PUBG Maker Krafton Teases Realistic Virtual Human Ana With AI Voice

Krafton's new project is straight out of a fantasy world. The company behind the widely popular game PUBG has just teased its first virtual human, Ana. The hyperrealistic avatar blurs the line between a computer character and a real-life person. It is powered by hyperrealism, rigging and deep learning and is designed to help establish Krafton's Web 3.0 ecosystem.

How Ana will achieve it is yet to be revealed since the concepts of Metaverse and Web3 are not defined clearly.

The virtual being was developed through the hyperrealism production technology of Unreal Engine. The team has done a great job of giving Ana a human-like personality and she can display a hyper-realistic appearance.

"With human-like features, such as the baby hairs and fluff on her skin, ANA truly looks unlike any other virtual human that currently exists through other technologies", said Krafton.

Sharing further details on Ana's characteristics, the virtual human uses a highly-advanced face rigging technology to express the movement of the pupil, fine facial muscles and wrinkles. The tech also enables natural joint movement across the entire body. Sounds creepy? Wait until she appears as Krafton's mascot and influencer in future projects.

As a bonus, Krafton gave her a voice, which was developed using deep learning techniques, such as advanced voice synthesis. As per Krafton, Ana's artificially intelligent voice can help her act and sing just like a real human.

With her human resemblance and support from deep learning and unreal engine, Ana faintly reminds us of Luc Besson's 2014 science-fiction action film Lucy.

Krafton is expecting her to attract the interest and popularity of Gen Z around the world. "ANA will release an original music track and expand her scope of activity as an influencer into various areas across entertainment and esports," said Josh Seokjin Shin, Head of the Creative Center of Krafton.

The South Korean game company will release more information about Ana later this year through images, videos and her unique story arc.

While Ana is an ambitious project, it hasn't surprised us; nothing does in 2022 with virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and metaverse projects because we are just starting out.