Nvidia has unveiled a new demonstration of its Nvidia Ace technology, which will make NPCs in video games more interactive thanks to AI. Some studios are already working to integrate it into their games.
During its GTC conference (GPU Technology Conference) Nvidia unveiled the new Ace display, its digital avatar technology designed for video games, but also for many other markets and industries.
Announced in May 2023, Nvidia Ace was officially presented in Las Vegas at CES 2024, a show during which we were able to test this new way of interacting with NPCs in video games. This time, the demo puts us through an actual game sequence and seems to deliver on its promises in a few minutes.
A new convincing demo
While the previous demonstration was designed in collaboration with Nvidia’s start-up partner Convai to create characters with AI, this one goes beyond a proof of concept.
in A covert protocol, you play as an agent investigating a hotel lobby to get a target’s room number. It is possible to interact with three characters who each have their own personality, their way of expressing themselves and answering questions.
Developed this time with Inworld AI Studio, this technological demo shows a definite evolution compared to the first: Nvidia Riva, which transcribes your speech into text to communicate with NPCs, seemed to us more reliable, as was the synthesis of the voices of these characters. , who seem less and less robotic.
Now that the player has an objective, we see the interactive potential of the technology, which allows you to more or less derail the main narrative thread to always offer different exchanges. If they are repeated many times or if you strike a sensitive chord, the characters organically adapt their tone depending on the questions. Thus they will be loyal to him Personality And will always remember your previous interactions with them to react differently.
Such a technological advancement would actually adapt very well to RPGs, the genre Skyrim And also Baldur’s Gate III, but also typically for games offering emergent gameplay such as immersive sims. We think specifically about series Hitman Or Deus Ex (RIP), which offers several ways to achieve your objective, including interacting with NPCs.
A technology is already ready for use
The Nvidia Ace suite can be easily integrated by game developers into their engines via a plugin for Unreal Engine 5 and Unity, we imagine, with technical support for all other studios using their own engines. We’ve already mentioned a few studios experimenting with the technology for their upcoming games, but no commercial projects have been confirmed yet.
Other fields of activity will be able to use these virtual characters, such as customer service, to replace highly scripted chatbots, but also health for patients to interact with virtual assistants for the most gentle requests.
Note that companies and developers looking to use Ace technology will go through specialized studios such as Nvidia’s various partners, Convai, Inworld AI or UneeQ, each with their own expertise.
