The Australian Open's ingenious animated avatars are better than the real thing

The Australian Open has found an ingenious workaround for licensing conflicts on its YouTube livestream. The solution? Animated players. The tennis tournament has replaced iconic sports stars with custom avatars that mimic their movements using mocap technology and I daresay I enjoy it more than the real deal.

Admittedly it's a little silly but there's something endearing about the animated character design – think Wii Sports Tennis: Pro Edition. While I don't expect this animated overlay to catch on (it could get quite messy with contact sports for example), it's a playful way to make the game accessible to viewers across the world.

While the livestreams feature an animated court with virtual players, the commentary, movements and various odd tennis grunts are all real. Director of innovation at Tennis Australia, Machar Reid told The Guardian "Limb tracking is complex, you’ve got 12 cameras trying to process the silhouette of the human in real time, and stitch that together across 29 points in the skeleton.” While he admits “It’s not as seamless as it could be" (note the avatar's stiff hands) I think the somewhat rudimentary animation style adds to the appeal.

Of course, the technology isn't in vain as it avoids broadcast licensing conflicts and while it's an ingeniously silly workaround, it demonstrates Tennis Australia's creativity in making the sport more accessible. For more animation news check out how Evgeniy Khapugin created the John Wick-inspired mocap for SPINE and take a look at Robbie Williams' CGI monkey biopic.