AI Programmer Collaboration

We are offering an ongoing, long term passive income opportunity for a neural network programmer familiar with ONXX and UE. The idea is to implement a NN based animation system for character animation during locomotion.

Project Background

There are a number of academic papers and demo projects out there demonstrating a variety of NN based character animation techniques. One of the earliest NN based projects was the PFNN by Daniel Holden. The PFNN paper was published back in 2017. The relative simplicity of this solution makes it ideal for our purposes. The demo projects for both training and runtime use are well documented.

Your Backgound

I'm looking for someone with experience using ONXX for UE. I'd like to see some sort of working demo, ideally that uses ONXX, but other pyTorch based projects would be considered.

My Background

I have a 50-camera Qualysis mocap studio and have developed a character conversion system that converts and optimises Daz characters for UE that I intend to use for demoing this project. I have already produced a training data set containing many 100s of high grade mocap animations in preparation for this project.
Note that I would require the signing of a NDA before supplying said animation data training set.
I have been developing character animation based systems since 2007 and having been working full time with UE for two years.

The Product

Once an implementation of the PFNN has been developed for UE, the plan is to create and sell trained neural networks on the UE marketplace. By creating training data sets by motion capturing different people, a large range of trained neural networks for different people / characters would be offered for sale.

Such a solution would remove developers need for state machine based locomotion systems whilst providing far more compelling animation during locomotion. Due to the simplification of the developer's workflow, coupled with the significant advantages in both quality and performance cost, switching to use the proposed system would be a no brainer for developers.

The Task

I'm looking for a partner who is highly skilled in ONXX and would be able to implement both the training and runtime components of the system. In theory, the training system does not need to run in UE - Maya, Blender, standalone or otherwise are all options, but the runtime would need to run in UE using the UE ONXX runtime.
Once developed, only minimal support (i.e. bug fixes, beaking changes from engine updates) would be required.
I would provide support for end users.

The Location

Remote or come join us in our offices in Koh Phangan, Thailand.

The Deal

70/30 (in my favour) split on all future sales of trained neural networks. Estimated price point is likely to be around $100, although this will be subject to change depending on user feedback and time spent in development.
This is a fantastic opportunity for the right person. If you think you might fit the bill, please email me at dave at virtuality dot space.