It's amazing to see visual wonders in today's movie theaters. Sci-fi spaceships, animated monsters and all those explosions – they look so real that some people could even think that Transformers really existed.

Let's take it one step further: What if you could direct your own visual effects (VFX) movie? The industry has now started to hand out the tools to consumers like you and me.

"You can have someone that you love, even the family who passed away, in your pocket," Daniel Seah, CEO of American VFX company Digital Domain, told CGTN.

"If you have his/her virtual data, combined with AI, you can have a virtual character in your phone, your computer, or any screen."

It's very common to have an animated avatar online. But Seah's ambition is to bring "photo-real" images – a 3D-like version of yourself that reflects your speech patterns and movements – to the common consumer.   

The company has made leaps in advancing their technology, like creating a virtual performance of Tupac, an American rapper who passed away in 1996.

Digital Domain claimed on its website that Tupac's album sales "increased 500 percent" after his hologram performance amazed audiences at Coachella in 2012.

The firm also tried a similar project in China by arranging a tour for legendary singer Teresa Teng who died in 1995.

In addition to performances, Digital Domain also wants to tap into the mobile and VR sectors. That's why it staged a show in Beijing last month to impress non-industry people.

Watch the cover video to see what happened at the show.

Seah told CGTN that their virtual human plan includes three types of services: the living, the deceased and the fictional.

That means the service extends from "reviving" people in a digital form to creating brand new virtual souls, all with the realistic quality seen in movies.

Other companies have attempted the same idea. The Live2D technology widely seen in Japanese anime industry and the animoji on iPhone X are both great examples.

But Digital Domain wants to make a difference with their movie-ready equipment.

How can they deliver such high-quality images to our phones and VR goggles, which have very limited computing power?

"I think when 5G appears, it will totally change the industry," Seah told CGTN.

He strongly believes that hardware is not a big issue compared to the convenience and enjoyment his technology can bring to us.

Digital Domain is now partnering with China's selfie app maker Meitu to provide "social networking and entertainment" business to the consumer market.