Dear Fellow Scholars, this is Two Minute Papers with Dr. Károly Zsolnai-Fehér.
Today we are going to look at a paper with two twists. You know what,
I’ll give you twist number one right away. This human isn’t here. This human isn’t here either.
And, neither is this human here.
Now, you are probably asking Károly, what are you even talking about?
Now hold on to your papers, because I am talking about this.
Look. This is the geometry of this virtual human inside a virtual world. Whoa. Yes,
all of these people are in a synthetic video, and in a virtual environment that can be changed with
a simple click. And more importantly, as we change the lighting or the environment, it also simulates
the effect of that environment on the character, making it look like they are really there.
So that sounds good, but how do we take a human and make a digital copy of them?
Well, first, we place them in a capture system that contains hundreds of led lights
and an elaborate sensor for capturing depth information. Why do we need these?
Well, all this this gives the system plenty of data on how the skin, hair and the clothes
reflect light. And, at this point, we know everything we need to know and can now proceed
and place our virtual copy in a computer game or even a telepresence meeting.
Now, this is already amazing, but two things really stick out here. One you will see
when you look at this previous competing work. This had a really smooth output geometry,
which means that only few high-frequency details were retained. This other work was
better at retaining the details, but, look, tons of artifacts appear when the model is moving.
And, what does the new one look like? Is it any better? Let’s have a look.
Oh my! We get tons of fine details, and the movements have improved significantly.
Not perfect by any means, look here, but still, an amazing leap forward.
Two, the other remarkable thing here is that the results are so realistic
that objects the in virtual scene can cast a shadow on our model. What a time to be alive!
And now, yes, you remember that I promised two twists. Where is twist number two? Well,
it has been here all along for the entirety of this video. Have you noticed? Look, all this
is from 2019. From two years ago. Two years is a long time in machine learning and computer
graphics research, and I cannot wait to see how it will be improved two more papers down the line. If
you are excited too, make sure to subscribe and hit the bell icon to not miss it when it appears.
Thanks for watching and for your generous support, and I'll see you next time!