Today, Didimo announced the launch of Popul8, a generative AI tool that boasts game development acceleration capabilities. According to Didimo, Popul8 can create hundreds of unique non-playing characters (NPCs) far more quickly and easily than the existing tools used by game developers and artists. The NPCs are also said to be ‘memory optimized’ to ensure the games don’t exceed their allotted memory budget.
The tool is based on Didimo’s avatar creation technology. According to the company, artists have the option of introducing template characters from their game into Popul8 so that the software can maintain the same aesthetic style with the generated NPCs.
Of course, artists can subsequently tweak those characters using the tool’s various options. Batch creation is also included as a feature.
Sean Cooper, Lead Unity Developer at Didimo, stated:
With Popul8, Didimo is improving game development in a way not possible before. It gives studios a powerful AI tool to accelerate high-quality 3D character creation with unmatched speed and scale. By streamlining the character creation process, we’re unlocking the ability for artists to create richer worlds, with character diversity, at a fraction of time and necessary technical resources.
Veronica Orvalho, CEO & Founder at Didimo, added:
From research and development over the past decade, we have been able to harness incredible technology in a way that game developers can easily leverage to remove tedious work and focus on building whole new modes of gameplay. And with our continuing focus to make digital spaces available to everyone by allowing more diverse, representative, authentic, and personal engagement, this platform is setting the standard for positive uses of AI generation.
Popul8 consists of four patents. Its characters are generated in standard file formats and can easily be imported into the most popular game development tools, such as Epic’s Unreal Engine, the Unity Engine, and other middleware like Mixamo, ARKit, and Amazon Polly. Existing partners of Didimo include game studios like Soleil (Wanted Dead, Valkyrie Elysium), Colossal Order (Cities Skylines and the upcoming sequel), and even Sony.
Considering that the repeated appearance of identical-looking characters has been a bane of gaming since its inception, the launch of Popul8 could help fix one of the longest-standing shortcomings of videogames. This is only the beginning of what’s going to be possible in game development thanks to the recent advances made in the field of generative AI; stay tuned for more coverage on this subject.
