Enhance your Unity game by integrating artificial intelligence capabilities. This Unity AI tutorial will walk you through the process of using the Eden AI Unity Plugin, covering key steps from installation to implementing various AI models.

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What is Unity? 

Unity is a gaming company that has shaped the gaming industry since 2004 and has become a global leader in providing a powerful game development engine. 

The Unity game engine empowers developers to create immersive games across various platforms, including mobile devices, consoles, and PCs. Unity stands out for its user-friendly interface and robust features. 

If you’re looking to enhance your gameplay, Unity allows you to integrate AI to create intelligent behaviors, decision-making, and other advanced functionalities in your games or applications. 

Unity offers multiple paths for AI integration, including game-changing solutions for AI-driven gamedev and gameplay. Notably, the Unity Eden AI Plugin effortlessly syncs with the Eden AI API, enabling easy integration of AI tasks like text-to-speech conversion and chatbot interactions within your Unity applications.

Benefits of integrating AI into video game development

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into video game development brings a ton of benefits, enhancing both player experiences and the efficiency of game development processes. Here are some key advantages:

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1. Personalized Player Experiences

AI-driven systems analyse player behaviour and preferences to personalise the gaming experience. This can involve adjusting difficulty levels, suggesting relevant in-game content, or even creating unique storylines based on the player's choices.

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2. Dynamic and Adaptive Gameplay

AI enables the creation of non-player characters (NPCs) and enemies that display dynamic and adaptive behaviours. This introduces an element of unpredictability and challenge to the game, making it more engaging for players.

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3. Optimized Resource Management

AI algorithms can be employed to optimize resource management within games, such as dynamically adjusting graphics settings based on the player's hardware capabilities. This ensures smoother gameplay experiences across a variety of devices.

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4. Smart NPCs and Enemy Behavior

AI-driven NPCs and enemies can exhibit more sophisticated and human-like behaviors, responding to the player's actions in intelligent and strategic ways. This elevates the overall challenge and excitement of the game.

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Use cases of Video Game AI integration

AI is increasingly being utilized in video games across various aspects to enhance player experiences, improve game dynamics, and streamline development processes.

Here are use cases for various AI technologies in Unity game development:

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Speech to Text (STT)

• Voice Commands: Implement voice commands for in-game actions, such as character movement, item selection, or triggering events.
• Narrative Interaction: Convert spoken words into text for interactive dialogues and storytelling.

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Chat Systems

• Conversational NPCs: Create realistic and interactive conversations with non-playable characters using chat systems.
• Quest Guidance: Use chatbots to guide players through quests, providing hints and information within the game.

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Large Language Models (LLMs)

• Dynamic Storytelling: Develop a narrative that adapts based on player choices and interactions, leveraging LLMs to generate diverse and engaging storylines.
• In-Game Virtual Assistants: Implement intelligent virtual assistants powered by LLMs to provide personalized assistance to players.

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Translation

• Global Accessibility: Translate in-game text and dialogue to cater to a diverse, global audience, enhancing accessibility for players from different linguistic backgrounds.

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Image Generation

• Procedural Conte^{nt: Gener}ate procedural terrain, landscapes, or level designs using AI-driven image generation techniques, providing unique and varied gaming experiences.
• Character Design: Create AI-generated characters, creatures, or objects to populate the game world with diverse and visually interesting elements.

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Spell Check

• Text-based Games: Ensure accurate spelling and grammar in text-based games, enhancing the overall quality and professionalism of the in-game narrative.

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Sentiment Analysis

• Player Feedback: Analyze player reviews and comments using sentiment analysis to gauge player satisfaction and make informed decisions for game improvements.

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Summarization

• Game Logs: Summarize in-game logs, player achievements, or events, providing concise summaries for players to review their progress or key moments.

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OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

• Interactive Object Recognition: Use OCR to recognize text in images, enabling players to interact with in-game objects that have text, such as books, signs, or documents.

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Explicit Content Detection

• Content Moderation: Employ explicit content detection to ensure that user-generated content or in-game chat remains within acceptable boundaries, promoting a safe and enjoyable gaming environment.

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When integrating these AI technologies into Unity, developers should consider performance, user experience, and the specific requirements of their game design. Proper testing and optimization are essential to ensure a seamless and engaging gaming experience.

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How to integrate AI into your video game with Unity

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Step 1. Install the Eden AI Unity Plugin

To incorporate the Unity Eden AI Plugin in your Unity project, follow these steps:

1. Open your Unity Package Manager
2. Add package from GitHub

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Step 2. Obtain your Eden AI API Key

To get started with the Eden AI API, you need to sign up for an account on the Eden AI platform. 

Once registered, you will get an API key which you will need to use the Eden AI Unity Plugin. You can set it in your script or add a file auth.json to your user folder (path: ~/.edenai (Linux/Mac) or %USERPROFILE%/.edenai/ (Windows)) as follows:

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Alternatively, you can pass the API key as a parameter when creating an instance of the EdenAIApi class. If the API key is not provided, it will attempt to read it from the auth.json file in your user folder.

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Step 3. Integrate different types of AI models on Unity

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1. Chatbot on Unity

With the Eden AI Unity plugin, you can integrate a chat with a natural language processing model in your app or game. 

Implementing chat functionality allows you to create more realistic and interactive NPCs within your game. Players can engage in conversations with virtual characters, receiving dynamic responses based on their input. 

With Eden AI, you can use providers like OpenAI, Google Cloud or Replicate (access the list here).

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Here’s a sample C# code you can use to call the Eden AI API for chat:

using EdenAI;
using System;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

class Program
{
	static async Task Main(string[] args)
	{
    	string provider = "openai";
    	string text = "Hello I'm fine and you ?";
    	ChatMessage chatMessage = new ChatMessage()
    	{
        	Role = "assistant",
        	Message = "Hello how are you ?"
    	};
    	List ChatMessage previousHistory = new List ChatMessage { chatMessage };
    	EdenAIApi edenAI = new EdenAIApi();
    	ChatResponse response = await edenAI.SendChatRequest(provider, text, previousHistory: previousHistory);
	}
}

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2. Text-to-Speech on Unity

Give life to your NPCs by enabling them to speak using text-to-speech functionality. 

You can utilize the Eden AI plugin to integrate various services, including but not limited to Google Cloud, OpenAI, AWS, IBM Watson, LovoAI, Microsoft Azure, and ElevenLabs text-to-speech providers, into your Unity project (check the full list here)

This feature allows you to convert written text into spoken words, adding a layer of realism to your game's characters. Customize the voice model, language, and audio format to suit your game's atmosphere. 

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Here’s a sample C# code you can use to call the Eden AI API for text-to-speech:

using EdenAI;
using System;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

class Program
{
    static async Task Main(string[] args)
    {
        string provider = "amazon";
        string text = "Hello how are you ?";
        string audioFormat = "mp3";
        TextToSpeechOption option = TextToSpeechOption.FEMALE;
        string language = "en";
        string voiceModel = "en-US_Justin_Standard";

        EdenAIApi edenAI = new EdenAIApi();
        TextToSpeechResponse response = await edenAI.SendTextToSpeechRequest(provider,
            text, audioFormat, option, language, voiceModel: voiceModel);
    }
}

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3. Customizable AI Chatbot (AskYoda) using LLMs on Unity

Personalize your AI-powered NPCs using AskYoDa in your Unity project to create engaging and responsive characters with your data using LLM models such as OpenAI, Google Cloud, Anthropic, Cohere, A21Labs and Mistral AI. 

AskYoda, or "Ask Your Data," is a versatile product developed by Eden AI that empowers users to create customized AI chatbots. With the ability to train chatbots on your own data, the solution addresses limitations by facilitating data integration and training in multiple programming languages.

Here’s a sample C# code you can use to call the Eden AI API for text-to-speech:

using EdenAI;
using System;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

class Program
{
    static async Task Main(string[] args)
    {
        string projectID = "YOUR_YODA_PROJECT_ID";
        string query = "Which product is the most expensive?";

        EdenAIApi edenAI = new EdenAIApi();
        YodaResponse response = await edenAI.SendYodaRequest(projectID, query);
    }
}

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Conclusion

Integrating AI into your Unity game opens up possibilities for creating AI-powered NPCs, enhancing gameplay, and generating dynamic game content. Explore the diverse AI tools available in Unity and unleash the full potential of artificial intelligence in your gaming experience.

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About Eden AI

Eden AI is the future of AI usage in companies: our app allows you to call multiple AI APIs.

• Centralized and fully monitored billing
• Unified API: quick switch between AI models and providers
• Standardized response format: the JSON output format is the same for all suppliers.
• The best Artificial Intelligence APIs in the market are available
• Data protection: Eden AI will not store or use any data.