New Sony Patent Wants To Change The Art Style Of Games

Sony is helming unique innovations in the gaming ecosystem filled with enticing ideas to make it an enjoyable experience for every gamer. It has patented a bundle of alluring features, but a new detail buried deep within a legal document stands out. The giant conglomerate has published a patent that wants to add a feature that allows players to change the entire art style of a game by just toggling an option through the use of AI.

The Graphical Style Modification module 140 takes the style from a set of image frames and applies that style to a second set of image frames. Style adaptation may affect the color palette, texture and background,” mentions the patent.

The Sony patent dubbed “SCENE ANNOTATION AND ACTION DESCRIPTION USING MACHINE LEARNING” mainly discusses on-demand accessibility features to add a bundle of accessibility options to existing titles. But it also talks about a graphic changing feature to make games look completely different. It mentions a graphical style module that can change the style of an entry by intertwining the color palettes of different games. 

To clarify further, a title with the anime art style, like Fortnite, could look like Bloodborne by using its color palette, textures, and background, as the patent describes in detail.

For example, a video game like Fortnight has vibrant green and red colors for the environment and characters while a game like Bloodborne has washed out and dark brown colors for the environment and characters. The Graphical Style Modification component may take the vibrant green and red color style pallet and apply it Bloodborne.”

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The “drab brown environment” of the original Bloodborne can be completely replaced with the bright greens and reds of Fortnite, while the actual environment geometry remains true to the game. Sony also gives examples of other combinations, mentioning a synergy between Grand Theft Auto Games and Fortnite. The realistic look of GTA 5 could be replaced with the cartoony art style of Fortnite and vice versa. 

A NN, e.g., a GAN, may be trained to transform the appearance of an anime style video game (e.g., Fortnite) to a photorealistic style (e.g., Grand Theft Auto).”

All in all, it feels like quite a bizarre concept because if it was just a color palette change or a filter, then Sony would not have exaggerated with its examples given in the patent. It is likely that the graphic changing option is a much bigger feature than we can anticipate and may serve a huge purpose in the future by using AI and related tech. Having the ability to entirely change the art style of a game is nothing short of amazing, after all.

Since it is just a patent, we suggest currently taking it with a pinch of salt. Sony has secured a slew of enticing ideas in the past, including a haptic feedback tech that can change the temperature of the controller to emulate gameplay and a massive co-op entry that can support hundreds of players in a theatre. It has also patented a unique idea that can aid players in fixing their postures during long sessions of gaming.

Similar Reads: EA Wants To Use AI for Smoother In-Game Animations With Yet Another Patent.