Showing: 1 - 10 of 29 RESULTS
The illusion of life – Managing NPCs in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
About the talk
In this talk we will be looking at NPCs in the open-world of “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora”, specifically the challenges of NPC management and meeting performance budgets. “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora” was developed by Massive Entertainment in Sweden, in close collaboration with other Ubisoft studios, including Ubisoft Düsseldorf in Germany and published by Ubisoft in December 2023 for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. The game uses the Snowdrop engine and is an Action-Adventure set in the world of James Cameron’s Avatar.
We will dive deep into handling LOD (Level of Detail) for AI logic, from adjusting update-rates and impostors to virtualized NPC. Targeted LOD boosts let us improve responsiveness where needed. Our culling solution for NPC and their AI allowed us to almost double the number of NPC in some settlements and enemy installations. In case of unexpected situations, as systems randomly interact in the open-world, we apply automated stabilization of AI performance. We conclude with an overview of how the presented LOD tech interacts with NPC activities (working, cooking, eating, sleeping, …) in our major NPC settlements, creating the illusion of thriving Na’vi life.
Takeaway
– Gain insight into challenges and solutions of NPC management in open – world games.
– Do more with AI logic LOD – than just reduced update – rates in the distance.
– Accept you might be over NPC budget in an unpredictable world, just deal with it.
– Consider that you might want to implement NPC Culling and Ghosts.
– Create the illusion of life in your settlements by combining the strengths of various tech solutions, while hiding the weaknesses.
Experience level needed: Intermediate, Advanced
Supporting thousands of simulated NPCs in the open world of KCD2.
About the talk
One of Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s most prominent features is the deeply simulated open world. All of our NPCs are doing their daily routines and reacting to player actions even when the player is long gone. In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 we have not only quadrupled the amount of NPCs on the map to nearly 2400 but also concentrated around half of that into a single city. To keep the frame times and memory reasonably low, we had to introduce new techniques for the level of detail of the AI simulation. All while making the scripting interface as oblivious to the LODs as possible.
Takeaway
– Advantages of having the AI for whole open world simulated
– What and when can be optimized away to cause minimal impact on player experience
– Techniques and ideas for LOD implementation
– Importance of setting the environment and scripting limitations early in the development
Experience level needed: Intermediate
Predicting Combat Outcomes in Total War
About the talk
In this talk, we’ll share how we used supervised learning to predict one-on-one unit combat outcomes in Creative Assembly’s Total War series. The system aims to improve autoresolver results and help battle AI decide when units should engage or pull back. We’ll walk through how we built an automated in-game simulation environment to gather data, trained our prediction model, results and finally, the challenges we ran into along the way. We’ll also highlight the key takeaways – both from the technical side and from working closely across R&D and development teams.
Let the NPCs Fight: Learning Attack Reach from Real Gameplay Data
About the talk
In this talk, we’ll explore how we approached the challenge of determining the attack range of NPCs in the latest Assassin’s Creed title. The complexity of animation systems, procedural adjustments, and varied environments made manual measurement unreliable and unscalable. To solve this, we developed a data-driven approach that captures real gameplay animations in a controlled environment, processes the data through rigorous cleaning, and analyzes it using data science techniques. This method allows us to validate and monitor attack ranges across a wide variety of NPCs and animations, ensuring consistency and catching regressions early. The talk walks through the full pipeline—highlighting lessons learned, future opportunities for automation, and why we chose data science over pure machine learning.
Takeaway
– Scaling validation across large content sets Learn how to move beyond manual data entry by building a scalable, automated system to validate gameplay behaviors across hundreds of assets – saving time while improving consistency.
– Designing reproducible environments for gameplay data collection See how creating a controlled, testable world can help teams gather high – quality animation data that reflects real gameplay conditions, enabling more reliable analysis.
– Choosing data science over machine learning – on purpose Understand when simpler, interpretable data science methods are more effective than complex models, especially when clarity, validation, and team collaboration are priorities.
– Building a pipeline for continuous monitoring and regression detection Discover how to implement a lightweight system that flags unexpected changes in gameplay behavior, helping teams catch bugs early and maintain design intent over time.
Experience level needed: Intermediate
Latent Landscapes: Using machine learning to generate terrain in Prologue: Go Wayback!
About the talk
In Prologue, we use machine learning to generate realistic landscapes in seconds on a player’s GPU. In this talk I’ll explore the pitfalls, risks and opportunities of using ML for landscape generation, and how we use a combination of level design, PCG and ML to create a resilient and varied world generation system.
Takeaway
– What are the costs/benefits/risks/opportunities of using ML to generate landscapes
– How best to work in a game team implementing an ML system An understanding of latent space methods, ideally enough to think about
– How they could be used in other projects
Experience level needed: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
Navigating Legal Frontiers: How the Law applies to AI in 2025
About the talk
This talk explores the evolving legal landscape surrounding the use of artificial intelligence in the video games industry. It will provide an overview of key legal considerations, including intellectual property rights, data protection, contractual obligations, and liability issues arising from AI-driven content and interactions. The session will also address regulatory developments, ethical concerns, and best practices, offering practical insights for developers, publishers, and legal professionals involved in the creation and deployment of AI technologies within video games.
Attendees will gain a clearer understanding of the challenges and opportunities presented by AI, and how to navigate the complex intersection of law and innovation in this dynamic industry.
Takeaway
– Intellectual Property Rights: Attendees will understand the complexities of intellectual property – rights related to AI – generated content in video games.
– Regulatory Developments: Attendees will gain insights into the latest regulatory developments affecting the use of AI in video games.
– Contractual Obligations: Attendees will learn about the contractual considerations when using AI in game development.
– Liability Issues: The talk will address the potential liability issues arising from the use of AI in video games.
– Data Protection and Privacy: The talk will highlight the importance of complying with data protection laws when deploying AI in video games.
Experience level needed: Intermediate