Interesting, but what are the practical uses of 3d assets beyond gaming, where does it create a real advantage over what we already use as visual information and user interfaces? I cannot see VR replacing the interactions we have. It requires cumbersome, expensive hardware, it floods the users with additional mostly useless information (image, sound, 3d itself) they have to process, it's slow and expensive to create and maintain, in short: it's inefficient compared to established tech, which will always run circles around the lame try of imitating real world interactions in a 3d virtual space. The potential availability of very expensively (in terms of computing power) generated assets doesn't change that. It's still hard to do right, and even if done right, it seems like only a gimmick hardly anyone can stomach for more then a couple of hours at best. It's information overload to most people, and they have better alternatives.
> Interesting, but what are the practical uses of 3d assets beyond gaming
Probably many areas that we already use 3D assets/texturing for. Maybe objects to fill out an architectural render, CG in movies/TV shows, 3D printing, or just as an inspiration/mock-up to build off of. I'd imagine this generator is less useful for product design/manufacturing at the moment due to lack precise constraints - but maybe once we get the equivalent of ControlNets.
If weights are released, it may also serve as a nice foundation model, or synthetic data generator, for other 3D tasks (including non-generative tasks like defect detection), in the same way Stable Diffusion and Segment Anything have for 2D tasks.
> I cannot see VR replacing the interactions we have. It requires cumbersome, expensive hardware
Currently sure, but it's been a reasonably safe bet that hardware will get smaller and cheaper. Something like the Bigscreen Beyond already has a fairly small form factor.
But, I feel you're basing judgement of a 3D generator on one currently-niche potential use of 3D assets, that being VR/AR user interfaces (and in particular ones intended to replace a phone rather than, for instance, the interactive interfaces within VR games/experiences).
> The potential availability of very expensively (in terms of computing power) generated assets doesn't change that
Even just comparing computing power and not the human labour required, this is probably going to be an extremely cheap way to generate assets. The paper reports 30 seconds for AssetGen, then a further 20 seconds for TextureGen - both being feed-forward generators. They don't mention which GPU, but previous similar models have ran in a couple of minutes on consumer GPUs.
