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Thursday, September 6th.

In Chixing Studio, employees are busy developing the new VR game "Real Estate Agency 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 main designer, is even more skillful.

He seemed to gradually get Tengda's design ideas and methods, which became increasingly consistent with Lin Wan's ideas, and gradually became a qualified main designer.

After working on the computer for a while, he took the printed documents 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 turned his gaze away from the computer screen.

"Mr. Lin, have you read the mini program sent by Yanma Artificial Intelligence Laboratory before, which is still in the experimental stage? How do you feel?"

"If it can be used, it will not only greatly shorten the development time of our entire project, but may also have a certain impact on the specific design plan of the game."

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

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

Lin Wan didn't expect Cai Jiadong to give such a high evaluation.

This mini program was sent to Tengda Games and Shangyang Games two days ago. It was said that it was an artificial intelligence program that was still in the experimental stage, so they could try it first and give suggestions.

Because Lin Wan and Shang Yang Game are closely related, this program is naturally sent to Chi Xing Studio.

Anyway, it is Tengda's internal industry, and each family doesn't speak two words.

Lin Wan was a little busy these two days, so she hadn't had time to watch it.

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

Currently, interactive movie games, or some RPG games that have more conversations and require close-up expressions and speaking, all use motion capture technology and use actors to play.

Motion capture technology can not only capture body movements, but also capture subtle expressions of the face. When an actor speaks lines, he captures the face while recording, and then applies this data to a model created based on the actors, 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 someone to dub to achieve better results.

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

Once the plot dialogue is settled, it cannot be changed randomly, otherwise even if you just add a sentence, you have to ask the motion capture actor to come and record it again.

This program from Sama Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is said to be an alternative to facial motion capture technology. The specific principle is to automatically generate the character's facial movements through intelligent analysis of voice content and integrate past motion capture data in the editor. In other words, it can also be considered as automatic lip-sync.

It's roughly the same as some software that lets photos sing, but it is said to be better.

Lin Wan was a little skeptical about this.

Can it be the same as the motion capture actors who automatically generate the program?

Mr. Pei has high requirements for the game "Real Estate Agency Simulator". It must be modeled as high as "Struggle". At the same time, all the actions are captured by real-life motion, giving players an immersive and real feeling as much as possible.

If the NPC's movements are stiff and the expressions are distorted, then there will be more dramas and the whole game will have flaws.

Maybe it will also trigger the uncanny valley effect, which will scare players.

After all, the sense of substitution of VR games is far from being comparable to unconventional games, and a slight mistake can be a huge mistake.

But now I heard from Cai Jiadong that the effect is unexpectedly good?

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

The game "Real Estate Agency Simulator" has been developed for a month, and so far, many character models have been made.

Due to the existence of the official platform simulator, making this character model is actually a process of pinching people, and it does not require all to be done from scratch. Moreover, although most of the game "Struggle" that Mr. Pei once made is Western, after a slight change, many characters can still be used directly.

As soon as I got this program, Cai Jiadong arranged for the designer to use the current model to make a few cuts and record them.

Lin Wan quickly finished watching the cutscene, and after a moment of silence, he asked, "Is this automatically generated with a new program? Not a motion capture?"

Cai Jiadong nodded: "It is completely automatic. However, the support for foreign languages ​​is not particularly good at present."

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 game responds well and plans to create a multilingual version, it will have to be released a few months later.

This effect is really amazing!

The characters' expressions in the game are very natural, without any stiff movements or distorted expressions.

Of course, it is impossible to be as tight as real-life motion capture, and the voice and facial movements are perfectly matched.

But as long as you don't stare at the character's lips with all your concentration, you basically can't notice anything unusual.

In fact, it is enough to achieve this level. After all, many foreign film and television dramas have no lip shape after re-dubbing, and the audience will not feel strange if they get used to it. The facial expressions automatically generated by this program are naturally more natural than those re-dubbing film and television dramas.

"From the current situation, this technology can be used directly in the "Real Estate Agency Simulator".

"and……"

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

"No wonder, we always felt that this problem was not solved well before, and we were uneasy. Now it seems that Pei has already prepared and knows that this new achievement of Sama Lab can solve this problem?"

The emergence of a new technology will often affect the idea 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 initial setting, one of the core gameplay of this game is selling houses.

The basic process of this gameplay is that the player gets a new house, renovates, redecorates the house, uses the funds in his hands to repair it, replaces furniture, and then goes to receive guests, answers different questions during the introduction process, and finally floats the price to facilitate the transaction.

This gameplay runs throughout the game, but at the beginning, you may not have funds at hand and be unable to make changes to the room. After the customer has found a problem, you can only reduce the rent to facilitate the transaction. In the later stage, you can discover the house problem in advance and solve it 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 gameplay, and if it is not done well, players will soon get bored.

Assuming that the customers who come each time look the same, ask the same questions, conversations, actions, and behaviors are similar, then players may soon feel bored, and this core gameplay cannot support the game experience at all.

Therefore, how to make this game look like a moba game, it still feels fresh no matter how many times it is repeated, at least it makes players feel that every time they meet, it will be brand new, and full of expectations for the customers they receive next time is the top priority that determines the game experience.

This problem is multifaceted.

To solve the problem of appearance, you can automatically generate the customer's appearance through the program.

Many games have similar functions in their face-pinching systems, which are not difficult to do.

Of course, the face automatically generated according to the face pinching system may be more inconsistent. For example, although she is a woman wearing a professional attire, she has a moxie hairstyle, earrings, and an exaggerated tattoo on her forehead. It must be strange if she looks at it.

Therefore, there are still some patches to limit the identity of this person through algorithms, and lock some specific elements in the face accordingly, so that the appearance of the character will not deviate too far from the original character.

The problem of appearance has been solved, and the next step is the action.

This is relatively easy to solve. After all, in the room, NPC can do only a few actions: sitting on the sofa, drinking tea, looking out from the window, leaning over to observe the corner, etc.

These actions can be arranged in advance, and several supporting actions can be done according to the character's gender, body shape, and age, and automatically triggered in the room according to the algorithm.

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

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

As long as you pile up the action volume, automatically extract it through a random algorithm, and combine different appearance, body shape and other factors, you can do it very differently.

The most critical issue is the content of the speech.

In the core gameplay of the game, each house has corresponding problems, such as the north and south not being transparent, the bedroom is too small, the bathroom is not clean, the windows are not soundproof, etc.

Of course, they also have corresponding advantages.

Before the customer comes, players can view the house by themselves. After the viewing, the system will give players several options to choose, such as whether the room type is square, whether it is transparent from north to south, how to lighting, etc.

The player's choice at this time represents the correctness of the player's understanding of the house and will also affect the options when answering NPC questions.

When taking NPC to see a house, NPC will ask questions about the house, and players need to choose the corresponding option to respond. If you choose the right one, there is no problem. If you choose the wrong one, it will reduce the customer's evaluation of the house. At that time, either the price will be reduced or the transaction will fail.

Of course, these problems are also set up well, and a lot of professional knowledge is used.

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

But the biggest problem is...NPC's expression of these problems is, how to deal with the specific words and sentences used?

For the same question, different people must have different Q&A methods.

For example, some people may say "the house is not good at lighting", some people may say "it's too dark here", and some people may say "the building opposite is covered", etc.

If all NPCs say "the house is not well-lit", it will appear very stiff.

However, this problem cannot be solved by heap volume.

If you still use the previous method of motion capture, then every time you say it, you need to re-motion capture. People of different body shapes have different facial expressions when speaking, and motion capture cannot be mixed. Then the multiple expressions below the same meaning may have to be recorded several times.

If it is other interactive games driven by plots, this is not a big problem. It is nothing more than more workload and recording it several times.

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

If you don’t do it, it is not perfect enough, it is not extreme enough, and it is easy for players to get out of the show;

When doing it, you pay too many resources, which are too many to bear, and the cost-effectiveness is extremely low.
To be continued...