How to Use Neural Networks to Generate Content for Games and Metaverses

We continue to analyze how the technologies are used in development, together with a game designer named Max. And we discuss how to create content for video games and metaverses using neural networks in the article.

Character Dialogue Generation

Screenwriters can prepare data about the game world, which will be analyzed by a neural network. So NPCs will be able to conduct dialogues with the user and tell him about the world and the plot.

Of course, this won’t work for key story characters, as players want to quickly get the quest and move on. But it will work for the random NPCs that are in the game’s world.

For example, as the players pass by a merchant, they may hear stories about their travels or talk about new merchandise. Because of such trifles, players have more beliefs in the virtual world.

This approach is popular in RPG games like Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny. There are always a lot of detailed and rich dialogues that give context and understanding of the world. Such dialogues could be generated by the neural network when communicating with the player.

Neural networks can talk to users on topics related to the game world. And it’s important that the scope of these dialogues be clearly defined in the game code. Differently, the player can easily find out the weaknesses of the characters, strategies from the neural network, or even hack the game.

Character Behavior Control

NPCs are usually programmatically tied to specific locations in different games and metaverses. Their behavior and interaction with the world is clearly defined by the developers. Characters move strictly by linking them to the location grid.

The characters have very detailed dialogue, movement around the map, and what they will do during the day in some games. And all this is achieved thanks to the long-term work of level designers. The virtual world feels alive due to such small elements.

Such careful thinking of behavior, even for some random characters, takes a lot of time. That’s why the control of their behavior can be given to the neural network.

So the NPC will have the opportunity to react to the players’ actions, not only in a particular scene, but throughout the rest of the game. You can even launch a “butterfly effect” where the game will create new obstacles for the user based on how they play.

Generation of Objects and Interaction with Them Using Text Commands

The text in game projects helps users navigate when completing quests, guides them along the plot. And there are many options for text content in the virtual world.

All interaction with the world takes place using text commands and buttons in the interface in a separate genre of text-based RPG games. Once upon a time, this is how the first games were born. Now this option is already outdated and rarely used anywhere, because players want more options.

The developers have prepared well-thought-out mechanics for players to choose their actions in the modern text game Lifestream. Or they could simplify the development and use a neural network. Knowing the specifics of objects and the laws of the world inside the script, the program would generate endless content.

And you can also build virtual objects with the help of text commands and a neural network. For example, this is exactly the kind of construction on the Minecraft platform that Microsoft has tested. The neural network was able to generate models of the house, animals and characters right in the game in real time based on a text command.

Changing the Story and Gameplay Based on the Actions of the Players

Some games have long been able to adapt to the actions of the players. For example, the AI ​​Director system is built into the Source engine of the co-op game Left 4 Dead. It analyzes the players’ actions and adjusts the difficulty level. At some point, the system can give gamers a break or on the contrary, send more opponents to them for battles.

And such a system in the game was achieved due to the fact that the developers carefully worked on the code and thought through all possible situations. This work takes a lot of time and resources, so systems similar to The AI ​​Director are rare. But their creation can be simplified with the help of a learning neural network and a team of testers.

The system will be able to simulate new situations and simplify or on the contrary complicate the gameplay, depending on the plot conventions based on the game of real people. This way the neural network will act as a game master in the game.

TL;DR

You can create and fill the gameplay in virtual platforms with the help of neural networks. And game designer named Max told how you can simplify content creation with neural networks:

1. Generate character dialogues based on the plot that the screenwriters determine;
2. Manage the characters’ behavior and their interaction with the player;
3. Generation of objects and interaction with them using text commands;
4. Changing the story and gameplay based on the players’ actions.

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