Ubisoft demoed AI NPC tech at GDC 2024

Ubisoft demoed AI NPC tech at GDC 2024

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Ubisoft showcased their prototype NPC tech called NEO at GDC 2024. Ubisoft’s Paris R&D studio presented the NEO tech at GDC 2024. It uses Nvidia’s Audio2Face application and Inworld’s Large Language Model (LLM) to create the character animations and interactive dialog in realtime. Simply talk to the bot (yes, it uses voice recognition) and the character responds with AI generated responses, movement, and voice.

AIandGames went and played with the technology. I was pretty impressed. The NPC gave surprisingly good responses to some strange dialog and stayed on track despite attempts to trip it up and get it off topic. It performed on par with the same kind of NPC AI shown at CES 2024 by nVidia and Replica Studios’ NPC tech.

On a side note, in listening to the interaction with the rebel NPC, it’s pretty clear that this kind of dialog technology could fool the average person on a text-based social media platform. If someone trained up a bot in the same way, thousands of them could be unleashed on social media apps to gently persuade all the way up to influence, bully, and spread lies to influence public opinion and elections.

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OpenAI music video

OpenAI music video

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OpenAI’s first Sora AI generated music video called ‘Worldweight’ was supposed to capture the images a musician visualized in their mind while composing the piece. It’s not particular good, more of a pretentious art student’s fever dream.

Previous attempts were better. This video from 2022 used Dall-E to create a video for the song Canvas by Resonate:

But Sora is capable of more. Indie artist Washed Out used Sora to create an interesting video called “The Hardest Part” that tried to explore the idea of an infinite zoom that would have been too ambitious. I think it came out pretty good:

Or maybe you’d like to try out some of the other top AI music video generators yourself (Neural Frames and Kaiber)?

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Destructive protests are still a regular thing in Portland in 2024

Destructive protests are still a regular thing in Portland in 2024

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Despite the claims to the contrary, protests, violence, and protest damage is still very much alive in Portland in 2024. Protesters showed up at a local AI meetup in August I attended. In all cases, people trying to get around/past roadblocks are threatened with violence and physical assault.

In January 1/2 – protesters blocked roadways to the Portland Airport causing people to miss flights.

In February and March, protesters blocked the I-405 Fremont bridge and numerous other interstates and major city bridges. Protesters threatened violence to other drivers if they tried to drive around them.

In May, Protesters did almost $1 million in damages to local Portland State Library after a week of protester occupation and mass destruction. It resulted in a mob that attacked police when they cleared the building and arrested protesters still in the building. Many of whom were not Oregon residents.

Far from indicating a reduction in protest violence, city buildings in 2024 are now installing new steel shutters on government buildings.

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Getting paid as a freelancing creative

Getting paid as a freelancing creative

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Mike Monteiro at CreativeMornings/San Francisco, March 2011 gives you some fundamental business knowledge that creatives need to know before doing work with clients. It’s a little dated, but still true. GDC also had a few good talks on this as well:

Make a contract before anything starts or walk away.

See other talks at https://creativemornings.com/talks

The point of life

The point of life

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Life is a timed test to achieve our salvation.

Have I invested my talents and gifts selflessly for the good of others or are my talents primarily for my own purposes? When I reach the end will I only be able to say “Thank you for the life you gave me, I buried my life in career, money, popularity, having a perfect family, or chasing earthly pleasures – so all I have is to offer the one life you gave me back?” (Matthew 25:14–30)

    Isle of Man World Record

    Isle of Man World Record

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    The motorcycle race on the Isle of Man is legendary.

    Peter Hickman just obliterated the lap record onboard his FHO Racing BMW M 1000 RR and average 136.358 mph. Ride along for the whole 17 minutes of utter madness. You couldn’t pay me enough to even try this at 1/2 the speed – in a car.

    Old versions of Long Dark

    Old versions of Long Dark

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    The Long Dark was a great game I started playing during early access and really enjoyed. The lonely and desolate wilderness feel really worked well with the the struggle against very simple but brutal natural elements.

    The game has been in development longer than some teenagers have even been alive – and has consequently changed a lot over that time. Kudos to Long Dark team for making a time capsule that lets you go back to those early drops by entering a release code in Steam.

    While one should ALWAYS be cautious of trainers and save game editors (and there are some on the list that do have viruses (so it’s a good idea to scan them with a virus scanner and only run them in a virtual machine) here’s some of the older trainers for these early drops on GameCopyWorld.