That is, of course, if you can dance like the famous scene in Napoleon Dynamite since these new DeepMotion-powered AR emojis move exactly like you do, with full-body real-time capture. DeepMotion has provided us with several GIFs and videos of the fidelity of this movement, and the options seem nearly endless. The entire body is tracked in 3D space, including the ability to turn completely around or move in any way you wish. This is a huge difference from current generation AR avatars which often only track specific facial features like mouth movement or eyes blinking. DeepMotion is achieving these feats with just a standard camera by utilizing a combination of physics simulation, computer vision, and machine learning, which is why these are exclusive to the Galaxy S10 as of the phones’ launch this Friday.
Have you ever texted a message to someone, only to realize they read it completely out of context and misunderstood its meaning? How about when reading a sentence turns sour because the emphasis was put on the wrong word? These nuances of communication are often solved by two key components that text-based methods simply can’t provide: vocal pitch, and body language. DeepMotion is hoping to solve this issue thanks to a new partnership with Samsung by debuting a brand new set of AR Emoji avatars exclusively for the Galaxy S10 family.
While existing AR emojis and standard emojis offer many ways of expressing emotion or helping with context, nothing quite gets the point across like body language and movement. DeepMotion hopes to offer significantly enhanced emotional capabilities of movement by providing Galaxy S10 owners with a way to fully translate their feelings into movements of their 3D avatar on the phone with nothing more than the camera. Current generation AR emojis often rely on canned GIFs that are generated when the avatar is created, but DeepMotion’s AR Emoji avatars move completely in real time and match up with your body movements, even complex ones.
Just like Samsung’s current generation AR Emojis, the new DeepMotion-powered ones aren’t just restricted to an avatar that might look like you, it can also extend to any number of available characters as well. We weren’t provided a specific list of what characters will be available at launch, but the current crop of AR emojis from Samsung include characters from brands like Disney, picked from popular movies, TV Shows, and classic characters.
Inside the Galaxy S10 is a new neural processing unit that helps with real-time calculations of movement. That technology is what enables significantly more accurate and fast processing than what was available just a generation ago and is sure to be a big part of Samsung’s marketing blitz for the Galaxy S10 this Spring. DeepMotion’s software smarts can be used for AR or VR too, meaning this is likely only the beginning of what we’re likely to see from Samsung’s partnership with the firm. This is little surprise given that the minds behind the tech were staffed at companies like Blizzard, Disney, Pixar, Ubisoft, and Microsoft.