[HN Gopher] Infinigen: Infinite Photorealistic Worlds Using Proc...
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       Infinigen: Infinite Photorealistic Worlds Using Procedural
       Generation
        
       Author : KolmogorovComp
       Score  : 267 points
       Date   : 2024-12-22 09:59 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | guld wrote:
       | Really cool project.
       | 
       | Some questions to ML/AI researchers here on HN:
       | 
       | - Are there any ML/AI papers out there that trained on this? E.g.
       | training robots in virtual environments?
       | 
       | - What data sets are used today in the ML/AI space to train
       | robots?
        
         | nobrains wrote:
         | From the video: "Infinigen is 100% procedural. Math rules only.
         | Zero AI. Just graphics."
         | 
         | .
         | 
         | Timestamp: https://youtu.be/6tgspeI-GHY?t=107
        
           | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
           | "Zero AI" - nice to end the year with something so
           | refreshing!
        
           | cantpostcanceld wrote:
           | The question wasn't "does this use AI". It was, "does any AI
           | use this".
        
             | guld wrote:
             | Exactly, thanks.
             | 
             | Did some light digging and found some related papers:
             | 
             | - https://robogen-ai.github.io/
             | 
             | - https://genesis-embodied-ai.github.io/, related HN
             | thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42457213
             | 
             | - https://paperswithcode.com/datasets?q=robot&v=th&o=match
             | 
             | These use other data sets, however.
        
           | thrwthsnw wrote:
           | He's asking if anyone is training using data created from a
           | system like this, not if this uses AI.
        
         | Flenkno wrote:
         | I'm pretty sure i saw a video from Nvidia research using
         | generated environments for training robots etc.
         | 
         | Can't find it quickly though.
         | 
         | Nvidias Omniverse is one of the core things though
        
           | schaefer wrote:
           | If you look up the nvidia keynote from 2024, omniverse,
           | robotics, and digital twins are discussed at length [1]. The
           | relevant parts are near timestamp: 1 hour 34 minutes
           | 
           | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/live/Y2F8yisiS6E
        
       | fix-your-meta wrote:
       | your meta tag descriptions need to be updated and are showing
       | placeholder content when shared
        
       | NBJack wrote:
       | Hasn't this been posted before? It's cool, I agree, but it's been
       | around for a few years. Has there been an update?
        
         | HelloUsername wrote:
         | Correct. 18-Jun-2023. 76 comments.
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36376071
        
       | tanepiper wrote:
       | Not even subtle with that Matrix-like intro
        
         | taneq wrote:
         | That is what they were going for, yes.
        
       | Stevvo wrote:
       | The indoor scenes look completely plausible, but the outdoor
       | leaves a lot to be desired. Very much behind the state of the
       | art.
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | Behind several versions of No Man's Sky, let alone whatever
         | madness the LLM people have been cooking.
        
           | ramon156 wrote:
           | NMS isn't open source nor for the same purpose
        
         | sirobg wrote:
         | What's the state of the art?
        
         | dualogy wrote:
         | So what IS the state of the art that's also FOSS, perhaps even
         | as-a-library, and non-gen-AI (I'm thinking interactive/game-
         | dev/realtime use-cases)?
        
           | Stevvo wrote:
           | Not open source, but Gaia is widely used in games and movies.
           | Can do some cool things like simulated vegetation
           | growth/distribution.
        
             | supermatt wrote:
             | You are probably thinking of gaea - not gaia. Gaia is also
             | a world generator but not as widely recognised as gaea (and
             | gaia is only implemented as a unity plugin IIRC).
        
         | guerrilla wrote:
         | You have to admit the sea water was way better than any video
         | game today. The rest though, yeah.
        
       | anentropic wrote:
       | it's unclear from the readme - is this infinite as in can
       | generate infinite variations on a scene, or infinite as in
       | generates an infinite world?
        
       | BaudouinVH wrote:
       | Previously : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36373494
        
       | api wrote:
       | The fact that this is possible feels like it says something about
       | the universe-- that there is not as much information in our
       | environment as we think there is.
       | 
       | This in turn could explain the unreasonable effectiveness of
       | brains -- especially small ones like animal brains -- at modeling
       | and operating in the world.
        
         | imiric wrote:
         | That's a very superficial way of looking at the universe.
         | 
         | Existence is not limited to whether or not it's observed.
         | Brains have evolved to only gather the minimum amount of
         | information required to keep the organism alive in its
         | particular environment. But there is an unfathomable amount of
         | complexity in the universe, even in the things we _can_
         | perceive.
         | 
         | For 3D modeling specifically these details don't matter, which
         | is why we're able to approach photorealism. The renders look
         | good enough to fool our brains into thinking that we're looking
         | at the object as it would appear in the real world. They're a
         | good approximation of visual aspects, but they're far from a
         | good representation of real world objects. We don't have nearly
         | enough compute for that. We've only recently gained the ability
         | to model how light behaves in the real world in real-time, and
         | even that is an approximation.
         | 
         | Anyway, Infinigen looks like a cool product. It's great to see
         | classical simulations instead of AI for a change.
        
         | jrflowers wrote:
         | >The fact that this is possible feels like it says something
         | about the universe
         | 
         | Similarly, the character models in Final Fantasy 7 say
         | something about the human endocrine system. Aeris clearly reads
         | as human despite you not being able to see her adrenal glands
         | so maybe they don't exist in real life
        
         | mensetmanusman wrote:
         | The information density is large, our perception (i.e. the
         | universe perceiving itself) filters for our particular length
         | and time scale.
        
         | luskira wrote:
         | > "The fact that this is possible feels like it says something
         | about the universe"
         | 
         | the map is not the territory
        
       | phyalow wrote:
       | I noticed several prominent Chinese universities in the authors
       | list. Doesnt this prima facie imply a breach of the chip
       | sanctions/export rules?
        
         | nxobject wrote:
         | The papers mention that the co-authors did research while
         | affiliated with Princeton.
        
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       (page generated 2024-12-23 23:01 UTC)