NVIDIA has been working on adding generative AI to non-player characters (NPCs) for some time now. During the Game Developers Conference, it showedhow developers can use its artificial intelligence «digital human» tools to voice, animate, and create dialogues for video game characters.
NVIDIA also hopes that the recently announced partnership with Ubisoft will accelerate the development of this technology and ultimately bring these AI-driven NPCs to modern games. Ubisoft helped to create the new «NEO NPCs» using NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) technology and with the participation of dynamic NPC experts from gaming startup Inworld AI. As a result, it was possible to create non-player characters that can communicate in a variety of ways, rather than repeating a limited list of pre-prepared phrases over and over again, ignoring the game environment.
These NEO NPCs don’t just communicate differently. They interact in real time with players, the environment, and other game characters. NVIDIA claims that this opens up «new possibilities for telling new stories». As a proof of concept, Ubisoft’s writing team created complete backgrounds, knowledge bases, and conversation styles for two NPCs to demonstrate the technology’s capabilities.
These are carefully crafted characters with «environmental and contextual awareness» and conversational memory. NVIDIA says each character is distinguished by «collaboration and strategic decision-making». The company has also brought in its Audio2Face technology to ensure appropriate facial animation and lip synchronization during atypical conversations. NVIDIA proposes that these characters will push the «boundaries of game design and immersion».
The company did not directly announce that this technology will appear in Ubisoft games in the near future, but you can be sure that it is on its roadmap. Perhaps soon, players will be able to meet a nice old man at an inn in the game who will say everything he thinks about the fact that the player has completely destroyed the entire city.
Source: Engadget