September 6th, Thursday …
In Slow Movement Workspace, the employees were busy developing the new VR game, Real Estate Agent Simulator.
After the tempering and running-in of Animal Island, the entire development team had improved significantly. They had a better teamwork, and the development process had become smoother.
Even Cai Jiadong, the chief designer, had become more proficient.
He seemed to be gradually getting Tengda's design ideas and methods. He was becoming more and more compatible with Lin Wan's ideas and gradually becoming a qualified chief designer.
After working on the computer for a while, he took the printed documents and went to report to Lin Wan.
At that moment, Lin Wan was focused on the computer screen. She frowned slightly as if she was thinking about something very important.
Lin Wan temporarily shifted her gaze away from the computer screen when she saw Cai Jiadong.
"Boss Lin, have you seen the small program that was still in the experimental stage that Nag Artificial Intelligence Laboratory sent us? How does it feel? "
"If it can be used, not only can it greatly shorten the development time of our entire project, but it might also have a certain impact on the specific design plan of the game."
Lin Wan was stunned. "Oh, I've been thinking about something else recently and haven't had the time to look at 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 had been sent to Tengda Games and Shang Yang Games by Nag Laboratory two days ago. It was said that it was an artificial intelligence program that was still in the experimental stage. They were asked to try it out and give their opinions.
Since Lin Wan had a close relationship with Shang Yang Games, this program was naturally sent to Slow Movement Workspace.
In any case, they were all Tengda's internal businesses. There was no need to say anything.
Lin Wan had been a little busy these two days, so she had not had the time to look at it.
The reason why she did not pay too much attention was mainly because she felt that this thing would definitely not be very reliable.
At the moment, interactive movie games or RPG games that had more conversations and needed to show the expressions and speech of the characters at close range all used motion capture technology and used actors to act.
Motion capture technology could not only capture body movements but also the subtle expressions of faces. When actors were saying their lines, they would record and capture their faces at the same time. Then, they would apply this data to the model created with the actors as the prototype. That way, they would be able to show a very realistic effect in the game.
Of course, if they were not satisfied with the actors' lines, they could find someone else to dub them to achieve a better effect.
However, there was also a problem with this method. It was too much work, and there was not much freedom.
Once the dialogue was set, it could not be changed. Otherwise, even if it was just adding a sentence, they would have to hire motion-capture actors to re-record it.
The program in the Nag Artificial Intelligence Laboratory was said to be an alternative to facial motion capture technology. The specific principle was to automatically generate the character's facial movements through intelligent analysis of the voice content and the past motion capture data in the editor. In other words, it could also be considered as automatic lip-syncing.
It was similar to some software that made photos sing, but it was said that the effect was better.
Lin Wan was a little doubtful.
It was automatically generated by a program, so how could it be the same concept as a motion capture actor?
Boss Pei had very high requirements for the Real Estate Agent Simulator. It had to be as high-precision as Struggle. At the same time, all the actions had to be captured using real people's movements. It had to give players as much of an immersive feeling as possible.
If the movements of the NPCs inside were stiff and their expressions were distorted, then the entire game would be flawed.
It might even trigger the Uncanny Valley effect, scaring the players.
After all, VR games were far more immersive than regular games. The slightest mistake could lead to a huge error.
However, Cai Jiadong said that the effect was unexpectedly good?
Lin Wan could not help but be interested as she checked on her computer.
The Real Estate Agent Simulator had been developed for a month, and many character models had been created so far.
Making such character models was actually a process of molding people due to the existence of the official platform's simulator. There was no need to start from scratch. What's more, Boss Pei had created the game 'Struggle'. Most of the characters could be used directly after some modifications even though it was mostly Westerners.
Cai Jiadong arranged for the designer to use the existing models to do a few scenes and record them as soon as he got the program.
Lin Wan quickly finished watching the scenes and asked after a moment of silence. "This was automatically generated by the new program? Not motion capture? "
Cai Jiadong nodded. "It's completely automatic. However, the support for foreign languages is not particularly good at the moment. "
Lin Wan was silent.
It did not matter whether the support for foreign languages was good or not. In any case, the Real Estate Agent Simulator was originally only targeted at domestic players. Even if the game's response was good and there were plans to release a multilingual version, that would only happen after a few months.
This effect was really amazing!
The expressions of the characters in the game were very natural. There was no stiffness in their movements or distortion in their expressions.
Of course, it could not be as seamless as a real person's motion capture where the voice and facial movements were perfectly matched.
However, as long as one did not stare at the character's lips intently, one would not be able to notice anything strange.
In fact, this was enough. After all, many foreign movies and dramas could not match the mouth shape at all after re-dubbing. The audience would not find it strange if they were used to it. The facial expressions generated by this program were much more natural than those in movies and dramas that were re-dubbed.
"Based on the current situation, this technology can be used directly in Real Estate Agent Simulator."
"What's more …"
Lin Wan's eyes suddenly lit up. "Wouldn't this solve the problem that had been troubling us before?"
"No wonder. We always felt that this problem could not be solved before and felt uneasy. Now, it seems like Boss Pei was prepared and knew that the new results of the Nag Laboratory could solve this problem?"
The appearance of a new technology would often affect the thinking of game design.
Previously, Lin Wan and Cai Jiadong had been very worried about the design details of the core gameplay in Real Estate Agent Simulator.
According to the original setting, one of the core gameplay of this game was to sell houses.
The basic process of this gameplay was that the player would obtain a new house type, modify and redecorate the house, use the funds in their hands to repair it, change the furniture, and then receive customers. During the introduction process, they would answer different questions. Finally, the price would fluctuate to a certain extent and facilitate the transaction.
This gameplay ran through the game. However, at the beginning, they might not have the funds to make changes to the room. After being criticized by customers, they could only reduce the rent to facilitate the transaction. In the later stages, they could discover the problems of the house in advance and solve them before customers came to look at the house.
However, Lin Wan and Cai Jiadong encountered a small problem in the process of designing this core gameplay.
Obviously, this was a repetitive gameplay. If it was not done well, players would soon get bored.
If the customers who came every time looked the same, asked the same questions, and had similar conversations, actions, and behaviors, players would probably get bored very quickly. This core gameplay would not be able to support the game experience.
Therefore, how could this game be like MOBA games? No matter how many times it was repeated, it would still feel fresh. At the very least, it would make players feel that the customers they met every time would be brand new. They would be filled with anticipation for the next customer. That was the most important thing that determined the game experience.
There were many aspects to this problem.
To solve the problem of appearance, they could automatically generate the appearance of the customer through the program.
Many games had similar functions in the face molding system. It was not difficult to do.
Of course, the face automatically generated by the face molding system might be more incongruous. For example, she was clearly a woman in professional attire, but she had a mohawk, earrings, and an exaggerated tattoo on her forehead. She would definitely look strange no matter how one looked at it.
Therefore, they had to make some more patches on this system. They had to limit the identity of this person through algorithms and lock some specific elements in the face molding accordingly so that the appearance of the character would not deviate too much from the original setting.
The problem of appearance was solved. Next was the action.
This was relatively easy to solve. After all, in the room, there were only a few actions that the NPC could do: sitting on the sofa, drinking tea, looking out the window, bending over to observe the corner, and so on.
These actions could be arranged in advance. According to the character's gender, body shape, and age, a few matching actions would be automatically triggered in the room according to the algorithm.
In addition, when the NPC spoke, there would be corresponding body movements. This was also easy to handle.
In short, these were all problems that could be solved by piling up.
As long as the amount of movement was piled up, it would be automatically selected by a random algorithm. Combined with different appearance, body shape, and other factors, it would not be too bad.
The most important problem was the content of the words.
In the core gameplay of the game, every house had its corresponding problems. For example, the north and south were not connected, the bedroom was too small, the bathroom was not clean, the windows were not soundproof, and so on.
Of course, they all had their own advantages.
Before the customers came, the players could look at the house themselves. After looking, the system would give a few options for the players to choose. For example, whether the house was square, whether it was connected to the north and south, how much lighting was, and so on.
The player's choice represented the accuracy of the player's understanding of the house. It would also affect the choice when answering the NPC's questions.
When taking the NPC to look at the house, the NPC would ask questions about the house, and the player would have to choose the corresponding option to respond. If the choice was correct, there would be no problem. If the choice was wrong, it would lower the customer's evaluation of the house. When that happened, the price would either be reduced or the deal would fall through.
Of course, these questions were set up and used a lot of professional knowledge.
These contents were not difficult to do. After communicating with the Sloth Apartments, they could set a standard answer for each house.
However, the biggest problem was … how should the NPC deal with the specific words used to express these questions?
The same question would definitely be answered differently by different people.
For example, some people might say "the house's lighting is not good", some people might say "it's too dark here", and some people might say "the building opposite is blocking the view", and so on.
If all the NPCs said "the house's lighting is not good", it would seem very awkward.
However, this problem could not be solved by stacking up the numbers.
If he were to use the previous method of motion capture, then every time he said something, he would need to re-capture the motion. People of different body types had different facial expressions when they spoke, so motion capture could not be mixed. Then, if he wanted to record multiple expressions of the same meaning, then he would need to record it several times.
If it was another interactive game that was driven by a plot, this would not be a big problem. It would just be more work and more recording.
However, Real Estate Agent Simulator was different. There were too many problems, and the amount was too large. However, there was no key improvement to the game experience.
If they did not do it, it would not be perfect and extreme enough. It would be easy for the players to lose their character.
If they did it, they would have to pay too many resources. It was so much that they could not bear it. The price-quality ratio was extremely low.
Therefore, they were embarrassed. It was not appropriate to do it, and it was not appropriate to not do it either.
However, with the artificial intelligence program from Nag Laboratory, this problem could be easily solved!
That way, there would be no need to capture every sentence. Just dubbing would be enough.
The workload of dubbing alone would be much smaller. They could even go online and ask many enthusiastic players to help dubbing. After the dubbing was imported, the program would automatically generate the facial movements of the characters according to the audio. Coupled with certain body language and movements, it could create the feeling of thousands of people with thousands of faces.
Cai Jiadong sighed. "I knew it! When I was working on the details of the design, I was puzzled. This problem couldn't be solved under the current conditions! Did Boss Pei not think of this when he designed this game? "
"From the looks of it, Boss Pei had obviously thought of this long ago. He must have known about the recent research results of Nag Laboratory. That's why he asked us to create such a game!"
Lin Wan nodded. "That's for sure."
"Then there's no need to hesitate. Let's do it!"
"By the way, the Sloth Apartments has already sent a new batch of room information over. Check it and hand it to the designers."
Cai Jiadong nodded and said, "Alright."
Lin Wan looked for Liang Qingfan directly and asked him to cooperate with the development after the project was established.
Who could be more professional than Liang Qingfan in terms of this knowledge?
The Sloth Apartments had hired many architects and designers who specialized in researching how to modify the room. As long as they sent someone to collect information on various room types online, they could then sort out the advantages and disadvantages of these room types and send it to Slow Movement Workspace directly in the game.
Of course, Lin Wan did not have to worry about these things. It was Cai Jiadong's job as the chief designer.
Lin Wan leaned back in her chair and heaved a long sigh as she watched Cai Jiadong leave.
"Phew … it's a good thing that Liang Qingfan wasn't captured."
"If he was captured, he would definitely not be as reliable as him even though he could go to Sloth Apartments to find another architect."
"Speaking of which … Boss Pei suddenly captured the person-in-charge for special training. What's going on …"
Lin Wan felt that something was amiss yesterday.
She might have already arrived at Slow Movement Workspace but she was still in the chat group of Tengda's person-in-charge.
Usually, everyone would often chat about the current situation of the various departments. The group was quite lively.
In the end, the entire group suddenly became quiet yesterday. The few people who usually popped up did not say a word.
Lin Wan felt that something was amiss. She asked Wang Xiaobin about it today and found out that the person-in-charge of the ten core departments, including Ye Zhizhou, had been captured …
Lin Wan was shocked. She thought that this group of people had done something bad behind the scenes and had been caught by Boss Pei. However, after asking further, she realized that they had been captured to the special training base …
This included the Nag artificial intelligence laboratory that had helped a lot not long ago. The person-in-charge, Shen Renjie, was also taken away like the other person-in-charge.
Fortunately, Liang Qingfan from Sloth Apartments survived. Otherwise, the development of Slow Movement Workspace's game would probably be affected.
Lin Wan's senses were very sharp. She immediately felt that this was no small matter.
After asking around in the group, she successfully obtained the first list of the special training base. There were a total of ten people. They were Huang Sibo, Hu Xianbin, Xiao Peng, Rui Yuchen, Ye Zhizhou, Shen Renjie, Guo Licheng, He Desheng, Chen Yufeng, and Ma Yiqun.
"The special training base has just been opened. It has to be done step by step. It can't train too many people at once. Therefore, it's reasonable for there to be only ten people on the first list."
"However … why are it these ten people and not the others?"
"There are so many person-in-charge of Tengda's various departments. There has to be a corresponding judging standard, right?"
"Boss Pei attaches great importance to this matter. What's more, he did not hesitate to temporarily affect his work to arrange for all the person-in-charge of the core departments to enter. Obviously, he has a special purpose. This purpose is even more important than short-term work or even profits. "
"Is it purely to support Bao Xu's work? That's definitely impossible. Boss Pei is a person who separates public and private interests. What he does is ultimately beneficial to Tengda. "
"It looks like there are drawbacks in the short term. That means it must be beneficial in the long term."
"What exactly is Boss Pei's true intention …"
"Hmm, perhaps we should start with this list. As long as we figure out Boss Pei's criteria for selecting this list, we should be able to roughly deduce Boss Pei's true intentions … "
Lin Wan looked at the computer screen again and fell into deep thought.
Even though she was no longer in charge of Tengda, she had still been paying attention to the internal movements of Tengda. After all, every movement within Tengda represented Boss Pei's will. Boss Pei's actions often contained deep meaning. It would definitely be beneficial to learn more.
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