ChatGPT brings Skyrim NPCs to life in VR Mod
Repetitive answers quickly become an immersion killer in VR games. A ChatGPT mod will soon bring more natural dialog to Skyrim VR.
Nothing spoils a role-playing world faster than hearing the same standard dialog twice. An AI mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR aims to prevent such moments with artificial intelligence.
Reddit user "Art_from_the_Machine" announced a mod for Bethesda's PC VR game, in which ChatGPT answers players and reacts dynamically to the game world. OpenAI's well-known chatbot still uses the GPT-3.5 language model. The more powerful version 4.0, rumored to have six times as many parameters, might be slower to respond, the developer fears.
Believable AI conversations in VR games
A few weeks ago, he created a script in the Python programming language. With this script, ChatGPT takes on the role of NPCs in the game world, generates their responses, and reads them out using the speech synthesis tool "xVASynth." Meanwhile, the modder is working on integrating this script into Skyrim VR's modding tools to make conversations with AI characters even more natural.
"NPCs are now aware of their current location and time of day. This opens up lots of possibilities for ChatGPT to react to the game world dynamically instead of waiting to be given context by the player," explains "Art_from_the_Machine" explained on Reddit.
For example, shopkeepers would no longer try to trade with players if their store was already closed. Also, NPCs would notice if players picked up items during a conversation. Whether you are looting a chest or picking a flower - the current conversation partner should be able to comment on these actions in the future.
Until now, long "thinking pauses" of the chatbot of about 15 seconds have disrupted the flow of conversation. In the sample video, however, some NPCs bridge the gap quite naturally with a "Let me think" before sending an answer.
By the way, the developer addresses the characters via microphone and voice recognition. However, since he doesn't like the sound of his own voice, he has subsequently replaced it with a computer voice in the video above.
ChatGPT dubs NPCs in Skyrim VR
The mod has already made great leaps in terms of voice quality. A few weeks ago, the first concept voices still sounded too "floaty". Meanwhile, the better-sounding "xVASynth" also adapts the lip movements to the sentences.
Other tools could make the implementation even more natural. The Twitter presence of the mod community Flat2VR, for example, suggests using a paid programming interface from Elevenlabs.io: "If you were willing to pay for it, it would be awesome to use the http://elevenlabs.io API voices as you can't even tell that they're not real most of the time."
ChatGPT In Skyrim VR
This is a really interesting upcoming Skyrim VR mod that allows true immersion of being able to talk freely with any NPC using ChatGPT.
If you were willing to pay for it, it would be awesome to use the https://t.co/aco40lrRle API voices as you can't even… pic.twitter.com/01K4AIcV2g
AdAd— Flat2VR (@Flat2VR) April 25, 2023
Basic memories from previous conversations can also already be accessed by NPCs later on. Furthermore, each character gets an individually prepared prompt to help "slip into his role," almost like an actor. It is not yet known when the finished ChatGPT mod for Skyrim VR will be available.
Other games also use artificial intelligence to converse with virtual characters. For example, VR golf game Golf+ will soon feature an AI caddie called Arthur. Thanks to a ChatGPT-like language model, he talks to the player quite naturally - and also creates workouts on the side.
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