Ahead of the Game
Reuse Characters To Help Your Campaigns Connect
We have teamed up with 2DNAC to show how Rapport can be used to power interactive experiences with high-quality video game characters in marketing campaigns, to immerse prospective players in the story and lore ahead of release, building anticipation and excitement.
At the heart of the Rapport platform is Speech Graphics’ multi-award-winning audio-driven facial animation technology. Already used in games like Hogwarts Legacy, The Callisto Protocol and The Last of Us Part 2, the underlying software automates the production of best-in-class lip-sync and emotional expressions. Thanks to Rapport, publishers now have the option to repurpose characters set up for use with Speech Graphics, to facilitate real-time conversations with members of the gaming community, supporting online promotions and pre-order campaigns.
For this collaborative demo, 2DNAC created the character - Dr. Isidora Quinn - for the fictional video game Fractured Realities. She has been prompted to take on a specific persona and can answer users' questions about the game. Try it yourself below, you can type in your questions or unmute your mic and speak to her directly.
Making the Demo
Building a character: 2DNAC came to us with the idea of animating one of their hyper-realistic characters, using the Rapport platform. 2DNAC is known for creating high-quality lifelike digital doubles and Rapport is compatible with almost any character, as long as it is rigged for facial animation. The quality of this character and top-notch rigging made it extremely easy to integrate. You can find out more about how they built the character below.
Inserting a brain: for this demo, we used OpenAI’s GPT-4o. This gives Dr. Quinn the ability to answer very open-ended questions. However, we also prompted her to give her context about the game, and her character, meaning she will answer from that perspective. As well as ChatGPT, Rapport is compatible with a wide range of other Large Language Models, such as Google Gemini. However, you can also use branching dialogue solutions if you want complete control over the flow of the conversations and the words used. You can find more about that here.
Making/choosing a voice: once the character was set up, we needed to choose a voice to suit her. We started by making a voice clone using text-to-speech (TTS) software ElevenLabs. Although the clone was highly accurate, we felt that the voice did not quite suit Dr Isidora Qiunn so we explored some different options. Rapport integrates with many TTS providers giving creators thousands of choices for voices. In the end, we settled on a pre-made ElevenLabs voice. Below you can see a video comparing the two voices.
Benefits
Reusing game assets: Rapport allows anyone to animate video game characters with ease. Community or marketing professionals can bring to life video game characters, in different settings, in any language, in a matter of seconds.
Cross-platform engagement: Characters animated by Rapport can be reused across multiple platforms, enabling them to interact with fans instantly. This means game characters can answer questions, participate in live events, and maintain a presence beyond the game itself, enhancing fan engagement and community building.
Infinite Integrations: Rapport supports infinite integrations, ensuring that characters can be used seamlessly across various applications, from in-game interactions to promotional activities.
2DNAC Character Creation
Working on this project with the team at 2DNAC has been an exceptional experience, truly pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved through collaboration. Their attention to detail and commitment to quality is evident in their characters. Their artists worked tirelessly, capturing every detail from the initial concept to the final rendering. This involved several stages, including motion capture, 3D modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, and final VFX integration. Each stage was crucial in ensuring a high level of realism and quality.
They worked closely with Take One Studio whose state-of-the-art motion capture technology was instrumental in bringing to life the characters. They also worked with Sirus 3D Studio who handled the simulation of clothing, ensuring that every fabric fold and movement looks realistic, enhancing the overall authenticity of the digital doubles. You can read more about how 2DNAC created the character in their blog here.
Conclusion
This collaboration demonstrates a new way that video game characters can be animated and utilized for different purposes. Rapport’s ease of animation and immediate reusability means anyone can create more engaging and immersive experiences. This demo shows an example of how characters can be used outside of the games themselves game, to foster a strong community and drive excitement and engagement.
If you would like to learn more about this collaboration, we will be running a live stream on Thursday, June 27 at 12:00 noon (BST) with 2DNAC to take a deeper dive into the making of the character and the building of the experience. Sign up for that here.
If you are interested in building your own character experiences, sign in to the Rapport self-service platform now!