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Reveal the "past life" of digital people in the "Challenge Cup"


Release Date: 2023-03-22 Contribution: Journal of Science in China Photography is by Campus Network

Editor: Wu Nan Audit: Lin Wei Number of readings:

[Editor's note] On March 19,The 13th "Challenge Cup" Chinese College Student Entrepreneurship Plan Competition was successfully concluded，Beijing Institute of Technology won the highest honor "Challenge Cup" with 7 gold, 1 silver and gold MEDALS and the highest total score!As the organizer of this contest，Beit gives full play to its scientific and technological advantages，Innovative digital competition，Created 001 number contestant "Spirit"，Has been widely concerned by the society，China Science Journal and other media reported the story behind the birth of digital people。

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Spirit (left) greets the contestants in the video for "Digital Teen.。

"Hello host!Hello, everyone!I am contestant No. 001 of this year's Challenge Cup. My name is Ling.。A "girl" wearing a high ponytail, a white shirt and a gray skirt greeted the national audience on a large blue screen。

March 17 is the first day of the "Spirit" officially "on duty"。Previously, she appeared in the 13th "Challenge Cup" Chinese College students Entrepreneurship plan competition (hereinafter referred to as "Challenge Cup") theme song "Digital Youth"。As the leader of the "Challenge Cup" digital competition, she stood in front of the stone gray gate, gently swinging her right arm to guide the "Challenge Cup" contestants into the door, the morning light behind her。

From March 17 to 19, the 13th "Challenge Cup" Chinese College Student Entrepreneurship Plan Competition was held at the Beijing Institute of Technology。Different from previous competitions, this "Challenge Cup" competition is the first large-scale use of Yuan Universe in Chinese universities, and "Spirit" is also the first digital person in the history of "Challenge Cup" competition。Across the screen, many college students exclaimed, "That's cool!"

How was the spirit born？With this curiosity, let's go into the laboratory of Weng Dongdong, a professor in the College of Optoelectronics。

A digital person who can change clothes and hair

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The 'big ball' that captures the expressions of digital people

Walking into a dim light laboratory, the cameras on the side are scattered and wrapped into a "big ball", as if you have come to an interstellar space。This is the birthplace of digital man。

The "big ball" has a total of 80 triangular faces, 42 vertices and 120 edges, and the midpoint and vertex of the edge are installed with light sources, and the actual number of light sources is 156。The spherical lighting stage is evenly arranged around its center with 36 Canon 850D cameras, which are used to capture face images, extreme expressions and face materials from various angles。

The actor sits in the center of the ball, and under the frequent opening and closing of the shutter and the calculation of the background algorithm, the final production team reconstructed the high-precision three-dimensional model of the face and the high-precision multi-channel face material。In the "Big Ball", the digital people generated are digital star Li Xinglan, sign language host Qian Yan and so on。

Unlike the birth of digital people in the past, the "spirit" developed by the team is completely generated by numbers, and there is no real person prototype。Her facial expression is controlled by more than 800 bones, and her facial texture is dynamically adjusted by the changes of 82 material parameters, becoming a lifelike digital person。

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The appearance of the Spirit at the opening of the Challenge Cup

"As the image ambassador of the 'Challenge Cup' digital competition, the debut of 'Ling' will open a new model of organizing competitions based on digital technology.。"School Youth League Committee secretary Liu Yuan said。

According to reports, "Spirit" is the leader of this "Challenge Cup" digital competition。With the "Spirit" partner, there is also a digital person "environment", as the "Challenge Cup" meta-universe world guide。"Spirit" and "environment" together form the word "spiritual environment", which is Qian Xuesen's Chinese translation of "Virtual Reality"。

Early digital people were mostly built based on two-dimensional systems, and because of the low degree of decoupling, it was difficult to achieve the effect of changing clothes, changing hair styles, and changing light。

Today, technology has developed to create digital people in a three-dimensional system, "the biggest difference between two and three dimensions is a bit like the difference between movies and games - movies can't be changed after shooting, and games are controlled by the player.。Three-dimensional digital people, expressions, clothing, hair and even movements can be changed in real time, and two-dimensional digital people are difficult to do。"Weng Dongdong said。

For example, the "spirit" can change clothes, wearing life clothes at the beginning of the appearance, and change to a formal occasion;The light on the face also changes with day and night, making the expression more flexible and natural。In addition, with the different content of the discourse, "spirit" can also make a variety of broadcasting actions。

The fun part about pinching your face

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In the meta-universe, digital people are indispensable characters。

Seven years ago, when the Beijing Institute of Technology partnered with other universities to set up the Beijing Future Imaging Center, Weng was tasked with doing "immersive storytelling," which simply means recreating stories in virtual reality Spaces。At the beginning of his research, Weng discovered an important problem - there is no "actor".。To that end, they decided to make high fidelity digital people。

Before doing super-realistic digital people, someone also asked Weng Dongdong, "post-95" Z era like quadratic yuan, why not consider doing quadratic yuan？

In fact, the second dimension is a minority culture, and there are far more real people participating in movies and TV dramas than the second dimension characters。Well, if it's a real person, it must be like a person。

Making your face vivid is the first step。"The expression of digital people should be very rich, and they can accurately make various expressions of happiness, anger, sadness and joy according to the control needs.。At the same time, the expression of the digital person should also be personalized, so that each digital person looks different。Yihua Bao, a PhD student on the team responsible for expression drive, explains。

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Improve the accuracy of "Spirit" face model data

The second step is to capture the exact expression of the person。For this, the system needs to be very sensitive, even if the actor makes a very small expression movement, the system can immediately and accurately capture it。"Today millimeter-level acquisition can be done, but for the face is just accurate is not enough, but also to ensure that the acquisition can be completed at a very high speed.。"Weng Dongdong said。

Making faces is difficult because we are so familiar with them, but at the same time there are so many different language systems to describe them。Bao Yihua said that the "most afraid" is to discuss digital people with art teachers, "they often say that digital people lack charm".。

"What is Shen Yun？Can you be more specific？”

"I have been very specific, that is, no God。”

Before, when Weng Dongdong's team was doing the "Digital Mei Lanfang" project, there was often such a "conversation", "We took a ruler to measure, you see the same distance between the face and the nose, but when combined together, the art teacher just felt different, which is the interesting place of the face.。”

Let the digital man play a game

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The Spirit of testing

Albert Merabian, an American communication scientist, proposed a formula for communication: the total expression of information in communication ="7% intonation +38% voice +55% body language.。

You may be surprised to learn that most information is conveyed through body language and facial expressions。However, the incoordination between the channels of language, expression and action will cause the digital person to produce wrong expression。For example, if a person says "very reasonable" but has a contemptuous look in his eyes, would you believe him to be true？

Weng Dongdong introduced that compared with the artificial intelligence that only has sound and no image in the past, the intelligent digital people with images have been placed higher expectations and requirements by users in terms of whether they are "like people"。A simple act of "misconduct" can expose the "false nature" of digital people。For example, a "receptionist" stands at the entrance of a bank, and when a customer passes by, a real person's eyes will follow and greet the customer, while a digital person may be indifferent。

Weng Dongdong has been thinking, "Should we give digital people needs, because only agents with needs will actively explore the world like people?"。Such as making digital people hungry, will have social anxiety and so on。

He put this idea on the "spirit" to achieve, is to give her the identity of the contestant, so that she has the need to "compete"。Standing in the center of the stage of the meta-universe, "Ling" as a participant of the "old wisdom star" team of the North Institute of Technology, generously introduced this VR game designed for the elderly to fight against the loss of intelligence of the elderly to the audience。They also introduced the ChatGPt-like Lingxin Intelligence developed by a team at Tsinghua University。

"How much capital do you need to get started？”

"My starting capital is 200,000 yuan, and I hope to attract an investor to join in the way of transferring equity to promote the better and faster development of our company.。While giving the answer fluently, "Ling" looked around and naturally made a welcoming gesture。

Interestingly, after much consideration, Weng Dongdong finally decided to make the "Ling" game image "a little fake".。I am worried that the contestants will confuse her with a real person。"Weng Dongdong smiled。




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