Wonder Studio is a browser-based platform that allows people to drag and drop a computer-generated character into any scene and using artificial intelligence, it will replace a live-action actor with a Mocap version of the digital character. It replaces any actor in the scene with a 3D character without the need for any other human intervention. All the normal VFX tasks are performed automatically – from plate clean-up to camera tracking and character animation.
When Wonder Dynamics AI production tool WonderStudio broke onto the scene a last month the VFX community exploded. The reactions ranged from disbelief to fear and panic. It seemed like in one move the implications of the fast-moving world of AI had been made tangible: one button press and it seemed like AI solved: tracking, lighting, clean up, mocap, character retargeting, animation, compositing, and grading. It was almost unbelievably clever. To a certain extent, this is 100% true, Wonder Studio is real and works as advertised – but it is not just a one-button press AI trick. It is a serious production tool. While it does demonstrate how far AI has come, it is a product built to help artists not replace them.
Some users will just press one button, but the platform offers much more. The various elements and individual AI solutions can all be output for further fine-tuning in a normal VFX pipeline. It does dramatically speed up the process and provide post-viz within minutes, but it also integrates into a professional pipeline, rather than replacing it.
In this episode of the Fxpodcast, we talk to Wonder Dynamics’ two co-founders Nikola Todorovic and Tye Sheridan. VFX Supervisor Todorovic is CEO of Wonder Dynamics and actor and producer Sheridan (Ready Player One and X-Men: Apocalypse) is President of the company.
The company’s advisor board lists directors Steven Spielberg and Joe Russo as well as investor Robert Schwab and Professors from MIT and the University of California, Berkeley. An incredibly impressive lineup. The company has major plans for the platform and they outline them to us in this special fxpodcast.
