On January 20, 2022, ACES Inc., an AI startup from the Matsuo Laboratory of the University of Tokyo, and Bandai Namco Research Inc. launched a research and development project on character motion creation using AI technology.
In order to generate various character motions, AI technology “Motion Style Conversion” is used.
Motion style conversion is an AI technology that decomposes a motion into “content” that represents the content of the motion and “style” that represents the nuances of the motion, and creates a new motion by combining the two motions.
Currently, the virtual character market is expanding, and the demand for creating various character models is increasing.
In order to create a “motion style conversion” model that can be applied to entertainment data, a wide variety of character motion datasets are required.
At Bandai Namco Research Laboratories, a huge amount of motion data was necessary to advance research into the Metaverse and xR technology.* Metaverse: A general term for virtual spaces, worlds, and services built on the Internet.*xR technology: Expression technology that fuses the real world and the virtual world, such as
AR (augmented reality),
VR (virtual reality), and MR (mixed reality)
Therefore, utilizing ACES’s technology, which has strengths in digitizing human knowledge and behavior, and BANDAI NAMCO Research Institute’s motion production know-how, we will start full-scale research and development to easily generate character motions. .
In the future, we plan to conduct research and development to implement it in various entertainment.
