Decline Are we ever going to see tech that can produce cheaper game assets?

[JarlFrank]

And we're also at a point where you can reliably imitate voices, like audio deepfakes, once you've fed it someone's voice as a sample.

https://lbry.tv/@VocalSynthesis:2/hitlerNavySealsDeutsch:4

 

[Chippy]

Don't know much about this, but didn't they sorta try it with the Unity engine? The end result seems to have worked a bit. At the very least it turns low to mid-level PCs into an extra radiator in your home.

 

[Cat Dude]

There is still no fast 3d modelling software so far.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

The cheaper and easier it is to make assets, the more developers seem to find new ways to take that time saved and waste it on new things, so it's ultimately pointless.

 

[Darkzone]

The cheaper and easier it is to make assets, the more developers seem to find new ways to take that time saved and waste it on new things, so it's ultimately pointless.

Yes this is what mankind does over and over again. Welcome to the economic principle of rationalization investment.
At the beginning each person has to grind its own grain with a stone upon stone, which took a long time. Then the grinding wheel was invented and with the spare time one could chop wood or get water from the river. The animals grind the grain for the people and the people could wash their clothes in the new found time. Then a specialist with a windmill was grinding the grain for the people while the people could care for their fruit gardens, prepare the fruits like apples for winter (sometimes as cider) and use the animals to plow or pull before the cart.
Then mass production came in and the grain grinded by electric mills while it was transported by a truck. And now some lazy asses that work before a computer can go to a supermarket and buy flour so that their wives can make cakes for them.
Which reminded me that i have to buy flour tomorrow....

 

[anvi]

Just a random thought. Obviously developing a game requires a minimal amount of know-how these days with commercially available engines and asset stores compared to the time when everything had to be coded from scratch with machine languages. And some of them machine learning doodads can upscale low-resolution textures with varying amounts of success. Yet those ready-made options also teach the audience to develop a distaste for the default mechanics and assets, whether it's RPGMaker tilesets or Unity asset store models. So while it is technically easier to produce a functional game with less skill, it's for the most part meaningless for less skilled developers and smaller teams since the customers don't want to touch what they see as the standard engine derivative.

But are we ever going to see something like an algorithm being able to produce portraits of the same character from different angles and variety of expressions? Or something like music or automatic animation rigging? Some people might say that AI Dungeon counts for text adventures, but it feels like a novelty gadget that can't really produce something like a three act story or clear character arcs which is what you want to see in a storyfag title.

Microsoft Flight Simulator used an AI to bring in high rez satellite map pictures of the entire planet, and then generate the game world out of it. Staff then manually tweaked any major problems and manually built some whole cities (like 350+ are photorealistic). It is insane what you can do in that game. You can take off and fly over your own house, then fly to Paris, or Egypt or whatever you want, no loading, and it looks like real life.

Unity itself is already a great development tool for game devs. You can make a game with the free asset library in no time. There are games popping up every day, a hell of a lot of crap but some good ones too. But this is a huge development that we didn't have 10+ years ago during the drought, the shitty dark times of 2000 ish to 2010 ish. Post Minecraft there are indie games everywhere, which is a great thing. RPGMakers still kinda suck but I even saw a high tech one of those due soon ish. I am sure they will improve too along with everything else.

But that Microsoft game really changed things. I saw comments online, even from normies, saying things like, "How can you even play GTA anymore after playing Flight Simulator... Imagine being stuck in one small city after experiencing freedom to explore the entire freakin planet including my own neighborhood...!" Eventually this will trickle down to other games. Watch Dogs did a pretty nice version of San Fran in the last game and now London in an even more realistic way and more detail. The next GTA will likely need something special to stay relevant and competitive. Maybe an AI of their own?

Most likely, Microsoft will adapt the AI and start pumping out open world games of their own. They abandoned the PC while they focused on Xbox, and Games For Windows died along with the devs of Midtown Madness and various other games they were making back then. But now they are back and love PC and Xbox equally and are going to build a bright future for both. Imagine a game like Elder Scrolls, but with parts of actual Canada, Antarctica, America, New Zealand, etc. all pieced together to make a world that looks photorealistic but is thousands of miles in all directions. To reach other towns you have to fly on an airship or dragon or something.

That AI will then either be licensed out to other software developers, or other devs will have to make their own to keep up. At some point all the big open world shooters, racers, RPGs, hybrids, space games, etc, will be developed by these mega corporations using powerful AI. The sizes of the worlds in games will stop even being talked about because they will be as big as our own world or bigger. There is already a lot of good work done with procedural generation too, so once that improves in the future, also with AI, it will be pumping out quests and content to a decent standard, as good or better than what you get in current games (which is a pretty low bar to reach...)

In 100 years mega corporations who currently dominate gaming, will likely not even produce games. They will produce AI which creates games itself. The AI's will be endless ongoing projects at Zenimax, Ubisoft, Activision, EA, etc. But it will reach a point where Ubi's Pandora AI can finally produce a game 1000 times bigger than Skyrim, better, more content, etc.. etc.. But in 100 years, it will be able to do that in 0.1 second. Then the AI will work on building content within the world. It will place characters, items, create quests, create ambushes etc, it will make the entire game itself. There may be a pirate themed Risen type of game created on Monday and on Tuesday it makes a completely different world with different combat and gameplay, all with a sci fi theme.

Post 100 years... Google The Singularity. When you talk about "ever", that could be thousands of years. By then, computers and humans will be one, genuine cyborgs. You will also be immortal. Gaming will all exist inside your mind, you will even be born with the hardware you need for it already in your body. All disabilities and diseases will be eradicated. You'll be born perfect but with mind blowing technology as part of your body. A baby will be able to look a wall and then zoom in with 100 trillion x magnification and see the atoms that create the wall. Gaming and reality will be one.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Are we ever going to see tech that can produce cheaper game assets?
Yes. In many cases, it does so already.

Is AI going to be able to churn out assets with acceptable quality any time soon?
No. Not even humans are able to churn out assets with acceptable quality.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

There is one challenge with cheaper game assets (unless it's Speedtree) is that even if you can get cheaper, generic assets generated for you (say, Unity Store), there's developers that take offense at including ready-made models in their game for fear of being seen as cheap or derivative or taking a knock to their review score. Not all of them, but some.

 

[panda]

But are we ever going to see something like an algorithm being able to produce portraits of the same character from different angles and variety of expressions?

https://waifulabs.com/

Not sure if this is not a storage with thousands pregenerated images though.

 

[Bastardchops]

Just a random thought. Obviously developing a game requires a minimal amount of know-how these days with commercially available engines and asset stores compared to the time when everything had to be coded from scratch with machine languages. And some of them machine learning doodads can upscale low-resolution textures with varying amounts of success. Yet those ready-made options also teach the audience to develop a distaste for the default mechanics and assets, whether it's RPGMaker tilesets or Unity asset store models. So while it is technically easier to produce a functional game with less skill, it's for the most part meaningless for less skilled developers and smaller teams since the customers don't want to touch what they see as the standard engine derivative.

But are we ever going to see something like an algorithm being able to produce portraits of the same character from different angles and variety of expressions? Or something like music or automatic animation rigging? Some people might say that AI Dungeon counts for text adventures, but it feels like a novelty gadget that can't really produce something like a three act story or clear character arcs which is what you want to see in a storyfag title.

https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com Supposedly this site Have we already crossed the rubicon?

https://www.inverse.com/article/53414-this-person-does-not-exist-creator-interview

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

>Are we ever going to see tech that can produce cheaper game assets?
Just look up nvidia's AI generated game world project.
They just record a city with a camera and the AI converts that into a 3D space. That's gonna make things so much simpler.

 

[Azdul]

In 100 years mega corporations who currently dominate gaming, will likely not even produce games. They will produce AI which creates games itself. The AI's will be endless ongoing projects at Zenimax, Ubisoft, Activision, EA, etc. But it will reach a point where Ubi's Pandora AI can finally produce a game 1000 times bigger than Skyrim, better, more content, etc.. etc.. But in 100 years, it will be able to do that in 0.1 second. Then the AI will work on building content within the world. It will place characters, items, create quests, create ambushes etc, it will make the entire game itself. There may be a pirate themed Risen type of game created on Monday and on Tuesday it makes a completely different world with different combat and gameplay, all with a sci fi theme.

Even without AI Asian companies churn out mobile F2P games at the rate that reaches diminishing returns - and each subsequent one makes less money. Ubisoft thought that they have "video game formula" nailed down, and can release new one each 6 months - and then latest Ghost Recon flopped, despite / because of being very similar to previous successful games.

Building AI to produce games quickly does not make economic sense, because humans get bored too quickly. Even if AI would create completely amazing sequels to PST, humans would never appreciate 10th one, 11th and so on ...

 

[deuxhero]

Yes, but not enough to matter.

 

[anvi]

In 100 years mega corporations who currently dominate gaming, will likely not even produce games. They will produce AI which creates games itself. The AI's will be endless ongoing projects at Zenimax, Ubisoft, Activision, EA, etc. But it will reach a point where Ubi's Pandora AI can finally produce a game 1000 times bigger than Skyrim, better, more content, etc.. etc.. But in 100 years, it will be able to do that in 0.1 second. Then the AI will work on building content within the world. It will place characters, items, create quests, create ambushes etc, it will make the entire game itself. There may be a pirate themed Risen type of game created on Monday and on Tuesday it makes a completely different world with different combat and gameplay, all with a sci fi theme.

Even without AI Asian companies churn out mobile F2P games at the rate that reaches diminishing returns - and each subsequent one makes less money. Ubisoft thought that they have "video game formula" nailed down, and can release new one each 6 months - and then latest Ghost Recon flopped, despite / because of being very similar to previous successful games.

Building AI to produce games quickly does not make economic sense, because humans get bored too quickly. Even if AI would create completely amazing sequels to PST, humans would never appreciate 10th one, 11th and so on ...

All those issues are only short term, like next 50-100 years or so. Eventually AI will improve itself better than we could to the point that it can create almost anything you want instantly. After the Singularity we basically become gods.