The first virtual human ‘Rui Li’ (@ruuui_li) from dob Studio.

Korean AI technology startup dob Studio is a company that specializes in developing virtual facial technologies. In October 2020, dob Studio introduced virtual influencer/YouTuber ‘Rui Li’ through the YouTube channel RuiCovery (@RuiCovery). Her beautiful face was too realistic that Korean netizens considered dob Studio's explanation that Rui’s face is a virtual face as a lie. A discussion regarding whether Rui’s face is a real or fake has emerged as a hot topic in the Korean online community, and as coverage by various media outlets confirmed that Rui’s face was a virtual face created by AI, dob Studio has emerged as a sensational creation of a virtual human.

In addition to create a completely new virtual human, dob Studio has also continued to showcase more amazing contents. In January 2022, K-POP singer Lim Yoon-Taek, who passed away eight years ago, reappeared as if he was alive in the entertainment program called <Alive>, which was introduced by OTT platform TVING, Korea's Netflix. dob Studio perfectly restored the face of the deceased singer Lim Yoon-Taek virtually in a face swap manner. <Alive> became a hot topic for Koreans and became viral not only in Korea but also in many countries.

K-POP star Lim Yoon-Taek 's face (source: https://youtu.be/KYxtSr84Lxg)) restored by dob Studio to a virtual face.

Recently, dob Studio partnered up with Chai Communications, a Korean advertising company, to showcase a TV advertisement that created a face of a Korean actress Youn Yuh-Jung in her 20s. As she won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in “Minari” at the 93rd Academy Awards at 75 years of age, Koreans were surprised by the perfect restoration of her natural look of her 20s.

Actress Youn Yuh-Jung 's face in her 20s (Source: dob Studio Inc. & CHAI Communication) produced by dob Studio.

dob Studio plans to increase the number of virtual humans to 100 by 2023. So far, a total of 19 virtual humans have been created by dob Studio and have been performing actively as influencers on SNS(Social Network Service) or as advertising models for companies. dob Studio is producing high-quality virtual faces using various advanced graphics technologies, including its virtual face generation and transformation technology, dob Engine. Its strength is not only the excellence in quality but also takes less time to produce and is the inexpensive cost compared to the existing VFX pipeline. In general, the VFX pipeline costs more than 1 million dollars a year to produce a virtual human with VFX technology and grow its popularity to become a virtual SNS influencer. Since VFX technology takes more than a week to produce a few photos, many virtual humans are not active on SNS. Being able to produce 100 virtual humans means that dob Studio's virtual human content production pipeline centered on dob Engine has been fully advanced. Currently, dob Studio produces an average of seven to nine virtual human contents a month, and among them, ‘Rui Li’ (@ruui_li) and ‘Aila’ (@user_ocean) upload new contents every day.

dob Studio aims not only to increase the number of virtual humans but also to create virtual influencers that are as popular as La Miquela and receive a lot of attention and love. This so-called Virtual Human 100 (VH100) project is not just increasing the number of virtual humans to 100, but all 100 are appointed and play an active role as corporate models or ambassadors for local governments. This year, you perhaps will see Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana, restored by dob Studio, appear in a public commercial on TV.

dob Studio : https://www.dob.world/