Chapter 1210 The New Achievements of the Horse Laboratory

Thursday, September 6.

In Chixing Studio, employees are busy working on the development of the new VR game "Real Estate Agent Simulator".

After the tempering and running-in of "Animal Island", the entire development team has made significant progress, the cooperation has become more tacit, and the development process has become smoother.

Even Cai Jiadong, the chief designer, is more handy.

He seems to have gradually acquired Tenda's design ideas and methods, which are more and more matched with Lin Wan's ideas, and gradually become a qualified chief designer.

After working on the computer for a while, he took the printed document and went to Lin Wan to report his work.

At this time, Lin Wan was looking at the computer screen attentively, frowning slightly, as if thinking about something very important.

Seeing Cai Jiadong coming, Lin Wan temporarily looked away from the computer screen.

"Mr. Lin, have you read the small program that was still in the experimental stage sent by the Ruma Artificial Intelligence Laboratory? How do you feel?"

"If it could be used, it would not only drastically shorten the development time of our entire project, but it could also have a certain impact on the specific design of the game."

Lin Wan was stunned for a moment: "Oh, I've been thinking about other things recently, and I haven't had time to watch it. What do you think of the effect?"

Cai Jiadong answered truthfully: "I think... the effect is unexpectedly good."

Lin Wan did not expect Cai Jiadong to give such a high evaluation.

This small program was just sent to Tengda Games and Shangyang Games by Ruma Lab two days ago. It is said that it is an artificial intelligence program that is still in the experimental stage. Let them try it first and give their opinions.

Because Lin Wan has a close relationship with Shangyang Games, this program was naturally sent to Chixing Studio.

Anyway, it is Tengda's internal industry, and the family does not speak two words.

Lin Wan has been a little busy these two days, so I haven't had time to watch it.

The reason why she didn't care too much was mainly because she felt that this thing would definitely not be very reliable.

The current interactive movie games, or some RPG games that have a lot of dialogue and need to express the character's expressions and speech at close range, all use motion capture technology and use actors to play.

Motion capture technology can not only capture body movements, but also the subtle expressions of the face. In the process of saying the lines, the actor captures the face while recording, and then applies this data to the model created with the actor as the prototype, which can show a very realistic effect in the game.

Of course, if you are not satisfied with the actor's line skills, you can also find another person to dub it to achieve better results.

But this approach also has a problem, that is, the workload is too large, and it is not very free.

Once the plot dialogue is set, it cannot be changed arbitrarily, otherwise even if it is just to add a sentence, the motion capture actors will have to be invited to re-record.

This program of the Ruma Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is said to be an alternative to facial motion capture technology. The specific principle is to automatically generate the facial movements of the characters through intelligent analysis of the voice content, synthesizing the past motion capture data in the editor. In other words, it can also be considered an automatic lip-synching.

Roughly similar to some software that makes photos sing, but is said to be better.

Lin Wan was a little skeptical about this.

Can it be a concept that is automatically generated by the program and performed by the motion capture actors?

President Pei has high requirements for the game "Real Estate Agency Simulator". It must be modeled with the same high precision as "Struggle". At the same time, all movements are captured by real people, so as to bring players a kind of body as much as possible. The real feeling of being there.

If the movements of the NPCs in it are stiff and their expressions are distorted, there will be more dramas and the whole game will be flawed.

Maybe it will also trigger the Uncanny Valley Effect, which will startle players.

After all, the sense of substitution of VR games is far from that of conventional games.

But now listening to Cai Jiadong, the effect is unexpectedly good?

Lin Wan couldn't help but get interested and checked it on his computer.

The game "Real Estate Agent Simulator" has been in development for a month, and a lot of character models have been made so far.

Due to the existence of the official platform simulator, making this kind of character model is actually a pinch process, and you don't need to do it all from scratch. Moreover, the game "Struggle" that President Pei once made, although most of them are Westerners, but after a little modification, many characters can still be used directly.

As soon as he got the program, Cai Jiadong arranged for the designer to make a few cutscenes with the existing models and recorded them.

Lin Wan quickly finished watching the cutscene and asked after a moment of silence, "This is automatically generated with a new program? Isn't it motion capture?"

Cai Jiadong nodded: "It is completely automatically generated. However, the current support for foreign languages ​​is not particularly good."

Lin Wan was silent.

It doesn't matter whether the support for foreign languages ​​is good or not. Anyway, the game "Real Estate Agency Simulator" was originally only for domestic players. Even if the response of the game is very good and a multilingual version is planned, it will be a few months after the release.

This effect is really amazing!

The expressions of the characters in the game are very natural, and there is no feeling of rigid movements and distorted expressions.

Of course, it can't be as seamless as live-action motion capture, where voice and facial movements work together flawlessly.

But as long as you don't stare intently at the character's lips, you're basically not aware of the difference.

In fact, it is enough to achieve this level. After all, many foreign film and television dramas are re-dubbed after the mouth shape is completely wrong, and the audience will not find it strange when they are used to it. And the facial expressions automatically generated by this program are much more natural than this re-dubbed film and television drama.

"Based on the current situation, this technology can be directly used in the "Real Estate Agent Simulator"."

"and……"

Lin Wan's eyes suddenly lit up: "Isn't this just a solution to the problem that has been bothering us before?"

"No wonder, we always felt that this problem could not be solved well before, and our hearts were not at ease. Now it seems that Pei has always been prepared long ago, knowing that this new achievement of the Ruma Laboratory can solve this problem?"

The emergence of a new technology often also affects the thinking of game design.

Before, Lin Wan and Cai Jiadong were very worried about the design details of the core gameplay in "Real Estate Agency Simulator".

According to the original setting, one of the core gameplay of this game is to sell houses.

The basic process of this gameplay is that players get a new house type, remodel and rearrange the house, use the funds in their hands to repair it, replace the furniture, and then go to receive guests and answer different questions during the introduction. In the end, the price fluctuates to a certain extent, which facilitates the transaction.

This gameplay is throughout the game, but at the beginning, there may be no funds on hand, and you cannot make changes to the room. After being picked out by customers, you can only reduce the rent to facilitate the transaction. In the later stage, problems with the house can be discovered in advance and solved before the customer comes to see the house.

But in the process of designing this core gameplay, Lin Wan and Cai Jiadong encountered a little problem.

Obviously, this is a repetitive play and if not done well, players will quickly get bored.

Assuming that the customers who come every time look the same, ask the same questions, and have similar conversations, actions, and behaviors, players will probably get bored quickly, and this core gameplay will not support the game experience at all.

Therefore, how to make this game like a MOBA game, no matter how many times it is repeated, it will still be fresh, at least make players feel that every customer they encounter will be brand new, and they are full of expectations for receiving the next customer, this is the decision The top priority of the gaming experience.

The problem is multifaceted.

To solve the problem of looks, the customer's appearance can be automatically generated by the program.

There are similar functions in the face pinching system of many games, and it is not difficult to do.

Of course, the face automatically generated by the face pinching system may be incongruous. For example, she is clearly a woman in business attire, but has a mohawk hairstyle, ear studs, and an exaggerated tattoo on her forehead. Look how strange.

Therefore, some more patches have to be applied to this system to limit the identity of this person through algorithms, and lock some specific elements in the face pinching accordingly, so that the appearance of the character does not deviate too far from the original design.

The problem of looks is solved, and the next step is action.

This is relatively easy to solve. After all, in the room, there are only a few actions that NPCs can do: sitting on the sofa, drinking tea, watching from the window, leaning over to observe the corner, and so on.

These actions can be arranged in advance, and several matching actions can be performed according to the gender, body shape, and age of the character, and they can be automatically triggered according to the algorithm in the room.

In addition, NPC will also have corresponding body movements when speaking, which is also easy to handle.

In short, these are all problems that can be solved with heap volume.

As long as the amount of action is piled up, automatically extracted through random algorithms, and combined with different appearance, body shape and other factors, it can be done pretty well.

The most important issue is the content of the speech.

In the core gameplay of the game, each house has corresponding problems, such as the lack of transparency from the north to the south, the bedroom is too small, the bathroom is not clean, the windows are not well insulated, and so on.

Of course, there are also corresponding advantages.

Players can see the room by themselves before customers come. After reading it, the system will give several options for players to choose, for example, whether the room type is square, whether it is transparent from north to south, how the lighting is, and so on.

The player's choice at this time represents the correctness of the player's understanding of the house, and also affects the options when answering the NPC's question.

When taking the NPC to see the house, the NPC will ask questions about the house, and the player needs to select the corresponding option to respond. If you choose the right one, it will be fine. If you choose the wrong one, it will lower the customer's evaluation of the house, and either the price will drop or the transaction will fall through.

Of course, these questions are also set up, using a lot of professional knowledge.

These contents are not difficult to do. If you communicate with the sloth apartment more, you can set a standard answer for each apartment type.

But the biggest problem is... NPC expresses these problems, how to deal with the specific words used?

The same question must be answered differently by different people.

For example, some people may say "the house is not well lit", some people will say "it's too dark here", some people will say "the building opposite is shaded" and so on.

If all the NPCs said "the house is not well lit", it would be very stiff.

But this problem cannot be solved by heap size.

If you still use the previous motion capture method, then you need to re-move the motion capture every time you change the statement. People of different body types have different facial expressions when speaking, and motion capture cannot be mixed. Then the same meaning below A variety of expressions, may have to be recorded several times.

If it is other story-driven interactive games, this is not a big problem, it is nothing more than a little more work and a few more recordings.

But "Real Estate Agency Simulator" is different. There are too many problems and too many problems, but there is no key improvement to the game experience.

If you don’t do it, it’s not perfect enough, it’s not perfect enough, and it’s easy for players to play;

To do it, the resources paid are too many, too many to bear, and the cost performance is extremely low.

So I am embarrassed, it is not appropriate to do it, and it is not appropriate not to do it.

But now with the artificial intelligence program of the trojan laboratory, this problem is solved at once!

This way, there is no need to motion capture every sentence, just the dubbing is enough.

The workload of simple dubbing is too small, and you can even go to the Internet to collect, so that many enthusiastic players can help with dubbing. After importing these dubbings, the program will automatically generate the facial movements of the characters according to the audio, and with certain body language and movements, you can create a feeling of thousands of people and thousands of faces.

Cai Jiadong said with emotion: "I'll just say it! When I was working on the design details of this piece before, I was wondering, this problem can't be solved under the existing conditions! Did President Pei design this game without Do you think of that?"

"Now it seems that President Pei has obviously thought of it for a long time. He must have known the recent research results of the Ruma Laboratory, so he made us make such a game!"

Lin Wan nodded: "That's for sure."

"Then don't hesitate, just do it!"

"By the way, the sloth apartment has already sent a new batch of room type information, you can check it and give it to the designers."

Cai Jiadong nodded and said, "Okay."

After establishing the project to develop this game, Lin Wan directly found Liang Qingfan and asked him to cooperate with the development.

Speaking of this knowledge, who can be more professional than Liang Qingfan?

There are a lot of architects and designers in the sloth apartment, who specialize in how to remodel the room type. As long as you send someone to collect information on various room types on the Internet, and then sort out the advantages and disadvantages of these room types, you can send them to Chi. Run the studio and do it directly in the game.

Of course, there is no need for Lin Wan to worry about these matters. It is the work of the chief designer, Cai Jiadong.

Watching Cai Jiadong leave, Lin Wan leaned back on the chair and let out a long breath.

"Huh... Fortunately, Liang Qingfan was not taken away."

"If he is caught, although he can go to the sloth apartment to find another architect, he is definitely not as reliable as him."

"Speaking of which... President Pei suddenly arrested the people in charge for special training. What's the situation..."

Yesterday, Lin Wan felt something was wrong.

Although she has come to Chixing Studio, she is still in the chat group of the people in charge of Tenda.

Usually, everyone has something to do, and they often share the status quo of various departments, and the group is quite lively.

As a result, yesterday, the whole group suddenly became deserted, and a few people who usually bubbling a lot didn't say a word.

Lin Wan felt that something was wrong. After inquiring with Wang Xiaobin today, he found out that the heads of ten core departments, including Ye Zhizhou, had been arrested...

Lin Wan was taken aback and thought that this group of people were doing bad things behind their backs and got caught by President Pei, but after asking carefully, they were actually taken to the special training base...

Including the Ruma Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, which had helped a lot not long ago, Shen Renjie, the person in charge, was taken away by a set like the other leaders.

Fortunately, Liang Qingfan of the sloth apartment survived, otherwise the development of the game at Chixing Studio would be affected.

Lin Wan's senses were very keen, and immediately felt that this matter was no trivial matter.

After a little inquiries in the group, we successfully got the first batch of the list of the special training base, a total of ten people, namely Huang Sibo, Hu Xianbin, Xiao Peng, Rui Yuchen, Ye Zhizhou, Shen Renjie, Guo Licheng, He Desheng, Chen Yufeng, A herd of horses.

"The special training base has just opened, and it has to be done step by step. We can't train too many people at once, so there are only ten people in the first batch, which is reasonable."

"But...why are these ten people and not the others?"

"There are so many heads of various departments in Tenda, there must be a corresponding evaluation standard, right?"

"Mr. Pei attaches great importance to this matter, and even if it temporarily affects the work, he must arrange all the heads of the core departments. Obviously, it is for some special purpose. And this purpose is even more profitable than short-term work or even profit. important."

"Just to support Bao Xu's work? That's definitely impossible. Pei is always a person with a clear distinction between public and private. After all, what he does is still beneficial to Tengda."

"If it looks bad in the short term, that means it must be good in the long run."

"What is the real intention of President Pei..."

"Well, maybe we should start with this list. As long as we understand the criteria for President Pei to select this list, we should be able to roughly infer President Pei's true intentions..."

Lin Wan looked at the computer screen again, lost in thought.

Although she is no longer the person in charge of Tenda, she has been paying attention to the internal trends of Tenda. After all, all the troubles within Tengda represent President Pei's will, and President Pei's behavior often implies deep meaning, and it will be beneficial to learn a lot.

The surrounding area is tentatively set to be Mr. Pei's blanket, Tenda's spirit manual, question mark hat, original character painting album, and Li Shi's soup bowl. The main reason is that these are relatively easy to make and easy to produce results, while backpacks and the like are not very good. It will be rejected for the time being~ During this time, we may need to do some design and communication for these surrounding areas, such as re-reading the content of the Tenda Spirit Manual, and I will go to Shanghai in two days for official business, so this Updates may not be stable over time