Overview
Using an avatar in a video provides a more human and engaging way of interacting with your viewers. The avatar you use can be selected from a library of ready-made (stock) avatars or you can create a custom avatar to represent someone in your company. Practically speaking, a custom avatar is time and cost-effective, as using an avatar eliminates the need to prepare and film actual people each time their presence is required in the video.
Once added to the scene, the avatar will read the contents of the narration placeholder. An avatar can be added to every scene of the video; alternatively, you may want to present the avatar only in the first and last scenes to add a human element that will also carry over to the other scenes. An added advantage is that, once you've added an avatar to a scene, you can use its voice to narrate any other scene in the video.
In the scene, an avatar can be added directly to the scene background or placed on a media asset, essentially behaving like an overlay. Below are examples showing where an avatar can be positioned:
Limitations
1. | Currently, personalized narrations—either with a personalization token or with audience messaging—are not supported. In a scene that includes a personalized narration, the avatar will narrate the fallback narration. |
2. | An avatar cannot be added to a video that uses a human, recorded voice. |
Avatar Types
The SundaySky platform offers two types of avatars: Stock and Custom.
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Stock: stock avatars are created from video footage of human actors who have given their consent to be used in SundaySky videos. Each stock avatar has a distinct look and voice that cannot be disconnected from one another. This means that an avatar can only use its real voice and cannot be switched to any other.
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Custom: custom avatars are created based on video footage that you supply of yourself or others in your organization. Using AI technology, the video footage you supply is used to create a realistic, human-like avatar. Creating a custom avatar automatically also generates a voice clone. Just as with a stock avatar, the custom avatar can only use the voice of the person who was filmed and cannot be switched to another voice.
The custom avatar feature—both creation and usage— is being released initially as a beta version.
Avatar Credits
The avatar functionality is a premium feature. Based on the plan that your company holds, your account will include credits for the following two actions:
- Animating an avatar in a scene
- Creating a custom avatar
Animation Credits: When first added to a scene, an avatar is static. Animation credits are used when you are ready to animate an avatar and bring it to life. You can animate an avatar at two points:
- When previewing the video in the Studio
- When approving the video in the Video Page. As animation is an inherent part of an avatar, logic dictates that a video can only be shared after the avatar is animated. A video must be approved before it can be shared.
Animation credits are allocated in minutes, with the current balance displayed in minutes and seconds at the top of the Avatar Library. In the example below, there is a balance of 9 minutes and 46 seconds.
Animation credits are consumed according to the length of the scene in which the avatar appears. For example: if a scene that includes an avatar plays for three seconds, three seconds are deducted from the credits after the avatar is animated.
Custom Avatar Credits: Each credit represents a custom avatar that you can create and then use in your videos. The number of credits added to your account are displayed in the Avatar Library, in the Custom tab. In the example below, there is a balance of 2 credits enabling the creation of 2 custom avatars.
Important note:
To avoid spending credits unnecessarily, we highly recommend that you animate the avatar only after the narration for the scene is completely finalized and you do not anticipate any edits. Once the avatar is animated, any changes made to the narration or pronunciation will require you to animate the avatar again, using additional credits.
Also, if you are sending the video to others for reviewing, we recommend that you send the video with static avatars and only animate the avatars after the video receives final approval.
Here are key points to know about using avatar credits: