CARY – Epic Games is taking another step forward in creating digital human images that look like our true selves. On Wednesday, Epic revealed “MetaHumans” through its video game development engine Unreal
At a “peak”, Epic says users can create “high-fidelity digital humans”.
The tool is called MetaHuman Creator, and Epic says it can “enable anyone to create a bespoke photorealistic digital human, fully equipped and complete with hair and clothing, in a matter of minutes”.
The new development comes after Epic acquired the real-time facial animation technology startup Hyprsense last November. Hyprsense says its technology will give “creators of Unreal Engine the ability to deploy and manage the assets of more advanced characters, on any platform”.
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“MetaHuman Creator is an application transmitted in the cloud that takes digital human creation in real time from weeks or even months to less than an hour – in an unprecedented standard of quality, fidelity and realism”, says the Unreal development team. “When your character is finished, you can export and download it, equipped and ready to be animated on Unreal Engine.”
Achieving “photographic realism” was a stated goal for Epic when it unveiled a new version of the Unreal engine last year.
Epic, better known now as the developer of the Fortnite game, has invested heavily to bring more realism to its Unreal engine, which is one of the most used in the video game industry.
It seems that all the research is paying off.
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