2025, showing a strong growth momentum.
The reporter learned that the production process of a virtual digital human generally includes steps such as model binding, motion capture, animation calculation, and real-time rendering, among which a large number of high-tech cutting-edge technologies such as reality augmentation, deep learning, and virtual production must be applied. A relatively simple anime image digital human can usually be completed in one month; but to produce a more realistic 3D digital human, it takes 3 to 6 months or even longer from character design to rendering. The more “refined” and “realistic” a digital human is, the more time and labor costs it will take.
Liu Mingliang said that technological iterations such as computing power improvements and engine upgrades are promoting the continuous improvement of digital human production efficiency and intelligence. On the one hand, the cost of making digital humans is lower and the efficiency is higher; on the other hand, digital humans are becoming more and more interactive, and the “human” attributes such as services and companionship provided are stronger.
Industry insiders believe that, from identity-based digital humans who focus on animation and rendering to service-oriented digital humans that integrate language comprehension, expression, learning, and interaction capabilities, from online services to on-site experience, with the further development of metaverse-related technologies, With continuous development, digital humans will enter a period of large-scale application and accelerate their transformation into real productivity.
Responsible Editor: Gao Xuejing