In General XR News
October 5, 2023 – Ready Player Me, an avatar platform for the metaverse that allows users to explore virtual worlds with one consistent identity, has today announced an expansion of its developer tools with the launch of geometry-aware AI texturing, which will enable the seamless mapping of textures to 3D models.
In early September Ready Player Me launched its Asset Designer as part of its Developer Studio. The Asset Designer allows designers to create new modular outfit pieces using PSD templates and software, such as Photoshop. With today’s expansion, new tools in the Asset Designer leverage AI to streamline the process of creating avatar outfits. According to Ready Player Me, the technology was developed by training a custom generative model, utilizing Stable Diffusion and ControlNet, for retexturing assets.
Unlike previous AI-generated assets, which can often result in random patterns on 3D models, Ready Player Me’s AI is now able to comprehend the intricacies of each asset, including the placement of pockets, buttons, and seams, according to the company. The new AI functionality is able to map generated textures to precisely match these elements on an avatar, resulting in an enhanced level of realism that the company stated “rivals professional human artists.”
“We’re innovating in a way that never has been done before and it’s a massive step in AI-generated asset creation,” said Timmu Toke, CEO of Ready Player Me. “Our AI’s ability to understand the different parts of assets, just like a seasoned artist, and create assets that exude professional artistry is a game-changer. SIGGRAPH’s acceptance of this innovative approach for presentation in 2023 serves as a validation of our groundbreaking work.”
Above: Part of Ready Player Me’s developer toolset, the Embeddable Character Creator is an end-to-end character system with thousands of customization options that allows developers to embed character creation into existing Unity, Unreal, Web and Mobile apps, enabling users create personal avatars, starting from a selfie.
The company’s Geometry-Aware AI Texturing will now enable developers to choose from a variety of predefined styles or describe their own preferences, reducing the time and effort needed to create custom content for their applications. The tool is now publicly accessible, and developers and users are not required to be registered with Ready Player Me to use it.
“Ready Player Me is empowered to deliver a simplified and enhanced portfolio of tools for our developers,” added Timmu Toke. “We’re excited to offer this innovative, AI-powered approach to expand developers’ abilities to create avatar outfit textures and manage custom content. With this elevated technology, developers will be able to deliver an end result of the highest caliber.”
Ready Player Me noted that this latest update continues the company’s initiatives to use AI to increase accessibility, elevate, and streamline the creation process for developers, thereby saving their resources, time, and money to instead focus on creating great user experiences.
To further support these efforts, the company has also equipped its Art Team with AI to revamp the avatar creation pipeline, launched AI-generated avatar outfit generation, and introduced Copilot, designed to assist developers in seamlessly integrating the avatar platform into their applications and games.
The company added that with the availability of this technology, it envisions a future marked by a clear path toward the growing popularity of user-generated content.
For more information on Ready Player Me and its digital avatar platform and creation tools, please visit the company’s website.
Image / video credit: Ready Player Me
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About the author
Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.