Rendering the digital self

Global Business

Creating your own digital avatar usually involves choosing from pre-designed faces and body types. The result is usually a cartoonish avatar used for online gaming or communication. But what if you could create an avatar that looked, acted and sounded like you in just minutes?

CCTV America’s May Lee has more on new technology that will let you do just that.

At USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, creating a user-like avatar starts by capturing full body images. In the lab, a capture cage equipped with 100 cell phone cameras is used. The body is then placed in a pre-programmed skeleton to add movement. But the key to personalizing the avatar is capturing facial expressions.

For the $23 billion video gaming industry, realistic avatars technology could introduce totally new experiences. Avid gamer, Eric Castellon, is eager to try it out.

“I think it would be very cool just to see it it would probably be a little creepy to see yourself rendered realistically, virtually but I think it would be awesome to see that and try to play games as yourself,” he said.