The Consortium
The Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University Bonn and TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences, join forces to drive AI empowered synthesize of animations to a new level. Their ambitious goal: Create a generative AI system capable of creating and editing complex animations on a broad variety of avatars with native inputs such as text prompts and video recordings.
MindPort, consortial leader of this project, is responsible for developing the intuitive user interface which lets users access these powerful capabilities with ease. With our background in VR training, we see this as a key technology to make VR softskill training valuable and affordable, supported by VR Builder.
Our associated partners, Hensoldt and the Hertz Chair for Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience, together with additional industry partners, will guide the development to make sure that the resulting technology and software product is viable for productive application.
Creating high-quality human movements is complex and resource-intensive, especially in applications such as the growing market for virtual reality soft skill training, which require authentically portrayed emotions. Gen-AIvatar revolutionizes the creation of animated avatars for 3D applications by making this process simpler, more efficient, and more cost-effective through the use of the key technology of generative AI: Using text prompts, sketches, and videos, animation sequences can be generated and subsequently edited, opening this technology to a broader user base and creating new market opportunities. Particular emphasis is placed on the holistic creation of animations with coherent voice, body movement, gestures, and facial expressions for authentic emotional representation, enabling this next generation of avatars to address additional application areas. This is demonstrated through the development of new VR training courses for presentation techniques and soft skills, new VR experiments for neuroscience, and new VR safety training courses, which are also used to evaluate the technology under real-world conditions and to specifically identify and correct vulnerabilities. In addition to new scientific findings and the strengthening of AI expertise in North Rhine-Westphalia, Gen-AIvatar is also laying the foundation for large-scale, industrial deployment by consortium leader MindPort and its associated partners.
The project co-funded by the country of North Rhine Westphalia and the European Union with a budget of €1.8M.
