How To Replace Your Actors With a CG Character With Just One Click

While this is 100% a “file under wait and see” product, we should dutifully let you all know that a new app is out there that aims to allow creators the ability to replace your actors with a CG character with just one click.

Yup, you read that right.

As seen in this latest video breakdown from the guys at Film Riot, this new company Wonder Dynamics has seemingly done the impossible (or inevitable depending on how you look at it) and created a one-click shop for what is ultimately replacing high-end motion graphics and animation work.

Still, there’s certainly much more to this than their headline-stealing one-sentence promise might be.

Let’s explore this new app and showcase what it can and probably can’t do—as well as how it might evolve in the future.

Introducing Wonder Studio

Coming from a diverse group of innovators, investors, Marvel movie directors and Ready Player One actors like Tye Sheridan and Joe Russo, the company behind this new program is Wonder Dynamics and their one-click product is called Wonder Studio. (You can read everything about them on the Wonder Dynamics site if you’re truly curious.)

All you really need to know about them though is pretty much summed up with this (somewhat) off-the-rails teaser video which promises nearly the unthinkable: one-click character replacement, animation, and rendering.

What’s more, this app promises quite a host of other tools and features including no mocap, 3D software, or any expensive production hardware all while operating as a browser-based web app.

Pretty nuts, right?

A Drag-and-Drop Workflow

What’s more, the entire workflow is being designed to be a true drag-and-drop process where you simply upload your CG character model to one shot in your scene, and the Wonder Studio system will automatically detect cuts and track the actor throughout the entire sequence.

From there you can watch the Film Riot guys go through the steps in their video, but it really appears to be about as simple, direct, and drag-and-drop as imaginable. There are some basic advanced options to explore as well, including advanced retargeting which will let you set your shot types and motion types.

You can also apparently render in up to 4K with MP4 and PNG format (with ProRes promised to come soon).

Also, interestingly, you will also be able to export individual elements like AI mocap, alpha masks, and even a clean plate — which the Film Riot video breaks down further.

Wonder Studios in actionCredit: Wonder Dynamics

Is This For Real?

To be fair to everyone involved with this exciting new product, including Wonder Dynamics, their odd collection of stakeholders, and the Film Riot team doing the review, no one is saying this is a 100% perfect product out there and available today. This is a beta version right now and it has many issues obviously to start.

One obvious issue which potential users will find early and often is that this requires a ton of processing power and that wait times for your renders are going to be extraordinarily long. (For the Film Riot video, for example, we’re told that 4 seconds of footage is taking around 45 minutes.)

The examples we see at the end of the video are also nothing to take too seriously, and it’s kind of odd that the Wonder Dynamics team would even allow this product to be so publicly viewable at this stage as so many videos from it might end up being quite laughable to many.

Still, it also seems foolish to laugh this new tech off completely. It’s an investment for the future for sure. But the ultimate question might simply be how far away is this from being the present.

What are your thoughts on this new one-click CG character replacement technology? Do you see it being of interest to you any time soon?

Let us know in the comments below.