A new trend in the Yuanverse is coming, and the virtual human market may reach 270 billion yuan

A new trend in the metaverse is coming, and the virtual human market may reach 270 billion yuan. This website provides you with more relevant information for you to understand this issue.

China Times reporter Zhao Yi and Hu Jinhua reported from Shanghai

On December 6, 2021, the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center released the "Top Ten Internet Phrases in 2021". Among them, the most recent The popular "Metaverse" was also selected into the top ten Internet terms this time. The reporter searched through the Smart Bud global patent database and found that as of now, the number of patent applications applicable to the "Metaverse" field worldwide exceeds 2.9 million. Among them, China has more than 870,000 patent applications in this field.

Affected by the continued popularity of the metaverse concept, virtual digital humans have also begun to receive attention. Recently, Bilibili began testing its virtual character function on a small scale. Relevant staff told a reporter from China Times that the users of the internal beta test were part of the respondents who had been randomly distributed questionnaires on the site. Users could choose between the two virtual "banner girls" 22 and 33, and be able to control them. Dress up, modify backgrounds, etc. In addition, in the current testing phase, the "Banbanniang" can also perform simple interactions with users, such as greetings and weather reports.

The reporter learned that virtual humans are currently one of the most visible manifestations of the metaverse that are close to the metaverse. Related industries are developing rapidly. On major social network platforms, virtual humans, such as Xia Yubing, Axi, Liu Yexi, etc. Virtual characters already have a large number of fans. Among them, Liu Yeshi, who was launched on the Douyin platform on October 31 this year, has 6.282 million fans so far in less than two months.

Virtual digital people will be an important participant in the metaverse

In fact, the concept of virtual people has been around for a long time, and the most widely used one is virtual idols. The reporter learned that in 2018, the virtual human images of celebrities such as Huang Zitao and Dilraba were officially announced. The "Virtual Digital Human In-Depth Industry Report" shows that replacing virtual anchors in real-person services and virtual idols in virtual IP are currently hot spots in the virtual digital human market.

Statistical data shows that in recent years, 40 investment and financing incidents have occurred in the "virtual idol" track***, with the total disclosed investment and financing amount exceeding RMB 380 million. The reporter learned that Huaxizi, L'Oreal, IDO Jewelry, OPPO and many other brands have launched their own virtual brand spokespersons. According to iiMedia Consulting data, the scale of China's virtual human core industry is expected to reach 6.22 billion yuan in 2021, driving an industry scale of 107.49 billion yuan.

Ouke Cloud Chain senior researcher Jiang Zhaosheng told a reporter from China Times that the "Metaverse" is a digital world that combines reality and reality. In the future metaverse world, there may be two major types of participants: virtual natives and digital humans. Among them, virtual natives will exist in the form of virtual anchors, virtual idols, etc. There is no mapping relationship between these virtual characters and the real world and can exist apart from the physical world; the other type of digital people are humans in the real society in the virtual world. The mapping in can be understood as a digital clone, which cannot exist independently from the physical world. No matter which category they belong to, they will be important participants and builders of the Metaverse world, and will greatly promote the ecological prosperity of the Metaverse.

Jiang Zhaosheng believes that in the short term, the popularity of virtual anchors, virtual idols and other digital native tracks will extend the application scope of the Metaverse to entertainment, education, media, medical and other fields, allowing the Metaverse to A more intuitive way is presented in front of the real world, thereby stimulating more people's interest and further expanding the application space of the Metaverse.

At the technical level, Jiang Zhaosheng said that my country’s digital people have comparative advantages in certain technologies, but there is still a certain gap in overall application compared with countries such as Japan and South Korea. At this stage, digital humans mainly rely on integrated applications such as motion capture, three-dimensional modeling, speech synthesis and other technologies to minimize the boundary between the physical world and the digital world, so that digital humans can finally be presented in a realistic and perceptible way. The future development and experience of digital people will rely on terminal presentation such as AR/MR/VR.

“Although virtual anchors and virtual idols have begun to appear, digital people are still in a relatively early stage and require constant trial and error and exploration. Many technologies are still immature, and the display methods that can be realized are yet to be realized. Optimization. But it is undeniable that there is still a lot of room for development in the future,” Jiang Zhaosheng said.

“Virtual” people, “real” money-burning

The scale of industries related to virtual digital people is constantly expanding. According to data from the Toubao Research Institute, the current market size of virtual digital people has exceeded 200 billion yuan, and is expected to reach 270.3 billion yuan in 2030, among which identity-based virtual humans will dominate future development. According to ResearchAndMarkets, the global virtual event market is expected to reach US$504.76 billion by 2028.

The reporter learned that while the virtual digital human industry is booming, it is also facing a series of problems. The first is the cost issue. In August this year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s 14-second video of a “virtual human” speech was “fake and real”, triggering a crazy discussion in the industry.

Subsequently, NVIDIA released a documentary about the hardships behind 14 seconds. A total of 34 3D artists and 15 software researchers participated in this virtual conference, and 21 versions were produced before and after.

The person in charge of a game company in Shanghai revealed to this reporter that the production of virtual humans requires a lot of human and financial investment. The production cost per second is about 10,000 yuan, and the production preparation time needs to be calculated in years. "Working on this kind of project is very stressful. If you want to do it well, it will take time and 'burn money'. However, if there is any deviation, you will be ridiculed as 'five-cent special effects'."

Besides this In addition, virtual digital people also face issues such as industry regulations. In Jiang Zhaosheng’s view, digital people are not equal to virtual idols and virtual anchors, and their future application scope will be further expanded. For example, there should be many unique digital people in various metaverses; at the same time, digital people must not only be free from reality To move towards virtuality, we must move away from virtuality and towards reality. We cannot and should not blindly reduce reality and enhance the entertainment of the virtual world.

“The purpose of digital people’s existence is not to allow humans to escape from the real world, but to strengthen people’s connections with the real world and with others. Of course, digital people will inevitably involve some legal and ethical issues in the future "In the future, relevant legal formulation and regulatory guidance will be needed to ensure that its development direction does not escape control," Jiang Zhaosheng said.

In this regard, Wang Wentao, associate professor at Chongqing University of Technology, told reporters that the virtual people in the metaverse space currently in the market are still more on the industrial side, mainly through digital means to further liberate real-world productivity and to compete with There is still a certain gap between the virtual avatars of real people constructed by the Metaverse. It is undeniable that the concept of virtual humans in the Metaverse is popular. Not only major technology giants have deployed the metaverse and virtual human business, but even the A-share capital market has shown a strong market response to the virtual human concept stocks in the Metaverse. It is expected that driven by social attention and capital support, the application scenarios of the Metaverse will accelerate and the demand for virtual human business will further increase.