Want to create a virtual you, but don't know how to do it? Evolver.com is now officially launched after a two month testing period. And it is as easy as 1-2-3 to make a high quality avatar.
Maxping wrote a while ago a review
of the Evolver tool, read it here.
Evolver's main idea is to select two ready-made avatars and use
slider to morph the target avatar between selected "grandparents".
It is possible to select only a small detail to tweak, which offers
endless possibilities for the user. The system is also extremely
easy to use and produces high quality results no matter how
inexperienced the user may be.
Technically the magic lies in the automatic rigging of the
generated avatar, meaning that it can be animated easily in a
target environment. Traditionally this step has required days of
tedious work from a 3D artists to fit animation skeleton inside the
3D mesh so that it moves and animates in a natural way. One of the
3D artists at realXtend
described the automatic rigging technology simply as
revolutional.
With Evolver, a near-infinite assortment of men, women, children
and creatures can be created by combining and morphing physical
attributes derived from a "virtual gene pool" of pre-built
characters. Features from these pre-built characters can be blended
and tweaked in a number of ways to create a totally unique
character in Evolver each time.
Alternately, upload a headshot photo that meets a simple set of
specifications into Evolver to create a custom 3D clone of yourself
or anyone else. The user can then make subtle or major changes to
the "clone" avatar by tweaking the facial and physical attributes.
Evolver also includes a complete library of clothing options to
give each character an individual style.
"We had a fantastic response to our alpha phase, where visitors
to the site were able to build avatars and clones but the
'transport' functionality of Evolver wasn't yet live. Today's
launch enables a complete pipeline for the user - from Avatar
creation and customization, through to automatic transport to a
number of fun and interesting applications", said Evolver CEO,
Brian Nilles. "We are also working with dozens of new partners to
be added as transport destinations in the near term. These
destinations include a number of popular virtual worlds and web 3D
platforms with the ability to insert Evolver characters into
everything from virtual training, to social networking, gaming,
virtual business meetings, mobile media, professional 3D animation
and more."
Upon launch, Evolver models will be instantly transportable for
free to virtual worlds, and exported with animations, as GIF files,
or wallpaper to post on over 26 social networking sites including
Facebook, MySpace or Blogger. Specifically optimized versions of 3D
avatars or clones can also be purchased for use in many popular
online games and virtual worlds. Pro users and hobbyists can also
custom tweak Evolver model source data to export to off-the-shelf
3D applications such as Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya and Softimage for
further customization. These characters can be transported
automatically into a vast range of third party applications due to
the proprietary process in which Evolver generates a custom
animation "rig" for each Evolver Avatar.
Evolver web site mentions realXtend as one of the supported platforms for
their avatars. Opensim and Second Life are not supported currently.
The reason for not supporting Opensim/Second Life is the fixed
avatar mesh and skeleton at the viewer that does not allow changing
the avatar model, only to tweak it.
Evolver is the flagship product of Darwin Dimensions Inc., the
first solution to bring together complex 3D modeling, consumer ease
of use, and fully interoperable avatars. Evolver provides a central
portal to design, manage and transport digital avatars that can be
deployed in virtual worlds, online games, social networks and
professional animation and pre-visualization projects. A highly
customizable licensed version of Evolver is also available as an
integrated site-specific avatar generator designed specifically for
the target application and its customers. For more information
visit www.evolver.com