[db48x]

It’s easy but a bit data intensive. Take two 3D splat images at different times, optimize them, then interpolate from the first to the second. Repeat at intervals. Now you have a video. A full moving subject is about 500Mbps, although it depends a lot on the quality of the source images that you make the 3D splats from and how detailed the output image is. Search for “4D gaussian splats” to find references.

[cubefox]

That's just animation like an animated GIF: a series of static frames. What's more interesting is animation in the sense of deformation, as in skeletal/skinned meshes. These deformations require minimal data and can be generated dynamically.

[db48x]

I can’t think of any reason why it would be impossible to implement skeletal animation of gaussian splats. You still have to create the splats from images though. Just have your subject put their right arm in, then take your images and generate the second splat. Now you can interpolate between them to move the right arm. At least in that one axis. Repeat for other joints. Have them put their whole self in and turn them selves about, etc. How hard could it be? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIqCSpuDwBE