NVIDIA has made an exciting announcement during its presentation at Computex 2023. They introduced the Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) for Games service, which aims to enhance non-player characters (NPCs) in video games, making them smarter and more realistic. With this new service, developers will have the ability to create their own AI models to generate natural speech and movements for NPCs, including dialogues.
Powered by NVIDIA Omniverse, ACE for Games provides optimized core AI models for speech, conversation, and character animation. It includes NVIDIA NeMo, which enables developers to create, configure, and deploy language models based on their own datasets. This allows for customization of larger language models to suit characters’ stories and backstories while ensuring safe and productive conversations with NeMo Guardrails.
NVIDIA Riva, another component, offers automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech capabilities, enabling natural real-time conversations in games. Additionally, NVIDIA Omniverse Audio2Face enables the instant creation of expressive facial animations for game characters based on speech tracks. It integrates seamlessly with Unreal Engine 5 through Omniverse connectors, facilitating the addition of facial animation to MetaHuman characters.
Developers have the flexibility to integrate the entire ACE for Games solution or selectively use the components that best suit their needs. NVIDIA has partnered with Convai, a startup focused on developing advanced conversational AI for virtual game worlds, to showcase the capabilities of ACE for Games. Convai has integrated ACE modules into its real-time avatar platform, and in a demo called Kairos, players interact with Jin, the NPC cafe owner. Jin responds realistically to natural language queries, aligning with the game’s storyline, thanks to the power of generative AI.
NVIDIA ACE for Games offers neural networks optimized for various requirements, including size, performance, and quality. It empowers developers to fine-tune models for their games and deploy them via NVIDIA DGX cloud systems or directly to GeForce RTX PCs with real-time feedback.
With NVIDIA’s ACE for Games service and its partnerships with innovative companies, the future of NPCs in video games looks promising. The enhanced realism and interaction provided by generative AI will undoubtedly elevate the gaming experience and push the boundaries of virtual worlds.
