Alibaba Group Holding’s cloud computing arm has introduced its updated artificial intelligence (AI) model, Animate Anyone 2, which the company touts as simplifying the animation of lifelike characters with just a static image and one video cue.
Advertisement
Unlike previous character-animation methods that solely use motion signals, Animate Anyone 2 achieves high-fidelity character image animation by processing both motion and environmental signals from reference content, such as source videos, to generate new clips, according to a technical study published last week by Tongyi Lab, the large language model (LLM) research and development unit of Alibaba Cloud, via arXiv – an open-access repository of academic papers. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
“We extract environmental information from [source] videos, enabling the animated character to preserve its original environment … facilitating seamless character-environment integration,” the study said.
The new model highlights the progress being made by Chinese developers in the generative AI field, in spite of Washington’s restrictions on the mainland’s access to advanced semiconductors and other technologies. LLMs are the technology underpinning generative AI services like ChatGPT.
Animate Anyone 2 was built on top of the model’s first iteration that was announced in late 2023, focused on generating character videos from still images.
ChatGPT creator OpenAI, subsequently, set the AI industry ablaze with its introduction of text-to-video model Sora in February last year, which triggered a race among Chinese Big Tech companies and start-ups to release similar products.
Advertisement