This was William's first time seeing a virtual human up close.
No matter how many introductions he had seen online or in movies, none of them gave him a concrete idea of what it was really like.
On screen, Olivia wore flowing white robes, looking almost otherworldly. The place he stood in wasn't anything special—just the most basic background in the modeling software.
"I added some wind effects," Tina said, showing William the controls.
When she enabled a few features, Olivia's robe began to ripple as if moved by an invisible breeze. Even his facial expressions gained subtle changes. That small touch brought him to life—the model on the screen suddenly looked as if it were truly breathing.
But up to this point, what William saw was still just a high-quality 3D model. He hadn't yet seen what made it a virtual human.
"Let me show you its movements," Tina continued, switching the scene.
The background changed to a small tavern. Olivia first showed a surprised look, then immediately called the waiter for wine.
His love for wine was part of Olivia's backstory.
"Is this an animation?"
William thought what he just saw had to be animated. Otherwise, how could there be such a quick and natural reaction?
"No, this is the virtual human."
It was at this moment William truly felt the charm of the technology.
It wasn't the descriptions from an encyclopedia, nor the portrayals in movies—it was what he saw with his own eyes. Only then could he believe that a computer-generated character could be as vivid as a real person.
The problem, though, was that while virtual humans had great value in film production, in games, resource allocation had to be considered.
Even if they ignored the performance limits of players' computers, just making sure the game could run smoothly at 1080p and 60 FPS meant they had to allocate resources according to current market hardware specs.
Using the best of everything didn't automatically make a good game. The first priority was to ensure it ran smoothly. If a game couldn't be played by anyone, then there would be no point in even discussing whether it was good or bad—because it wouldn't even count as a game.
After William brought up his concerns, Tina also realized she had switched to a different field of work. In film and TV, virtual human technology can save a lot of time in making animations. While this is also true in games, using it in every single part of the game would be extremely resource-consuming.
"We can just focus on how it performs when interacting with players," Cynthia said from the side.
"Didn't you say there would be a hero showcase outside the game? We can use the virtual human tech there to make the interactions with players better."
"True."
Her words made William realize he had fallen into a mental trap—thinking that having the technology meant it had to be used in every corner of the game. But if it was brought into actual matches and the characters players controlled started having their own thoughts, it could actually make the experience worse.
"We could add a training or nurturing element to the game," William suggested.
Many games have a "favorability" system, but most of the time it only unlocks extra dialogues or special animations. Virtual human technology might change that.
A brand new field.
William suddenly began to look forward to how this tech could transform the favorability system, but before that, the virtual humans still needed better functions.
The AI behind Tina's virtual humans was all taken from existing online sources. What they could currently do was react to new scenes, respond to specific events, and deliver lines with emotion.
Everything else would have to be added by the developers themselves, and for now, there was no suitable person for the job.
The studio badly needed to expand.
To make a good game, they needed more people. Now that their income was becoming stable, this was the right time to recruit.
After acknowledging Tina's efforts, William called Cynthia into his office and gave her two tasks.
Find a larger place.
Hire ten to twenty new staff.
The exact number would depend on how many applications they got, but they would be hiring for everything from programming to AI, especially artists—they needed a lot more of them. Planners were the least urgent, since their role was mainly to support the game, and right now there wasn't a game that needed a planner for operations or roadmaps.
Once Cynthia's tasks were set, William shifted his focus back to developing "Journey." The scene development was about 40% done, with most of the first few maps already in place—just waiting for the animations.
Scene design can be exhausting, but if you have something to copy as reference, it's much easier.
As for the code development for "Honor of Kings," it would probably be the most complex of all the games William had worked on so far, since it involved many systems—numbers, combat, interactions, dynamic changes, and more.
Handling all of that alone wouldn't be easy, so William planned to wait until new hires came in so they could work on it together. It would also help them get familiar with the game's coding work.
Whenever William started feeling mentally drained, he would drop by Chris's place to check on his progress with the game engine.
It was clear Chris was worthy of being a PhD student—he learned faster than anyone else in the studio. Of course, it helped that his past research topics matched the work. By now, he could already create simple game engines, such as one with built-in movement commands.
With that engine, you could throw in a model, tick a checkbox for a function, and the model could move—without having to manually write lines of code for every single command.
After gaining some basic experience in app development, Chris now had to learn the many rules and guidelines for different services. Each service had its own set of rules, and using them meant strictly following those rules. This was a tedious process.
If he wanted to use DirectX's features, he had to study its requirements, which could conflict with those of other services. In that case, he'd need to find solutions or alternatives, and that meant a lot of extra learning.
William had no plans to learn alongside Chris. Otherwise, why hire employees? He could just do everything himself and enjoy it. It was moments like this that showed the value of having Chris and the others around.
In game development, a single day passed in a flash, barely noticeable—unless you were making a small game, but William could handle those alone.
Before heading home, Cynthia took William to check out a few properties. Because of rent concerns, they only looked at places in remote areas or in tech parks with subsidies. But tech parks were basically on the outskirts anyway, so they ended up driving around all evening.
Looking at Cynthia slumped on the couch, exhausted, William said, "Looks like I'd better get my driver's license soon."
"Yes, you should," Cynthia replied without hesitation.