Krafton Enters 'Virtual Human' Business with Hyper-Realism Character Production Technology

Krafton released a demo video of a virtual human on the 8th. The photo shows the appearance of the virtual human.

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Krafton unveiled a demo video of a virtual human featuring hyper-realistic technology on the 8th. Krafton, which is actively implementing interactive communication content and virtual worlds, plans to offer differentiated content through virtual humans in the future.

Earlier in January, Krafton CEO Changhan Kim announced in a regular internal communication program that the company intends to actively utilize new technologies to provide new value to gamers and creators and create differentiated content. Krafton's virtual humans exhibit vivid movements based on motion capture, eye movement and diverse facial expressions through rigging (the process of enabling character movement), and even replicate skin fuzz and fine hair, making them very similar to real humans.

Krafton plans to utilize virtual humans in various fields such as game characters, eSports, virtual influencers, and singers. In addition to hyper-realism technology, the company will continuously research and develop innovative production technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), speech synthesis (TTS, STT), and voice-to-face, aiming to evolve these characters into entities capable of interactive conversations.

Alongside virtual humans, Krafton also showcased a cinematic video of 'PUBG: Battlegrounds' (hereafter Battlegrounds) produced with hyper-realism technology. This cinematic video, which announces the free-to-play model of Battlegrounds, features technology and content comparable to live-action films.

Content in the virtual production field will also be gradually introduced. The first application was the ‘2022 eSports trailer video’ for eSports. Using Unreal Engine, the video breaks down the boundaries between virtual and reality, creating a unique experience where eSports players enter the game world.

Seokjin Shin, Head of Creative at Krafton, emphasized, “Krafton's virtual humans represent the highest level of content achievable through hyper-realism technology. Krafton is preparing an interactive virtual world step-by-step by applying various technologies with infinite scalability in mind, and will continue to unveil more advanced versions of virtual humans and content.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.