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RunwayML releases Act One: obsoleting traditional motion capture

ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Title: Introducing Act-One - a new way to generate expressive character performances
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Seems pretty amazing. Now you can see why studios like Lionsgate might have been calling (https://runwayml.com/news/runway-partners-with-lionsgate https://runwayml.com/news/runway-partners-with-lionsgate)
consumer451 2y ago
Tangent: on this webpage, their choice to have so many videos autoplay saturates my USB 3 dock, and breaks audio sync on the video that I actually want to play. I think that's a first for me. The product looks pretty great though.
momojo 2y ago
This wows me as a lay person, but can anyone who's worked in mo-cap tell why or why not this should impress me?
- MrSkelter 2y ago
  I make feature films with 9 figure budgets. Motion capture is animation. It’s taking the input and deciding what to include, what to ignore, what to emphasize and what to fabricate. Blindly applying inputs without a creative person in the middle making decisions will result in garbage. For example. You don’t want background or non speaking characters distracting from the focus of a scene, but you can’t have the static either. How they react creates an emotional impression and therefore needs to be considered. These tools are just tools. It’s akin to saying LLMs have replaced authors. Total rubbish.
doctorpangloss 2y ago
Maybe video models can’t do all the problems. Can they do all the problems that are valuable to narrative media creators? What about business? Odds seem high. “Solve all the problems” can mean “solve all the valuable problems.” Runway’s biggest obstacle is not scientific. They have to convince VCs to not index on all AI startups - a historically winning strategy in finance - and instead focus capital on the two leaders in any race, at any cost, because 5x $200m investments will fail by being not enough money instead of too much. Runway needs billions of dollars to do what they are doing!
xnx 2y ago
Impressive output, also amazing that a not-quite-as-good version is free and open source: https://liveportrait.github.io/ https://liveportrait.github.io/
EgoIncarnate 2y ago
This doesn't obsolete motion capture? It doesn't seem to even be full body for one, seems to be for fixed camera and limited to head/face. Page title is more accurate: "Introducing Act-One - a new way to generate expressive character performances".
- j45 2y ago
  The AI hype men (and women) hyperbole is too much, and are poor lyricists. These types of phrases should be filterable. Imagine changing forever This changes everything Nothing will ever be the same Everything has changed Everything’s disrupted Gone are the days of how it used to be Nothing will be the same after you see this Just tacky hooks to keep people reading.
oac 2y ago
This doesn't make motion capture obsolete: 1) Mocap can be applied to rigged characters and 2) mocap can animate full-body rigs not just facial expressions.

Title: Introducing Act-One - a new way to generate expressive character performances

Seems pretty amazing. Now you can see why studios like Lionsgate might have been calling (https://runwayml.com/news/runway-partners-with-lionsgate https://runwayml.com/news/runway-partners-with-lionsgate)

consumer451 2y ago

Tangent: on this webpage, their choice to have so many videos autoplay saturates my USB 3 dock, and breaks audio sync on the video that I actually want to play. I think that's a first for me. The product looks pretty great though.

momojo 2y ago

This wows me as a lay person, but can anyone who's worked in mo-cap tell why or why not this should impress me?

MrSkelter 2y ago
I make feature films with 9 figure budgets. Motion capture is animation. It’s taking the input and deciding what to include, what to ignore, what to emphasize and what to fabricate. Blindly applying inputs without a creative person in the middle making decisions will result in garbage. For example. You don’t want background or non speaking characters distracting from the focus of a scene, but you can’t have the static either. How they react creates an emotional impression and therefore needs to be considered. These tools are just tools. It’s akin to saying LLMs have replaced authors. Total rubbish.

doctorpangloss 2y ago

Maybe video models can’t do all the problems. Can they do all the problems that are valuable to narrative media creators? What about business? Odds seem high. “Solve all the problems” can mean “solve all the valuable problems.” Runway’s biggest obstacle is not scientific. They have to convince VCs to not index on all AI startups - a historically winning strategy in finance - and instead focus capital on the two leaders in any race, at any cost, because 5x $200m investments will fail by being not enough money instead of too much. Runway needs billions of dollars to do what they are doing!

xnx 2y ago

Impressive output, also amazing that a not-quite-as-good version is free and open source: https://liveportrait.github.io/ https://liveportrait.github.io/

EgoIncarnate 2y ago

This doesn't obsolete motion capture? It doesn't seem to even be full body for one, seems to be for fixed camera and limited to head/face. Page title is more accurate: "Introducing Act-One - a new way to generate expressive character performances".

j45 2y ago
The AI hype men (and women) hyperbole is too much, and are poor lyricists. These types of phrases should be filterable. Imagine changing forever This changes everything Nothing will ever be the same Everything has changed Everything’s disrupted Gone are the days of how it used to be Nothing will be the same after you see this Just tacky hooks to keep people reading.

oac 2y ago

This doesn't make motion capture obsolete: 1) Mocap can be applied to rigged characters and 2) mocap can animate full-body rigs not just facial expressions.