<\/p>\n Creating a Character Cameo is easier than making 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 whole elaborate capsule summary of the personality it thinks the object should have, but you can edit it to your heart’s content before publishing.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Once published, the character is available for tagging in Sora prompts, and you’ll see it in the resulting video, barring accidentally tripping a rejection to a request over copyright or because your “pet cat” is actually a human.<\/p>\n Costume Pup<\/p>\n The first test was with my dog Cabbage, using a video of her running around. She’s quite agile, so I decided to have some fun and make her a show-off dancer. For no reason other than to see what would happen, I had Sora set her performance in the Antarctic in front of a bunch of penguins. I only specified she wear a “fun dance outfit.” The AI decided that meant the Ice Capades and bangles.<\/p>\n It’s a cute video, but before I moved on to the next Character Cameo, I couldn’t resist making Cabbage an ersatz superhero, requesting a cosmic look like I did when testing Meta’s new restyling tool. I tagged Cabbage’s avatar and asked that it glow and accelerate into space. Though hardly without flaws, I was impressed with both the costume changes and the stage direction. The scenery was much less realistic, considering I specified New York City. That may not have been enough detail for Sora, though.<\/p>\n Living music<\/p>\n For the second Character Cameo, I first picked an Elmo-branded backpack my son owns, but that was too copyright-specific, so instead I chose this toy piano\/DJ set. I asked for a video of it performing a song on its own. At first, that led to nightmare fuel-style versions of the toy. If it looked like the one below, I would be calling an exorcist before going near it.<\/p>\n Still, I persevered, and with more specific instructions about what was playing and singing, I ended up with the video above. It’s flawed, with the toy itself not looking quite right, and the dog DJ on the turntable turned into that odd child, but for two minutes of processing, I didn’t have many complaints.<\/p>\n Goblets up<\/p>\n For my third character, I went with an elaborate kiddush cup from my wedding. Its pomegranate-vine theme and hammer-beaten metal look made me think of Indiana Jones, so I went with a prompt that fit. I tagged the goblet and asked for a video of it in a mysterious temple where wine from nowhere would fill the cup and an unseen voice would ask if the viewer was thirsty.<\/p>\n 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 confound Sora. After a handful of failures, the video above at least mostly got it right.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Long-term cameos<\/p>\n As with the Cameo you can make of yourself, there’s a lot of potential long-term value for Character Cameos. Once uploaded and tagged, you can reuse it across multiple videos in any way you see fit. You can keep it to yourself, or try to make your pet (or cup) famous by sharing it around.<\/p>\n But, like Sora as a whole, you’re not likely to be satisfied with the first prompt result, which can be frustrating. And while I applaud the ban on copyrighted characters or realistic likenesses of people, it is a bit overly strict, to the point where even a poor doodle drew a warning about trying to make a person a Character Cameo.<\/p>\n For now, the feature helps make Sora more fun and interesting, but OpenAI will need more if it wants people to treat it as fount of new movie stars, no matter what my dog thinks.<\/p>\n Follow TechRadar on Google News<\/a> and add us as a preferred source<\/a> to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!<\/p>\n And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok<\/a> for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp<\/a> too.<\/p>\n The best business laptops for all budgets<\/p>\n Our top picks, based on real-world testing and comparisons![\"Purple](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/hhZUEBD3xpcxphhUVzPa5G.png\")
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