Introduction
The digital human landscape has been dramatically transformed with the recent open-source release of Heygem.ai by Guiji Intelligence. This groundbreaking development represents a "table-flipping" moment in the industry, bringing top-tier digital human technology to the masses. Previously, creating realistic digital avatars required significant technical expertise and financial resources, but Heygem.ai has effectively lowered these barriers to entry to the ground floor.
Github Link:
Heygem - An open source, affordable alternative to Heygen 【中文】
Introduction
Heygem is a fully offline video synthesis tool designed for Windows systems that can precisely clone your appearance and voice, digitalizing your image. You can drive your virtual avatar through text and voice for video production. No internet connection is required, protecting your privacy while enjoying convenient and efficient digital experiences.
- Core Features
- Precise Appearance and Voice Cloning: Using advanced AI algorithms to capture human facial features with high precision, including facial features, contours, etc., to build realistic virtual models. It can also precisely clone voices, capturing and reproducing subtle voice characteristics, supporting various voice parameter settings to create highly similar cloning effects.
- Text and Voice-Driven Virtual Avatar: Understanding text content through natural language processing technology, converting text into natural and fluent speech to drive virtual avatars. Voice input can also be used directly, allowing virtual avatars to respond…
Heygem.ai provides installation packages that allow even coding novices to quickly create their own digital humans. With industry-leading lip-syncing capabilities and unlimited cloning features, this open-source solution raises serious questions about the future commercial viability of paid digital human services.
What Makes Heygem AI So Powerful?
Rapid Digital Clone Creation
One of Heygem AI's most impressive features is its ability to create digital clones with minimal input. Users can upload just a single photo or a 1-second video clip, and within 30 seconds, Heygem AI will generate a digital avatar that accurately replicates both your appearance and voice. The system can then produce minute-long videos featuring your digital twin.
Seamless Lip-Sync Technology
The lip synchronization technology in Heygem AI represents the cutting edge of what's currently possible. Using advanced AI algorithms, the system precisely captures and identifies your facial features, contours, and voice characteristics to clone both your appearance and voice with remarkable accuracy.
What's particularly impressive is the system's performance under challenging conditions. Even when dealing with profile views or partially obscured faces, Heygem AI maintains 100% accurate lip-syncing and pronunciation. The digital avatar automatically adjusts its lip movements, adapting expressions and speech rhythm to match the audio content seamlessly.
Multilingual Voice Cloning
After cloning your voice, Heygem AI supports output in eight different languages. This means your digital clone can speak fluent Japanese, English, or other supported languages regardless of your native tongue, opening up possibilities for content creation across language barriers.
Unlimited Duration and Offline Processing
Unlike commercial digital human tools that typically charge around $15 for generating 20 minutes of video, Heygem AI offers unlimited free generation. More importantly, it supports offline cloning of digital human appearances and voices.
This offline capability means you don't need an internet connection to use the core features, and your personal photos and videos don't need to be uploaded to the cloud, providing significant privacy advantages over cloud-based alternatives.
4K High-Definition Output
Heygem AI significantly improves upon previous open-source digital human projects. While Guiji Intelligence's first digital human open-source project only supported 720p, Heygem AI directly supports ultra-clear 4K export. Users can create unlimited-length digital human videos with maximum clarity, making it suitable for professional content production.
Open Source Code for Customization
Heygem - An open source, affordable alternative to Heygen 【中文】
Introduction
Heygem is a fully offline video synthesis tool designed for Windows systems that can precisely clone your appearance and voice, digitalizing your image. You can drive your virtual avatar through text and voice for video production. No internet connection is required, protecting your privacy while enjoying convenient and efficient digital experiences.
- Core Features
- Precise Appearance and Voice Cloning: Using advanced AI algorithms to capture human facial features with high precision, including facial features, contours, etc., to build realistic virtual models. It can also precisely clone voices, capturing and reproducing subtle voice characteristics, supporting various voice parameter settings to create highly similar cloning effects.
- Text and Voice-Driven Virtual Avatar: Understanding text content through natural language processing technology, converting text into natural and fluent speech to drive virtual avatars. Voice input can also be used directly, allowing virtual avatars to respond…
For developers, one of the most valuable aspects of Heygem AI is its open-source codebase. Developers can customize and develop based on Heygem AI's source code, enabling enterprises to build local AI content production systems and allowing creators to easily generate high-quality AI digital human videos.
This approach eliminates dependency on closed platforms or expensive cloud services. Its efficient inference implementation achieves a 1:2 video rendering speed, and the flexible deployment makes it suitable for individuals, small and medium-sized businesses, and large institutions alike. The applications span content creation, marketing, education, e-commerce, and many other fields.
How to Deploy Heygem AI Locally
Heygem AI offers multiple deployment methods. If your GPU configuration is not lower than an NVIDIA 1080Ti and you have 100GB of local storage space, you can set up your own digital human generation tool on your machine.
Recommended System Configuration
- CPU: 13th generation Intel Core i5-13400F
- Memory: 32GB
- Graphics Card: RTX 4070 (with properly installed drivers)
- Storage: At least 100GB of free space
Setting Up Windows Docker
-
Install WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
- Open a command prompt and run:
wsl --install - You can check if WSL is already installed using:
wsl --list --verbose - If it's already installed, you can skip this step
- Open a command prompt and run:
-
Download Docker for Windows
- Visit docker.com to download Docker Desktop
- Choose the appropriate version based on your hardware configuration
-
Run Docker after successful installation
- Make sure Docker is running correctly before proceeding to the next steps
Installing the Server
Heygem AI uses Docker for installation. Here's how to set it up:
- Create a new
docker-compose.ymlfile on your local machine - Paste the following content into the file:
version: '3'
services:
api-server:
image: guijitech/heygem-api-server:latest
ports:
- "8001:8001"
volumes:
- ./data:/app/data
restart: always
llm-server:
image: guijitech/heygem-llm-server:latest
ports:
- "8002:8002"
volumes:
- ./data:/app/data
restart: always
tts-server:
image: guijitech/heygem-tts-server:latest
ports:
- "8003:8003"
volumes:
- ./data:/app/data
restart: always
- In the directory where the
docker-compose.ymlis located, execute:
docker-compose up -d
- Connect to WiFi and wait approximately 30 minutes for the download to complete (about 70GB)
- Successful installation is indicated by the presence of three services in Docker
Installing the Client
- Run the build script:
npm run build:win - This will generate
HeyGem-1.0.0-setup.exein thedistdirectory - Double-click the installer to install the client application
Practical Applications
The accessibility of Heygem AI opens up numerous possibilities across various industries:
Content Creation
Content creators can quickly generate professional-looking videos featuring digital versions of themselves or custom characters. This is particularly valuable for creators who need to produce high volumes of content or wish to maintain a consistent presence while reducing recording time.
Education
Educational institutions can develop interactive learning materials featuring digital instructors. This allows for the creation of engaging, personalized learning experiences that can be easily updated or modified as needed.
Business and Marketing
Companies can create digital spokespersons for their brand, ensuring consistent messaging across all channels. Sales teams can develop personalized video messages for clients without spending hours recording individual videos.
Multilingual Communication
Organizations with international audiences can produce content in multiple languages without requiring multilingual speakers, breaking down language barriers in global communications.
Entertainment
Independent filmmakers and game developers can create realistic digital characters without the enormous budgets typically required for such high-quality digital humans.
Ethical Considerations
While Heygem AI represents an exciting technological advancement, users should consider the ethical implications of digital human technology:
- Disclosure: Always be transparent when using AI-generated content
- Consent: Obtain permission before cloning someone else's likeness or voice
- Misinformation: Avoid creating content that could be used to spread false information
- Privacy: Although processing is done locally, be mindful of how and where you store outputs
- Appropriate Use: Consider the impact your digital human content may have on viewers
Conclusion
Heygem AI represents a significant democratization of digital human technology. By making top-tier capabilities available as an open-source solution, Guiji Intelligence has fundamentally altered the landscape of digital avatar creation. The combination of impressive technical capabilities—from seamless lip-syncing to multilingual voice cloning—with the accessibility of offline processing and an open-source code base makes this tool revolutionary.
For individuals, creators, and businesses alike, Heygem AI offers unprecedented opportunities to explore and implement digital human technology without the prohibitive costs and technical barriers that previously existed. As with any powerful technology, the responsibility for ethical use falls on the user community.
Whether you're a content creator looking to scale your output, a business seeking to enhance customer communications, or simply an enthusiast interested in exploring the cutting edge of AI technology, Heygem AI provides a compelling, accessible entry point into the world of digital humans.
The open-source nature of the project ensures that the technology will continue to evolve and improve through community contributions, likely accelerating advancements in the field and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with digital human technology.
Top comments (1)
Does this call home to a server? I attempted to install and stopped at the terms of service after translating it from Chinese. It appears you data (Video, audio, images) are shared/can be used by them.