Reality Reflection & 3Lateral Announce Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to Advance Digital Human Technology in VR

Barcelona, Feb. 28, 2018 – Reality Reflection, a digital human R&D lab and VR content studio based in Seoul has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 3Lateral, a world-leading 3D art studio to collaborate as a technical partner in supporting creation of hyper realistic digital humans in Asia. Reality Reflection will offer 3D scanning services, while 3Lateral will empower the creation of digital humans through it’s specialized services and technologies.

Since the establishment of the company in 2015, Reality Reflection has conducted research and development in creating the most realistic digital human in virtual reality. To achieve this goal, the company has established Asia’s largest 3D scanning studio facility with 160 DSLR cameras, built up 3D human scanning, image compression, and real-time photorealistic rendering technology.

3Lateral is well-known for its blend of artistic and technology expertise that spans across 3D and 4D scanning, character concept development, rigging solutions, modeling and simulation. The company has worked on many of the well recognized gaming projects such as Grand Theft Auto, Ryse: Son of Rome, Until Dawn, Horizon Zero Dawn, Hellblade, Battlefield 1, Battlefront II, Batman: Arkham VR, etc.

With this collaboration, the two companies have completed creating the world’s first dancing digital human <Zena>. Reality Reflection conducted 3D scanning to capture over 80 facial expression and 300 fine muscle movements, and Look-dev*, while 3Lateral carried out modeling* and rigging*. Fine elements of both facial and body motion follow the human anatomy principles to express elaborate motion and realism of the digital human by bringing to life its hair, skin details, extensive facial expression set and fluid body deformations.

<Zena> perfectly dances along a popular K-pop girl group’s title song. She also makes eye contact with users by tracking their eye movements, which leads to an intense feeling of true interaction.

“We succeeded in overcoming the ‘uncanny valley’* of digital human by cooperating with 3Lateral. We will be focusing on developing ‘Realistic AI Avatar’, a combination of our digital human technology and A.I. engine,” said Wooram Son, CEO of Reality Reflection.

The dancing digital human <Zena> is revealed at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 in Barcelona.

• Look-dev: The process of adjusting the colors and lighting of the character and background for final rendering
• Modelling: The process of developing a topological representation of any surface of an object in three dimensions
• Rigging: The process of creating a biokinetic deformable 3D model enabling face and body movement to appear realistic.
• Uncanny Valley: The phenomenon whereby a computer-generated figure or humanoid robot bearing a near-identical resemblance to a human being arouses a sense of unease or revulsion in the person viewing it.
• Real-time Rendering: Displaying an image on screen fast enough to render it realistically. Higher levels of optimization work are needed in VR, because a realistic character should be rendered real-time at two different screens in 90 frames per second, while computer graphics in PC games only require 30 frames per second in a single screen.

Sean

Sean Earley is the Executive Editor of AR/VR Magazine & co-founder of RobotSpaceship Podcast Network. He is the Director of New Biz Development and Publishing at KEMWEB, a musician, producer & consultant. He loves guitars, VR and coffee.