Alibaba, one of the world’s biggest E-commerce platforms, is set to unveil new character animation technology.
According to its researchers, people could soon use ‘Animate Anyone‘, an animation technology that can transform still images into dynamic character videos. The model works by removing features such as patterns, facial features, and poses and then producing images where they are depicted on different positions.
These are then either motion-captured or copied from some other video.
It can be either good or bad depending on how you use it. You can actually create a talking cartoon avatar that has the same facial features and voice as somebody whose image you borrowed.
However, some criticisms have been levelled against the move, citing a possible proliferation of deep fakes in to the metaverse. Whichever the case, the outcome is yet to be seen, as it could also open up a lot of opportunities.
