Wonder Painter and the History of Scanning Players Into Games

Fantasy is a central component for most video games. As players, we love to envision ourselves as these heroic characters who tackle terrifying monsters and mystifying puzzles.

Of course, “fantasy” is the keyword here. You have to suspend your disbelief and pretend that you’re a bulging barbarian or a wizened wizard even if you’re really just a bored office worker.

What if you could actually put yourself in the game, though? That’s the goal of the new technology called Wonder Painter, created by Chinese company Xiaoxiaoniu Creative Technologies. And while this technology is poised to change gaming, it is built on an idea that has been evolving for more than two decades.

What Is Wonder Painter?

Wonder Painter bills itself as more of an app than a video game. Nonetheless, it was designed with gaming in mind.

The app developers claim that you can take a picture of anything and turn it into animation. From there, a world of possibilities opens up. For example, you can use these animations in a variety of games, or simply create movies starring yourself and your friends.

Are you more of an artist than a photographer? The app also lets you convert 2D drawing into 3D images!

How Does Wonder Painter Work?

For skeptical gamers, this may sound too good to be true. How can an app instantly turn a single image into a variety of wild animations?

This tech basically takes a bunch of technological innovations and smashes them together. Things like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision all combine to create something new.

If your eyes glazed over at the tech talk, don’t worry: this app was designed from the ground up to be user-friendly.