15 Advanced avatars

Advanced avatars

Photorealistic digital humans are moving from our screens to the real world—make way for the next-generation avatars.

Nvidia is preparing for a future where 3D avatars with conversational artificial intelligence (AI) will operate in both the virtual and physical world. In a November 2021 demo, the company announced the Omniverse Avatar platform. “The dawn of intelligent virtual assistants has arrived,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia. “Omniverse Avatar combines Nvidia’s foundational graphics, simulation and AI technologies to make some of the most complex real-time applications ever created.”

Epic Games’ Unreal Engine believes “digital humans are the future.” In April 2021, Unreal Engine started offering early access to the MetaHuman Creator, which allows real-time creation of photorealistic avatars in minutes. The cloudbased app can replicate intricate details of a person’s features, from complexion and wrinkles to broken capillaries and scars.

In September 2021, California-based avatar-generating startup DNABlock raised $1.2 million in seed funding to make the metaverse more diverse and inclusive. “The metaverse needs to represent everyone,” Anthony Kelani, CEO and co-founder of DNABlock, told Protocol. “This needs to represent the world. And with avatars, specifically, you should be able to generate an avatar that looks like you or like someone of color.”

Why it’s interesting Forget the blue avatars that took over our screens in 2009. In 2022, new-age avatars will not only seem hyper-realistic, but also reflect the world’s diversity.