Studio Atelico has launched the Atelico AI Engine in Early Access, making the technology used in its debut game, Bobium Brawlers, available to developers who request access through the company’s website.
The engine is designed to run on devices rather than depending on data centres. It supports Unity, Unreal Engine and Godot, and can be used to generate images, run language models, implement speech systems and create AI-driven character behaviours.
According to Studio Atelico, the technology can operate alongside gameplay without affecting rendering performance. It is designed to remove cloud dependencies on Windows, macOS, iOS and Linux, with support for both GPUs and CPUs.
“Until now, developers have had to choose between intelligent gameplay, performance and creative control,” said Studio Atelico CEO Piero Molino. He said the company built the engine to avoid those trade-offs, adding that AI should be used in service of the player experience rather than simply maximised.
The company previously described Bobium Brawlers as a project intended to demonstrate its technology. Molino also said Studio Atelico’s long-term ambition was to become “the Epic Games of AI”, combining games enabled by new technology with tools that help create future games.
Molino and chief product officer Chris Olson have also discussed the company’s approach to generative AI. Studio Atelico says its ecosystem uses models trained on its artists’ work, while maintaining an artist-led workflow rather than using AI to eliminate members of the art team.
Olson said the company had prepared a draft document called the Artist Rights Contract, or ARC. The proposal would allow artists to define how their work can be used, participate in potential benefits when their art is used to train models, and limit that use to specific projects. Any use for other purposes would require renegotiation.
Molino said Studio Atelico trains its own models using data and artwork it owns, including material created internally for its projects. He added that the company’s goal was to create possibilities that were not previously available without replacing its artists.
Sources: GamesIndustry.biz.