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NVIDIA reveals NVIDIA ACE - A generative AI for game characters - Could AI character dialog be coming to games sooner than we thought?

Raploz

Member
NVIDIA released on their channel a demo for a new technology called NVIDIA ACE. According to them:

"NVIDIA ACE for Games is a new foundry for intelligent in-game characters powered by generative AI. Developers of middleware, tools, and games can use NVIDIA ACE for Games to build and deploy customized speech, conversation, and animation AI models in their software and games. "

The demo shows an NPC responding to the player's voice. Not only is the text AI generated but also the NPC voice and animation:



For some reason, the video aspect ratio is extremely wide.

What do you think? And are you excited or worried about AI being used in games? Could it make games more generic or could it enhance the experience of playing a game to a whole new level?
 

March Climber

Gold Member
It's good to see them jumping on this train. It reminds me a lot InWorld AI:



Even the voice inflections that still need some work from sounding a bit too monotone.
 

feynoob

Banned
That is a nice AI that you got there friend. Mine if I borrowed it?
XPzVme6_d.webp
 
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64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
sounds robotic, lifeless and boring. we're a couple years away from a more convincing, human like display. if even Nvidia can't make it NOT look like a videogame the tech isn't really there, yet. Let's leave it to ChatGPT and image generation for now.

to be less critical, the fast response of the guy is pretty cool. previous demos of AI tech would have the responder wait a second or so to reply, this is instantaneous. It's not good (yet) but it's better than most.
 
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Tokio Blues

Gold Member
It's a bit risky to let an AI control the narrative of a video game. Imagine what would happen to all the lore created. Besides that it would be unique and different for each player, each conversation, each reaction or response. Don't know bro. I prefer things as they are now.
 

Shh

Member
NVIDIA released on their channel a demo for a new technology called NVIDIA ACE. According to them:

"NVIDIA ACE for Games is a new foundry for intelligent in-game characters powered by generative AI. Developers of middleware, tools, and games can use NVIDIA ACE for Games to build and deploy customized speech, conversation, and animation AI models in their software and games. "

The demo shows an NPC responding to the player's voice. Not only is the text AI generated but also the NPC voice and animation:



For some reason, the video aspect ratio is extremely wide.

What do you think? And are you excited or worried about AI being used in games? Could it make games more generic or could it enhance the experience of playing a game to a whole new level?

giphy.gif


That is some incredibly lifeless voice work.
 

March Climber

Gold Member
Honestly this shit is as lame as when it was the Milo fake Kinect shit by Microsoft

Cultivated stories like Rockstar and Naughty Dog make are going to become even more important
It's a bit risky to let an AI control the narrative of a video game. Imagine what would happen to all the lore created. Besides that it would be unique and different for each player, each conversation, each reaction or response. Don't know bro. I prefer things as they are now.
You guys are looking at this the wrong way. Quests(main and side) should always be quests, written by creatives. This tech, on the other hand, will greatly improve interactions amongst smaller/unimportant NPCs that usually only have one liners. Now they will have more than that and feel more involved when talking with them.

If they ever make a request it would be like those unimportant Skyrim requests where you might get a few gold for trading a tusk or something.
 

marjo

Member
The voice generation is terrible. This would be better with text output. Even so, the actual dialogue is quite stilted. ChatGPT can roleplay characters much better than this.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
The AI response (both voice quality and words) are terrible. Nobody sounds like that. Nothing like a Q&A about crime having a robotic voice with perfect grammar like it's an essay in English class.
 

Hugare

Gold Member
It's good to see them jumping on this train. It reminds me a lot InWorld AI:



Even the voice inflections that still need some work from sounding a bit too monotone.

This is so much better than Nvidia's demo

Like, a generation better

Not to mention that we dont know how scripted the demo was

Graphically the demo looks awesome. But everything else sucks.

I'm much more interesting about games using ChatGPT with voice AI
 
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Moochi

Member
It's going to take a new studio, not a AAA company with too much to lose, to use this tech right. It will be incredibly controversial, but extremely successful in the right hands. Censorship is the death of creativity.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
This is so much better than Nvidia's demo

Like, a generation better

Not to mention that we dont know how scripted the demo was

Graphically the demo looks awesome. But everything else sucks.

I'm much more interesting about games using ChatGPT with voice AI
I'm not going to judge the words as it's medieval times and not modern day people talking (script), but the voice quality is 1000x better than the Nvidia demo.
 

CGNoire

Member
Fast response time...and thats about it.

For the most part this was underwhelming. Not only was the Voice Over awefull and completly wooden but the animation and facial acting was far from acceptable.
 

reksveks

Member
Fast response time...and thats about it.
That's quite important but I am expecting some more focused LLM with questionable sources of training material to make it possible cheaply in terms of computation and quickly for dev's.

I do agree it's a bad demo though.
 

CGNoire

Member
That's quite important but I am expecting some more focused LLM with questionable sources of training material to make it possible cheaply in terms of computation and quickly for dev's.

I do agree it's a bad demo though.
O I agree. The response time here isnt just fast but a super important milestone. Now about that acting....
 

Shh

Member
I dont know why you are so against it. It will be great for indies and AA which don't have budget for good Voice Acting or good writers.
We're not against it. We're against the fact that in its current state ... it's complete balls. The potential is there, but this demo is trash.
 
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Shh

Member
All the new tech is complete balls at the first iteration.
This demo is trash. It's not impressive in any way, shape, form, fashion, dimension, or being. And no, not all new tech is complete balls in its first iteration. There's been impressive things happening in the last few years. This is not one of them. The potential is there. Again ... this demo is garbage.
 
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reksveks

Member
All the new tech is complete balls at the first iteration.
There is an art to showing demo's at the right time as Google found out with Bard and Apple knows well.

I think it's just a bad demo that will be forgotten. There is some real copyright/ip issues that society needs to figure out but that's a different topic.
 
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Chukhopops

Member
We're not against it. We're against the fact that in its current state ... it's complete balls. The potential is there, but this demo is trash.
To be honest this is a very fast changing technology, if you’ve used SD for example the difference is gigantic between SD2 and SD1.5 despite the two releases being separated by a few months.

I agree it was too early to be shown and most likely just done as PR to show they are leaders in the AI race.
 

Nico_D

Member
If anything, this might force some of the industry writers try a bit harder. Often dialogue isn't the strongest suite in games.
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
NVIDIA released on their channel a demo for a new technology called NVIDIA ACE. According to them:

"NVIDIA ACE for Games is a new foundry for intelligent in-game characters powered by generative AI. Developers of middleware, tools, and games can use NVIDIA ACE for Games to build and deploy customized speech, conversation, and animation AI models in their software and games. "

The demo shows an NPC responding to the player's voice. Not only is the text AI generated but also the NPC voice and animation:



For some reason, the video aspect ratio is extremely wide.

What do you think? And are you excited or worried about AI being used in games? Could it make games more generic or could it enhance the experience of playing a game to a whole new level?

Its wide so they have less pixels to render and pretend that it is cinematic.

I am not impressed by this because the dialogue is boring like a typical shitty NPC quest giver. If this is all it is going to do, it is lame. If it will be used to make the dialogue update as the game world is changed by what the user has done, then that is something I can get behind.

I am not sure how these things will work. I could see an application where the models improve because the game is online. So it learns from all player interactions, etc. Would that make the game better after a lot have played it or would it make it worse if the game is popular among assholes?
 

SaintALia

Member
Well that was.....kinda useless:

A) The dialogue seems very dry and easily something that a script writer can do, and do it better.

B) The animation seems stiff and the voice seems robotic and lifeless.

I think if you're employing this technology, you need to put it under script writer's efforts as a fill-in. When gamers go to NPCs, it's typically for vital information, and then the rest for fucking around. the AI could be useful for filling in for the 'fucking around' part, when the 'vital info' script runs out. But then you'd need to code in some sort of personality for each of these NPC's or give them a 'personality set', like gruff and tough, meek and friendly, sly and devious etc and have that reflected in their speech, otherwise they all come off as weird clones.

It could be VERY useful for companion AI, like the pawns in Dragons Dogma or Mass Effect, where characters learn and grow alongside the player.

Don't know about the voice though, on the surface it kinda seems fine, but there's something underneath that seems very off, I just don't know what it is. It sorta misses that sort of 'warmth' in a voice, if that makes sense. Which is weird, because I watch those Presidents videos and they don't seem that bad, but with stuff like this, it's very noticeable.
 
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64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
Wont look or sound good till maybe 2040.
LOL you're pushing it here. 2040 is ridiculous.

Keep in mind we've gone from crude AI images in 2020 to stuff that won an art compettiion in 2022. this stuff progresses fast, and Nvidia's at the forefront of it, not to mention all their other AI technologies for animation. It'll still take a long time, but i can imagine we'll see drastically better results in 2026/2027. Maybe 2029 if we're pessimistic about it
 
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Hugare

Gold Member
I just hope A.I. doesn't put voice actors out of work.
jeff goldblum life finds a way GIF


There'll still be AAA narrative driven games that will use actors for voice acting. Because they use mocap, so actors will still have to act.

In games such as Skyrim and such? Open world games in general? Yeah, AI will take over
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
The concept is cool but it feels very robotic still, and they aren't really demonstrating much in this video beyond its ability to state the quest.

I do look forward to seeing AI be able to generate more believable background NPCs, like a bar full of people talking to each other or moving around in a believable way. Might still be a ways off.
 

Shh

Member
To be honest this is a very fast changing technology, if you’ve used SD for example the difference is gigantic between SD2 and SD1.5 despite the two releases being separated by a few months.

I agree it was too early to be shown and most likely just done as PR to show they are leaders in the AI race.
This wasn't a good demo to show leadership in anything. I know it will improve and it will improve quickly, but this was embarrassing.
 

March Climber

Gold Member
This wasn't a good demo to show leadership in anything. I know it will improve and it will improve quickly, but this was embarrassing.
Just like with Gamescom demonstrations, this demonstration means way more for developers than consumers like yourself. Seeing a version 1.0 of something new that can help devs will obviously look bad to consumers, but that’s the risk these companies take so that the devs’ eyes will witness this.

Even if there are only a handful of devs on GAF(who barely post), they should have seen it by now and they have received the message.
 

sertopico

Member
Smokes and mirros as fuck.
PhysX and RT in a nutshell.

The demo was a bit underwhelming. It's a start I guess. The script in particular... "Hey whats'up?" "Not so good. There is a mafia boss bothering me" "Oh such a shame. Can I do anything about it?" "Yes I even know where he hangs out cause I'm just a random guy in a ramen shop who knows where these bad boys spend their time." "Ok cool."
 
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Shh

Member
Just like with Gamescom demonstrations, this demonstration means way more for developers than consumers like yourself. Seeing a version 1.0 of something new that can help devs will obviously look bad to consumers, but that’s the risk these companies take so that the devs’ eyes will witness this.

Even if there are only a handful of devs on GAF(who barely post), they should have seen it by now and they have received the message.
Again, the potential is there. The demo is trash.
 
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