GDC 2022: Nvidia launches Omniverse for game developers, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Evil Dead get DLSS support
Game developers can also use AI on the platform to animate the facial expressions of their game characters. Here is everything gamers and developers need to know about the Nvidia Omniverse platform including the new Game-Ready driver update.
Nvidia has just launched a new game creation platform for game developers called Nvidia Omniverse. Omniverse allows game development teams to share and manage the game asset libraries with each other. This enables team members to collaborate with each other in an effective manner. Developers can also use AI available on the platform to animate the facial expressions of their game characters. As part of the Omniverse platform, the company has launched different elements including Audio2Face, Nucleus Cloud, DeepSearch, and Connectors. The company also announced DLSS support for Ghostwire: Tokyo, Evil Dead: The Game, and Paradise Killer as part of a new Game-Ready driver update. Here is everything gamers and game developers need to know about the Nvidia Omniverse platform.
Nvidia Omniverse platform now available to assist game development; details
As per the announcement, Omniverse is a “real-time design collaboration” as well as a “simulation platform”. The platform uses Nvidia RTX-enabled tools as well as AI to help speed up the game development pipeline. Game makers can also use the platform to create custom tools that use AI or RTX features for development. As mentioned above, the platform consists of several components including Omniverse Audio2Face, Nucleus Cloud, DeepSearch, and Omniverse Connectors. Looking at the functionality of all these components, Audio2Face allows developers to use Nvidia AI “to generate high-quality facial animation just” with an audio file. It supports “full facial animation” while allowing developers to “control the emotion of the performance”.
Nucleus Cloud is a one-click sharing solution to share “Omniverse scenes” with team members. It is worth noting that this solution is cloud-based and game developers can try it as part of “early access”. The integrated cloud-centric nature of Nucleus Cloud ensures that developers don’t need to host the component in a private cloud or on their system. DeepSearch is an AI-powered service that allows Omniverse Enterprise subscribers to use natural language images and queries to search the platform for any untagged characters, 3D assets, and objects.
Finally, Omniverse Connectors allow game developers to “live sync” development workflows between the platform and any third-party tools. Nvidia shared details about a new Unreal 5 Omniverse Connector to exhibit how such a component would work. This connector allows game designers and developers “to exchange Universal Scene Description (USD) and material definition language data between” Omniverse and the game engine. USD is an open-source scene description and file format from Pixar, and 'most popular major game development tools' use it.
DLSS support comes to Ghostwire: Tokyo, Evil Dead, and more
Nvidia has also rolled out a new GeForce graphics Game-Ready driver with DLSS support for upcoming games. As highlighted above, the list of games getting performance boost with the help of DLSS include Ghostwire: Tokyo, Evil Dead: The Game, and Paradise Killer. The company confirmed that Ghostwire: Tokyo players can get “up to 2X performance” with the help of Nvidia DLSS. Ghostwire and Evil Dead are yet to launch while Paradise Killer first launched in September 2020. Players can head to the Nvidia GeForce Experience app on Windows or manually download the updated drivers from the Nvidia website. Finally, the company also highlighted Nvidia Image Scaling (NIS), a driver-based spatial image upscaler from Nvidia. This emphasis comes just days after AMD launched its Radeon Super Resolution (RSR).