Kinetix's co-founder and CEO Yassine Tahi has told us about the company's AI-assisted 3D animation platform, shared how difficult it is to make content for users who have no experience, and spoke about the company's vision of the metaverse.
Kinetix
Hello, I am Yassine, co-founder and CEO of Kinetix. I am a fan of gaming, especially MMORPG, and I founded Kinetix in 2020 when I met Henri Mirande at Entrepreneur First. We both share a background in AI technology development. Henri is an experienced Deep Learning engineer who worked at Dynamixyz. I worked as a Strategy Consultant for AI projects while at Eleven.
We are passionate gamers, and we created Kinetix to drive the creation of next-gen games using AI and user-generated content as core components of their gameplay. We want to make 3D animation accessible to every Creator, and our AI-powered no-code platform paves the way to enhanced self-expression in the virtual worlds.
Thanks to our technology, you can join me in dancing in the Metaverse.
AI-Powered No-Code Animation Platform
We identified a bottleneck in 3D animation. The unprecedented growth of open worlds games and virtual worlds has given rise to a demand for 3D content. The community of 3D experts and professionals is not growing fast enough and coping with this sudden increase in demand. There are several factors for the constrained workflows: the need for specialized software or/and hardware (sensors, mocap studios, cameras); tech-intensive legacy software; computing-intensive; and offline-only solutions.
To bridge the gap, we focused on making 3D animations accessible to first-time creators by developing a comprehensive suite of technologies that remove existing barriers to 3D creation for the masses.
It started with the development of an Artificial Intelligence platform that processes any video and transforms it into a 3D animated avatar. This state-of-the-art AI leverages multiple layers of deep learning algorithms, and we used cloud computing to ensure the workflow becomes transparent for users. Since the launch of our Beta version in June 2021, we have released four major updates that significantly increased the animation fidelity of the generated 3D animations and reduced the processing time needed.
Our R&D team is constantly improving our technology, and we will soon deploy breakthrough features such as facial expression recognition.
To make 3D animation fast and easy we worked to deliver a unique no-code platform. From a web browser, anyone can edit, mix and match animations and avatars together. Our UX is as simple as drag & drop and our library includes hundreds of ready-to-use avatars and pre-made animations to increase users’ capabilities. You can learn about how simple it is to create 3D in the video below.
How Difficult It Is to Master the Platform
The level of accessibility of our no-code solution brought thousands of non-3D professional users to 3D animation. Thanks to the AI, smart-editing features, and a seamless UX, our users can create animated avatars on their first visit to our platform. Our surveys indicate that the vast majority of them had no previous experience in 3D animation, and our major success factor is to receive feedback from our community saying that "3D is not that hard!" It proves that user-generated content in the Metaverse is not a fantasy.
Focus on User-Generated Content
We strongly believe that user-generated content is the way to create a critical mass of users and a lasting value for the Metaverse. Indeed, if users cannot express themselves there is a risk of an empty, boring, and experience-less Metaverse. Transforming gamers and users into creators is key to success as can be seen by platforms like Roblox.
To go all the way: we are expediting the process by expanding our activity. We are not just designing a platform but creating monetization opportunities for our community by leveraging user-generated content. If you ever dreamt about creating a unique celebration move in your favorite FPS game and owning it as an NFT, if you wanted to defeat friends in epic dance battles and sell your dance choreography, or ever envisioned a new street fighter edition using play and earn kicks and punches cards you should be all in!
We have the ambition to design experiences where UGC and utility meet each other. The openness of Web3 and decentralization models will be activated for good, as users are central to our game design concepts. They will be the ones creating the assets thanks to our AI, editing them as NFTs to own their creations and playing with them in fun and free experiences.
Our seed funding gives us a unique positioning allowing us to pursue our mission. We are going to collaborate with multiple virtual worlds including our investors The Sandbox and ZEPETO to integrate our UGC technology into their environments. We will enable creators to mint their creations as NFTs directly from Kinetix so they can earn royalties from their creations by monetizing them in different virtual worlds.
Eventually, we will also develop our own experiences, and launch collaborations with studios and IPs to create user-based experiences in the Metaverse. We are taking Kinetix one step further by showcasing the opportunity of UGC gameplays in the Metaverse.
The Metaverse
For us, the Metaverse is about creating environments where people are immersed in live experiences while socializing and expressing themselves freely. The future is exciting as the level and the variety of experiences is booming. In The Sandbox for example you can visit exhibits, meet up with friends, and attend crazy parties and it is only Alpha Season 2!
We firmly believe in the Metaverse with multiple forms and directions. It reflects the diversity and creativity of our world and our fight is to allow more and more people to take part in the Metaverse, sharing a part of their identity in it starting by uploading their body expressions. Our mission at Kinetix is to reduce the barrier between physical and virtual worlds to allow everybody to use their self-expression as a way to play, create and earn.
Funding
Our Seed Funding round was led by Adam Ghobarah (founder of Top Harvest Capital and former longtime executive of Google and Google Ventures). We are backed by leading virtual worlds: The Sandbox & ZEPETO (NAVER Z). We secured investment from top Web3 players like Sparkle Ventures, co-managed by Animoca Brands, Entrepreneur First, and successful entrepreneurs including Alexandre Yazdi (CEO of Voodoo), Xavier Niel (Founder of Station F), and William O'Farrell (Founder of Body Labs and After Effects).
Our Seed Funding conversations confirmed that UGC is an opportunity to drive the mass adoption of the Metaverse. The excellence of our AI has been noticed and is positioning us as pioneers. However, facilitating access to 3D animation was just the beginning. Our team of 30 individuals is passionate about Web3, and gaming. By creating the first user-based experience in a Virtual World, we will demonstrate the utility and fun of UGC in the Metaverse.
"Our collaboration with Kinetix is very exciting, the promise of their technology is to facilitate the creation of rich animations for avatars from any video capture, contributing to defining the future of digital expression and its monetization in Web3," said Sebastien Borget, Co-founder & COO of The Sandbox.
Roadmap
We invite all creators to test our free platform and create their first 3D animated avatars. If you have dancing talents or want to prototype a game with unique character attributes, you can now start exploring the world of 3D animation creation with Kinetix.
Kinetix will launch its first experience within a year. We started working on the concept with our partners- virtual worlds, game dev studios, and very exciting IPs. As we design the first user-based experiences, it's a huge learning experience & we can foresee the potential of creativity that our technology will unlock. We are looking for talented game developers to join us in building these one-of-a-kind and unique experiences. We also invite all IPs and Brands that have a strong thesis on the Metaverse to reach out to us to partner in creating next-gen experiences with us.
A new genre of games will be born from Kinetix. We love to see the project grow by building the most talented team of talents and partners. We are super excited to share the results with the gaming community within a few months from now!