- Sora can now transform pets and objects into characters.
- We took the new feature for a test drive
- Matching the right invitation to the desired outcome remains challenging.
OpenAI has provided aspiring AI filmmakers with a potentially powerful new feature in the Sora app. The company has expanded its Cameo tool to make you (or at least your digital avatar) the star of your AI videos to include pets, toys and even dinnerware. The new Character Cameo feature lets you capture animals and objects around you and turn them into AI constructs just like you would for yourself, then place them in Sora's AI-generated videos as reusable animated “characters.”
Video taken from Sora 2 region mixed bagno matter so smart you get with tips. So, bye popular The Sora app is full of people showing off their cameos and character cameos, so I decided to join.
Creating a character cameo is easier than making one yourself. You just need a few seconds of video of the subject, ideally with good lighting and no background. You then feed it into the Character Cameo tool, where Sora comes up with a name, a tag, and even a whole detailed short description of the personality he thinks the object should have, but you can edit it as you wish before publishing.
Once published, the character will be available for tagging in Sora's prompts, and you will see him in the resulting video, barring the occasional request being rejected for copyright reasons or because your “pet cat” is actually human.
Puppy Costume
The first test was done with my dog Cabbage using a video of her running. She's quite lively, so I decided to have a little fun and make her a show dancer. Just to see what would happen, I asked Sora to perform his performance in Antarctica in front of a flock of penguins. I just clarified that she was wearing a “fun dance outfit.” The AI thought that meant ice capes and bracelets.
It's a cute video, but before I moved on to the next character cameo, I couldn't resist making Cabbage an ersatz superhero by asking him to give him a space-age look, like I did when testing out the new Meta restyling tool. I tagged Cabbage's avatar and asked her to glow and shoot into space. While not without its flaws, I was impressed by both the costume changes and the stage direction. The landscape was much less realistic considering I specified New York. However, this may not have been enough for Sora.
Live music
For the second character cameo, I first chose an Elmo brand backpack that my son owns, but it was too copyright specific, so I went with this toy piano/DJ set instead. I asked for a video of him performing the song by himself. At first, this led to nightmare fuel-themed versions of the toy. If it looked like the one below, I would call an exorcist before approaching it.
However, I persisted and after receiving more specific instructions on what was playing and singing, I ended up with the video above. It's imperfect: the toy itself didn't look quite right, and the dog DJ on the turntable turned into a weird baby, but in the two minutes of processing I didn't have many complaints.
Cups up
For the third character, I chose an exquisite kiddush cup from my wedding. The pomegranate vine theme and the hammered metal look reminded me of Indiana Jones, so I chose an appropriate clue. I tagged the cup and asked for it to be filmed in a mysterious temple where wine filled the cup out of nowhere and an unseen voice asked if the viewer was thirsty.
This video seemed to me the most flawed, no matter how many variations I came up with. The physics of the magic aspect seemed to confuse Sora. After a few mishaps in the video above, at least it mostly got it right.
Long-term cameos
Just like the cameos you can make of yourself, character cameos have a lot of potential long-term value. Once downloaded and tagged, you can reuse it across multiple videos in any way you like. You can keep it or try to honor your pet (or cup) by sharing it.
But, as with Sora in general, you're unlikely to be satisfied with the first quick result, and it may leave you disappointed. And while I applaud the ban on copyrighted characters or realistic depictions of people, it is too strict, to the point where even a bad drawing warns of an attempt to make a person a character cameo.
For now, this feature helps make Sora more fun and interesting, but OpenAI will need more if it wants people to see it as a treasure trove of new movie stars, no matter what my dog thinks.
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