Krafton recently shared a technology demonstration that showcased a hyper-realistic “virtual human” able to convey deeply-expressive and nuanced emotions. The demo leveraged artificial intelligence and Unreal Engine’s 3D-based hyper-realism technology to create a digital character barely distinguishable from the real world. KRAFTON CEO CH Kim announced the company’s intent to leverage this hyper-realism technology for a variety of projects moving forward during an internal town hall meeting last month.
KRAFTON’s “virtual human” demo merged motion-capture-based vivid movements, pupil movements enabled by rigging technique, colorful facial expressions and soft “baby” hairs to create results nearly indistinguishable from reality. The company plans to adapt this technology for various aspects of its business, including game characters, esports and virtual influencers/entertainers. In addition to hyper-realism, KRAFTON will continue its extensive research on numerous innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), text-to-speech, speech-to-text and voice-to-face to advance virtual humans into characters capable of interactive communication.
“KRAFTON’s virtual human demo showcases the sort of high-end content that can be realized with hyper-realism technology.This demo represents the initial steps we’re taking to realize an incredible and interactive virtual world (metaverse). In the meantime, we will continue introducing more advanced versions of virtual humans and content based on the belief in the infinite scalability of such technologies,” said KRAFTON creative director Josh Seokjin Shin.
Along with the “virtual humans” demo, a recently-released PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS cinematic video was also produced with hyper-realism technology, further showcasing its application potential. The cinematic video, which highlighted the game’s recent transition to free-to-play, received strong positive sentiment from the game’s community as fans praised the video’s use of cutting-edge graphic technology and dynamic storyline on par with highly-produced live-action content.
KRAFTON is also focused on using these technologies to introduce virtual production content, which was first applied to the company’s recently released 2022 PUBG Esports trailer. This video used Unreal Engine to blur the line between the virtual and real worlds, highlighting the potential for unique experiences not previously available to esports players.