Krafton Inc, a collective of independent game development studios best known for PUBG, PUBG: New State and The Callisto Protocol recently revealed a tech demonstration that showed a hyper-realistic “virtual human” that’s able to convey nuanced and deeply-expressive emotions.
The showcased demo leveraged AI and Unreal Engine’s 3D-based hyper-realism tech in order to create a digital character that’s only slightly distinguishable from reality. During an internal town hall meeting last month, CH Kim, Krafton Ceo announced the company’s intent to leverage this hyper-realism technology for various projects moving forward.
Josh Seokjin Shin, Creative Director at Krafton stated, “Krafton’s virtual human demo showcases the sort of high-end content that can be realised with hyper-realism technology. This demo represents the initial steps we’re taking to realise 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.”
Krafton also recently released a PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS cinematic video which was produced using this hyper-realism technology as well, showcasing more of its potential. The cinematic video highlighted the game’s transition into a free-to-play game and received many positive sentiments from the gaming community as fans rained praises on the video’s use of a dynamic storyline and cutting-edge graphic technology that’s on par with highly-produced live-action content.
Krafton Inc. plans to adapt this technology for many aspects of its business, from eSports, game characters and virtual entertainers/influencers. In addition to its hyper-realism, the company will also continue its extensive research on several Innovative technologies like artificial intelligence, speech-to-text, voice-to-face and text-to-speech to advance virtual humans into characters that are capable of communicating interactively.
The company recently made an equity investment of $6.7 million in Seoul Auction Blue, an affiliate of South Korean art auctioneer and its subsidiary Xbyblue, $2.5 million and $4.1 million respectively.
Krafton plans on using these technologies to introduce virtual production content. This was first applied to the company’s recently released trailer for the 2022 PUBG Esports.
The trailer made use of Unreal Engine to blur the line between reality and virtual worlds, which highlights the exciting potential and a unique experience that was not available to previous eSports players.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
