Interactive AI Avatar

Overview

An interactive avatar created in Unreal Engine on top of MetaHuman and combined with artificial intelligence, so that a person can talk to it and be answered - two-way communication in real time, not a pre-rendered performance.

Shown in public, at life size

The avatar was presented at Konferencja KIKE 2024 in Warsaw, the Polish telecoms industry's largest gathering, running in a holographic display cabinet beside the main stage.

Presenting a digital human at full height, in a lit conference hall, next to actual people is an unforgiving way to show one. There is no camera framing to help and no cut to hide behind - the audience sees it continuously, from whatever angle they happen to walk past, for the length of the event.

Idle behaviour is most of the work

In the first photograph the avatar is not talking to anyone. It is checking its watch. That is deliberate: a digital human that freezes between questions reads as a broken screen, so a large part of the illusion is what the character does when nothing is being asked of it.

Why it is different

Most real-time character work is scripted: the performance is authored in advance and played back. Here the response is generated during the conversation, which moves the hard problems from animation into latency, synchronisation and keeping the character believable while it reacts to something nobody planned.

This is the area where Unreal Engine and AI meet, and it is where a lot of virtual production is heading - presenters, guides and assistants that respond rather than replay.

Scope

• Interactive avatar built in Unreal Engine
• MetaHuman character integrated with an AI conversational layer
• Real-time two-way communication with the user
• Deployed in a holographic display for a live conference audience