In the past decade, with the rapid development of AI and game technologies, game companies have been competing to apply for the craziest patent ideas. Now, a new patent from Sony might completely transform the game development as we know it.
Recently, Sony has announced a new patent, which describes a next - gen lip - sync system for game NPCs. This system can easily match the translated lines with the mouth movements in multi - language versions of the game. It can evaluate the performance of NPCs' mouth movements in all supported languages and generate similarity scores for developers to refer to. Meanwhile, it includes an automated repair solution, which can precisely align the timing rhythm of the original lines by dynamically adjusting the duration of the translated voice and the movement trajectory of the character's jaw.
Sony claims that the misalignment between NPCs' mouth shapes and the localized voices will destroy the sense of immersion and disappoint players. The traditional manual adjustment method is time - consuming and labor - intensive, while this technology will free the development team from the repetitive work. If this technology is eventually applied, it may significantly shorten the game development time.
