AI startup Kinetix has launched a new AI technology called “Text2Emotes”, which can produce high-quality 3D animations and emotes from a simple text prompt. The technology is expected to pave the way for a new era of user-generated content (UGC). Kinetix has trained the AI on a large proprietary dataset collected over the past three years, making it more advanced than typical models that leverage limited academic datasets.
The new technology enables animations to be saved and published across multiple games and virtual worlds, allowing emotes generated with Kinetix to be used on any avatar in any video game or metaverse world that integrates the Kinetix SDK. This feature is already being incorporated by some well-known developers and virtual world builders.
Emotes, which express emotion, has been used by MMOs for over two decades and have become a must-have feature for self-expression in gaming content. UGC is core to the success of many gaming platforms, such as Roblox and is set to become the new standard for helping games generate sustainable, long-lasting revenue.
Kinetix CEO and Co-founder Yassine Tahi said that UGC is becoming the bedrock of modern gaming, and enabling gamers to generate their content on the fly using AI will be a critical part of this. He added that the company has spent two years perfecting its AI models and the animations generated by them, first using video inputs and now using a simple text prompt.
Jay Lee, Global Head of the Ecosystem of leading virtual world platform ZEPETO, said that Kinetix’s Text2Emotes feature represents an exciting use case for generative AI in virtual worlds, with the potential to enable a new dimension of expression for ZEPETO users.
Kinetix has already opened up the creation of 3D animation to anyone with video-to-animation AI and no-code editing tools over the past two years. Text2Emotes will be added to the Kinetix Studio and existing Kinetix SDK, which already offers a ready-made, fully customizable emote wheel and a constantly growing library of more than 1,000 emotes across PC, console, and mobile. The Kinetix SDK is currently being integrated into more than 10 video games and virtual worlds, including The Sandbox and PolyLand. Later this year, Text2Emotes will also be offered as an API.
