The virtual has managed to exalt itself to staggering heights, blurring and challenging the borders between what is real and what is digital. With the ever-growing popularity of NFTs, VR spaces like the Metaverse, and countless virtual goods stored nowhere but on the blockchain, it seems that going digital is the next step for all of us.
The internet is a modern frontier with endless possibilities and opportunities just waiting to be seized, but most of us are looking for something mimicking real life. Although games like VR Chat that let you be anything you want have never been more popular, it seems our user experience is still most complete when we can engage with human avatars.
That is hardly surprising. When VR is advertised as the next step of social interaction, we expect AI technology to provide us with something tangible and comparable to what we are dealing with now on the physical plane. That is, if we’re buying a mansion in the Metaverse, we want it to look like a mansion we’d buy for real.
If realistic avatars and photorealistic visuals are your goals as well, you might be considering creating a custom avatar, and not just for social media but tutorials, explainer videos, and corporate marketing purposes too. Luckily, we have a few recommendations regarding some AI video platforms that will help you generate your own avatar for both personal use and professional videos.
Picking a platform
Digital avatars are all the rage now, so naturally, there are tons of different platforms that let you create and customize your own custom avatars. They are, of course, all unique, and most of them have some cool features that set them apart from the competition. Below, we have a short list of our top picks for avatar video-generating platforms, together with their features and pricing plans.
Synthesia
Synthesia is one of the more famous video-generating platforms that lets you create marketing and training videos in real-time without having to rely on a bunch of different tools. It supports over sixty languages, and it’s got some great text-to-speech features as well, so you can make a custom avatar and have it read a script if you wish to.
For personal use, Synthesia will cost you $30 a month. For corporate use, on the other hand, you’ll have to negotiate the price.
Uneeq Digital Humans
Digital Humans is, first and foremost, a platform dedicated to creating your own digital human. It relies on modern artificial intelligence to bring you only high-quality end products that are able to learn on their own and evolve to become more efficient at their tasks. The coolest part? It even offers avatars of famous people like Einstein!
You can try the Digital Humans service for free, but you will have to contact Uneeq about pricing plans if you want a more premium package.
Movio
Movio has made it its goal to let you create an AI spokesperson with just a few clicks. It’s got plenty of premade templates, so its video synthesis is lightning-fast. Movio also lets you quickly customize the generated video, share them on both desktop and mobile, and convert scripts into video footage.
You can try Movio for free, but it will cost you between $30 and $225 a month if you want the premium version. There is also an enterprise option that you’ll have to contact the company about.
D-ID
D-ID is a great solution if you’re looking to convert images into a video. It works based on sophisticated machine learning, and it’s pretty versatile, being a great choice for marketing, internal communication, and more creative projects.
D-ID has a free trial, but the pro version costs $49 a month. The enterprise plan has a negotiable price.
Designing an Avatar
Designing an avatar is where your creativity can truly come to light. To make sure you’ve got the right kind of digital face, think about all the reasons you are making it to begin with and what you’re trying to achieve with it.
However, originality is important, and there are a couple of ways you can make your avatar represent you and be truly unique:
Uploading a photo
If you’re looking for a quicker solution, you can simply use a still image of yourself as a template and generate a video avatar from it. Tools like D-ID can do just that, combining newly generated videos with AI voices to make them expressive and believable.
Building an avatar
A memorable avatar has natural body language, an attire suitable for its purposes, and it’s synced well with the voice-over if there is one (although you can always use your own voice too). For additional touches, add some accessories to it and alter its hairstyle. Also, make sure it is always visible and upright so that it can leave a good impression.
Speechify
Visuals are important when it comes to AI avatars, but so is speech. No matter how lifelike your avatar is, if it sounds robotic and unconvincing, it won’t be that successful. That is why you can use Speechify to create perfect voice-overs and give your digital self an authentic, expressive voice.
Speechify is a text-to-speech program that can transform anything into audio files and have it narrated by one of its humanlike synthetic voices. It supports dozens of languages and language varieties, and it has tons of customizable settings that will let you fine-tune everything from speech tempo to emphasis, ensuring your AI avatar not only looks but also sounds like a real human.
Thanks to its great OCR tech, Speechify can turn even photos and physical printed text into audio files. In addition, you can import text files from third parties such as Audible and let Speechify’s algorithms do their magic and create your own highly personalized audiobooks.
FAQs
What file type does VRChat take?
VRChat supports VRCA files.
Can you create an avatar for VRChat?
Yes. You can create custom avatars for VRChat using any 3D modeling software you want, provided it’s got FBX armature support.
