Original source: Financial Association

Original source: Financial Association

In 2021, the metaverse is on fire, and the fire is in a mess. From the listing of Roblox at the beginning of the year, to Byte’s acquisition of VR company Pico in August, and to the renaming of Facebook, the “frequent attacks” of major manufacturers have continuously ignited the fire of the virtual economy to new heights.

As one of the core elements of the virtual economy, virtual humans are even more popular. Various companies such as film and television, public relations, short video, and real estate have launched virtual humans one after another, and a grand occasion of "virtual humans all over the city" emerged for a while.

However, virtual humans are not a product of the past one or two years.

In 1982, Lin Mingmei, the heroine of the animation work "Macros", became popular with her moving singing voice and pure human design, becoming the world's first virtual idol, which opened the prelude to the emergence of virtual people on the stage of history.

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Three Genres of Virtual Humans

Nowadays, whether it is CCTV director Xiao C, Tsinghua University virtual college student Hua Zhibing, or virtual beauty expert Liu Yexi..., virtual people are constantly emerging.

Many genres have formed around virtual humans. For example, the functional school that takes the functional and practical route, such as Xiao C and Hua Zhibing, and the avatar school, such as Di Lieba's avatar Di Li Lengba, Huang Zitao's avatar Taosman, etc.

The most popular virtual people are the following three factions:

First, a virtual person who takes the route of fashionista——Fashion School

This genre is the virtual human genre that has attracted the most public and social attention. At present, due to its high imitation and fashion characteristics, it is easier to form social influence, so it is also the most favored by brands. Ling, which cooperates with Tissot watches, Naixue’s tea, etc., and IMMA, which appears on Watson’s beverages, are typical representatives of this genre.

In addition, there are AYAYI, Ji Yuanmei, A Xi, etc., as shown in the picture below:

AYAYI is Ali's number one digital employee. After releasing the NFT of the Mid-Autumn Festival Yuan Universe, he "appeared" in Alipay's Year of the Tiger campaign. Jiyuanmei has carried out image cooperation with brands such as Mengniu yoghurt and Heytea. Axi cooperated with German famous watches NOMOS and Zhong Xuegao.

Second, a virtual person who takes the route of singing and dancing—the singing and dancing school

In addition, there is Xingtong, the virtual spokesperson of QQ Xuanwu. Xingtong can be said to be the most mature virtual idol IP in China alongside Luo Tianyi, and has also accumulated quite a lot of popularity.

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(Zuo Luo Tianyi, You Xingtong)

This wave of singing and dancing virtual idols, which emerged from Japan's Hatsune Miku and Kizuna Ai, is rapidly developing and evolving in China, and there is a high probability that more moving singing and dancing schools will appear in the future.

Third, a virtual person who follows the image + story + industry route——short drama school

In 2021, Douyin will gain 2.3 million fans within 3 days of its launch, and Liu Yexi, who is at the peak of his debut, is a representative of this type of virtual person. It is more like a character who came out of the play. Whether it is the setting of the scene, or the shape and makeup, it has a more sense of design.

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Virtual human occupations are in high demand

How to create a high-quality virtual human?

The production of virtual humans involves technical parties such as rendering modeling, motion capture, AI technology, and XR equipment manufacturers. The degree of their technical realization is directly related to the quality of virtual humans. If it is too fake, it will lack the human soul, and it is an indirect collapse of the house.

The virtual person stands in front of the stage glamorously, but the pillars behind the stage are the key.

However, the consolidation of technical barriers to competition is inseparable from the investment of a large amount of cost in the early stage. It is understood that the capital investment of a 3D virtual idol can reach hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan. Ordinary small companies generally do not have such strong funds. Comparatively speaking, leading Internet companies have more capital and resource advantages than small and medium-sized technology manufacturers, and have more possibilities.

Although the virtual human industry has developed to a certain extent in the past two years, the current situation is that even if manufacturers are willing to invest funds, they are helpless due to the lack of talents. Not long ago, CCTV Finance reported that with the popularity of the virtual human concept, software and hardware engineers in related fields have become popular jobs.

The reporter of "Blockchain Daily" checked the relevant data of the recruitment platform and found that the general salary of virtual human software and hardware engineers is 50-80K/month (14 salary), and some are as high as 60-90K/month (14 salary). The salaries of positions related to virtual human beings are roughly between 12-110K/month, of which virtual human operation without experience requirements is at least 12-20K/month (13 salary), while virtual human technical experts can reach up to 80-110K/month month (16 salary).

According to public information, there is also a huge gap in technical and artistic talents related to virtual humans. For example, animators, 3D character riggers, special effects designers, etc. These positions require not only an understanding of technology, but also an understanding of art. At the same time, they can communicate and cooperate with programmers to solve technical problems in art. The monthly salary ranges from 20,000 to The annual salary ranges from one million to one million.

Really answered that sentence, as long as you have talent, money is not a problem!

In addition to these relatively "pre-stage" occupations mentioned above, there is an "icing on the cake" professional role around the virtual person-the face pincher.

In some popular games, there is a function of pinching the face of the character. In the face pinching system, the details of the character's face and body can be adjusted; thus, the face pinching master came into being. These face pinchers combine technology and art skills, and they are also rare talents.

In the past, face pinchers mostly existed in large-scale online games. With the rise of the Metaverse, face pinchers have more room to perform, and gradually become the most in-demand profession in the virtual world. Because it is difficult to change one's appearance in the real world, it is the yearning of every player, especially the current main force of consumption - Generation Z, to customize a perfect image for oneself in the virtual world of "face value is justice".

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Dachang virtual human moves frequently

The virtual person has just arrived, and the runners have already gone first. According to data from Tianyancha, there are more than 288,000 companies related to "virtual humans" and "digital humans" in my country. From 2016 to 2020, the five-year compound growth rate of newly registered enterprises is nearly 60%, and the industry has entered an explosive period.

This includes leading Internet companies with a keen sense of smell. On the one hand, they build their own virtual human-related platforms and increase the introduction of talents for virtual human production technical teams. On the other hand, they are also constantly increasing capital layout.

Not long ago, Baidu released a digital human platform—Baidu Smart Yunxiling. It is hoped that within the next two years, through the opening of Baidu Smart Yunxiling platform, everyone can realize the freedom of digital human beings.

On the other hand, ByteDance launched Pixsoul, an immersive virtual social platform, and also wholly invested in a company that owns the copyright of the virtual idol group A-SOUL, and acquired Pico, a VR start-up company, to lay out the upstream and downstream of AI virtual interaction. In January 2022, ByteDance participated in the angel round financing of Hangzhou Li Weike Technology Co., Ltd., with an exclusive investment of tens of millions of yuan.

Regarding the layout of virtual humans, Netease has not only made great efforts, but also has a wide layout. From 2019 to 2021, NetEase Capital, a subsidiary of NetEase, has made multiple virtual human-related investments.

In 2021 alone, NetEase has participated in 5 financing events related to virtual human companies, including Genies, a virtual image technology company, Imvu, a metaverse social platform, Maestro, a live broadcast company that creates virtual interactive concerts, and the parent company of "Microsoft Xiaoice" — Beijing Hongmian Xiaoice Technology Co., Ltd. and the next generation culture of the virtual human ecology company.

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epilogue

epilogue

2021 is called the first year of the metaverse.

This year, Generation Z, who grew up with the Internet, played a prominent role as the main consumer force. Their new needs provided new markets and gave birth to new occupations. Life in the Metaverse is rich and varied.

This year, big factories and small factories competed on the same stage, intending to "conquer pools and seize territory" in the world of the Metaverse.

This year, with the explosion of the metaverse, the virtual human sub-industry was also born, allowing various avatars to be active on the stage.

In any case, we seem to see a group of people on the stage, carnival together. There are real people and virtual people here, skilled laborers, and big factories eager for talent. Together, everyone demonstrated the infinite charm of the interweaving of virtual and reality, and achieved a "Utopian" victory.