I tried Sora’s Character Cameos and now my dog thinks she’s a movie star
- Sora can now transform animals and objects into characters
- We tested the new functionality
- Matching the right prompt with the desired outcome is always a challenge
OpenAI has given aspiring AI filmmakers a potentially powerful new feature within the Sora app. The company has expanded the Cameo tool to make you (or at least your digital avatar) the star of your AI videos to pets, toys, and even dishes. The new Character Cameo feature lets you film animals and objects around you and make AI constructs of them in the same way you do it yourself, then place them into Sora’s AI-generated videos as reusable, animated “characters.”
Videos made with Sora 2 are a mixed bag, no matter how clever you are with the prompts. So, while the popular Sora app is full of people showing off their cameos and characters, I decided to join in.
Creating a character cameo is easier than creating one for yourself. You just need a few seconds of video of the subject, ideally with good lighting and nothing in the background. You then upload it to the Character Cameo tool, where Sora comes up with a name, a tag, and even a detailed summary of the personality he thinks the item should have, but you can edit it to your liking before publishing it.
Once published, the character is available to be marked in Sora prompts, and you will see it in the resulting video, unless you accidentally trigger a rejection of a request due to copyright or because your “pet cat” is actually human.
Puppy Costume
The first test was done with my dog Cabbage, using a video of her running around. She’s quite agile, so I decided to have fun and make her a show-off dancer. For no reason other than to see what would happen, I asked Sora to put on his performance in Antarctica in front of a bunch of penguins. I only pointed out that she was wearing a “fun dance outfit.” The AI decided that meant the Ice Capades and the bracelets.
It’s a cute video, but before moving on to the next Character Cameo, I couldn’t help but make Cabbage an ersatz superhero, asking for a cosmic look like I did when testing Meta’s new restyling tool. I tagged Cabbage’s avatar and asked it to glow and accelerate through space. Although it is hardly without its flaws, I was impressed by both the costume changes and the direction. The landscape was much less realistic, given that I had specified New York. But maybe that wasn’t detailed enough for Sora.
Live music
For the second Character Cameo, I first chose an Elmo brand backpack that my son owns, but it was too copyright specific, so I chose this toy piano/DJ set. I asked for a video of him performing a song alone. At first, this led to nightmarish versions of the toy. If it looked like the one below, I would call an exorcist before going near it.
Still, I persevered, and with more specific instructions on what was playing and singing, I ended up with the video above. It’s flawed, the toy itself doesn’t look quite right, and the DJ dog on the turntable turned into this strange kid, but for two minutes of treatment I didn’t have many complaints.
Cups raised
For my third character, I opted for an elaborate kiddush cup from my wedding. Its pomegranate vine theme and hammered metallic look made me think of Indiana Jones, so I opted for a prompt that suited me. I tagged the cup and requested a video of it in a mysterious temple where wine from nowhere filled the cup and an invisible voice asked if the viewer was thirsty.
This video seemed the most flawed to me, no matter how many variations I came up with. The physics of the magical aspect seemed to confuse Sora. After a handful of failures, the video above was at least mostly successful.
Long-term cameos
As with the Cameo you can create yourself, Character Cameos have a lot of potential long-term value. Once downloaded and labeled, you can reuse it across multiple videos as you see fit. You can keep it for yourself or try to make your pet (or mug) famous by sharing it.
But, like Sora as a whole, you probably won’t be happy with the first quick result, which can be frustrating. And while I applaud the ban on copyrighted characters or realistic likenesses of people, it’s a little too strict, to the point where even some poor doodle drew a warning about trying to make a person a cameo character.
For now, this feature helps make Sora more fun and interesting, but OpenAI will need more if it wants people to treat it as a source of new movie stars, no matter what my dog thinks.
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