Posts in category: nVidia AI

Editor’s note: This post is part of our weekly In the NVIDIA Studio series, which celebrates featured artists, offers creative tips and tricks, and demonstrates how NVIDIA Studio technology improves creative workflows. We’re also deep diving on new GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU features, technologies and resources, and how they dramatically accelerate content creation.

Gamescom, the biggest gaming event of the year, kicks off tomorrow in Cologne, Germany, but gamers and content creators can find some of the latest innovations, tools and AI-powered tech this week In the NVIDIA Studio.

On the eve of the show’s official opening, NVIDIA announced NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 featuring Ray Reconstruction — a new neural rendering AI model that creates more beautiful and realistic ray-traced visuals than traditional rendering methods — for real-time 3D creative apps and games.

NVIDIA RTX Remix, a free modding platform built on NVIDIA Omniverse and available now, gives people the tools to create and share #RTXON mods for classic games. We also announced Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project, a community remaster project of Valve’s Half-Life 2, one of the highest-rated games of all time.

This week’s In the NVIDIA Studio installment also features digital artist Diyor Makhmudov’s 3D work, inspired by the extraordinary gaming franchise The Witcher.

Reallusion software released an update to the iClone Omniverse Connector, including real-time synchronization of projects and enhanced import functionality for OpenUSD, enabling quicker, more efficient workflows. Learn more in the latest edition of the Into the Omniverse series.

Finally, calling all video editors to sign up for the premiere DaVinci Resolve event — ResolveCon — in Portland, Oregon, from Aug. 25-27. In-person attendees can win giveaways, including new GeForce RTX GPUs, while virtual attendees can view tutorials livestreamed by In the NVIDIA Studio artist Casey Faris.

Next-Level Graphical Fidelity With DLSS 3.5 

NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 adds Ray Reconstruction, which improves ray-traced image quality for all GeForce RTX GPUs by replacing hand-tuned denoisers with an NVIDIA supercomputer-trained AI network that generates higher-quality pixels in between sampled rays.

Seeing is believing — watch the Tech Talk with NVIDIA Vice President of Applied Deep Learning Research Bryan Catanzaro to learn how DLSS 3.5 works.

Creative apps with ray-traced renderers face a wide variety of content that is difficult for traditional denoisers to handle, as they require hand-tuning for every scene. As a result, content previews return suboptimal image quality. With DLSS 3.5, the AI neural network recognizes a wide variety of scenes, producing high-quality images during preview and before committing hours to a final render.

D5 Render and Chaos Vantage, two popular professional-grade 3D apps for architects and designers, feature real-time preview modes with ray tracing. With DLSS 3.5, the AI neural network replaces the denoisers, inferring and producing higher-quality previews while building and iterating.

Popular creative apps Chaos Vantage, D5 Render and NVIDIA Omniverse, as well as popular gaming titles Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and Portal with RTX, are all adding support for NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 this fall.

Developers will be able to seamlessly integrate DLSS 3.5 with the new Streamline SDK coming soon. Learn more about DLSS 3.5.

Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project

Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project is being developed by four of Half-Life 2’s top mod teams, now known as Orbifold Studios.

Using the latest version of RTX Remix, Orbifold Studios is rebuilding materials with physically based rendering properties, adding extra geometric detail with Valve’s Hammer editor and using the full range of NVIDIA technologies, including NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA RTX IO and NVIDIA Reflex, to breathe new life into the critically acclaimed title.

As with Portal with RTX, a high-fidelity reimagining of Valve’s timeless classic, and Portal: Prelude RTX, built by community modders, nearly every asset in Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project is being reconstructed in high fidelity and with full ray tracing (otherwise known as path tracing, enabling advanced rendering techniques. Compared to the original, some assets feature 20x the geometric detail.

Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project is early in development and is a community effort looking to galvanize talented modders and artists everywhere. To join the project, apply via the Orbifold Studios website.

Eat. Sleep. Game. Create. Repeat.

Already building 3D scenes in immaculate detail, 19-year-old digital creator and 3D lighting artist Diyorbek Makhmudov has the savvy skills of an industry veteran and a bright future ahead.

Makhmudov has always had a deep-rooted passion for gaming, gaining inspiration from the 3D worlds of his favorite games. Most notably, The Witcher franchise has fueled him to create 3D worlds that showcase his own signature look and feel.

Unlike many content creators featured In the NVIDIA Studio, Makhmudov doesn’t like to bring his own life experience into the creative process, enjoying the escapism offered by world-building.

“I like to immerse myself in another universe,” said Makhmudov. “I don’t like to express my feelings, thoughts or emotions in my creations.”

Makhmudov follows standard 3D creative workflow practices: gathering reference material, prepping materials, shaping environments and tinkering with materials, textures and colors. But it’s in 3D creation where he really shines.

Makhmudov uses his preferred 3D app — Cinema 4D — to achieve smooth interactivity while working with complex 3D models thanks to the NVIDIA GPU-accelerated viewport. It’s powered by a GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card, which offers considerable increases in efficiency while fueling creativity.

In the video above, Makhmudov is able to move within the scene, tinkering while the scene renders in real time.

Cinema 4D also supports several popular GPU-accelerated renderers such as Chaos V-Ray, OTOY OctaneRender and Maxon’s Redshift. This flexibility allows Makhmudov to use whichever best suits his needs.

“Redshift is fast, has a good light-linking system and I have almost full control over everything,” said Makhmudov. He prefers OctaneRender for exporting ultra-realistic renders quickly. The built-in Cinema 4D render is also a speedy option. The only thing he can’t do is work on a CPU alone because, to quote Makhmudov, “It’s very slow.”

“When you do personal work, it pushes you more to achieve a good result,” said Makhmudov. “As a bonus, that big portfolio will be a major advantage in your job search.”

Check out Makhmudov on ArtStation.

Follow NVIDIA Studio on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Access tutorials on the Studio YouTube channel and get updates directly in your inbox by subscribing to the Studio newsletter. 

Get started with NVIDIA Omniverse by downloading the standard license free, or learn how Omniverse Enterprise can connect your team. Developers can get started with Omniverse resources. Stay up to date on the platform by subscribing to the newsletter, and follow NVIDIA Omniverse on Instagram, Medium and Twitter. 

For more, join the Omniverse community and check out the Omniverse forums, Discord server, Twitch and YouTube channels.

The latest advancements in AI for gaming are in the spotlight today at Gamescom, the world’s largest gaming conference, as NVIDIA introduced a host of technologies, starting with DLSS 3.5, the next step forward of its breakthrough AI neural rendering technology.

DLSS 3.5, NVIDIA’s latest innovation in AI-powered graphics is an image quality upgrade incorporated into the fall’s hottest ray-traced titles, from Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty to Alan Wake 2 to Portal with RTX.

But NVIDIA didn’t stop there. DLSS is coming to more AAA blockbusters; emotion is being added to AI-powered non-playable characters (NPCs); Xbox Game Pass titles are coming to the GeForce NOW cloud-gaming service; and upgrades to GeForce NOW servers are underway.

DLSS 3.5 Introduces Ray Reconstruction

The biggest news? The introduction of Ray Reconstruction in DLSS 3.5, a groundbreaking feature that elevates ray-traced image quality for all GeForce RTX GPUs, outclassing traditional hand-tuned denoisers with an AI network trained by an NVIDIA supercomputer.

The result improves lighting effects like reflections, global illumination, and shadows to create a more immersive, realistic gaming experience.

Denoising is used in ray-traced computer graphics to fill in missing pixels to more efficiently composite a final image. NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 is trained on 5x more training data than DLSS 3, so it can recognize different ray-traced effects and make smarter decisions about when to use temporal and spatial data.

DLSS, first released in February 2019, has gotten a number of major upgrades improving both image quality and performance.

Ray Reconstruction is now included as part of DLSS 3.5, which offers a suite of AI rendering technologies powered by Tensor Cores on GeForce RTX GPUs for faster frame rates, better image quality, and great responsiveness.

DLSS 3.5 includes Ray Reconstruction, Super Resolution, Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing and Frame Generation.

NVIDIA announced that upcoming blockbusters Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and Portal with RTX will use NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 this fall.

DLSS 3.5 also improves image quality in real-time 3D creator applications and allows 3D creator professionals to showcase a higher-quality image without spending minutes or hours for the final render.

Ray Reconstruction will be included in upcoming releases of D5 Render, Chaos Vantage and NVIDIA Omniverse, a development platform for connecting and building 3D tools and applications.

DLSS is now featured in over 330 games and apps. And this fall’s biggest blockbusters will launch with DLSS 3, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, PAYDAY 3 and Fortnite.

NVIDIA Reflex Comes to More Games

In addition, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, PAYDAY 3, Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and more will launch with NVIDIA Reflex, which reduces system latency so gamers’ actions occur quicker, providing a competitive edge in multiplayer matches and making single-player titles more responsive and enjoyable.

And Reflex is already increasing gamers’ competitiveness in the latest editions of wildly popular franchises, with APEX Legends Season 18 and Overwatch 2 Invasion.

NVIDIA Reflex is now used by over 50 million players each month. It’s available in 9 of the top 10 competitive shooters, including the Counter-Strike 2 beta, and is activated by 90% of GeForce gamers in over 70 supported titles.

Half-Life 2 RTX, An RTX Remix Community Project

Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project is an in-development community remaster of one of the highest-rated games of all time, Valve’s Half-Life 2.  Being developed by four of Half-Life 2’s top mod teams using RTX Remix, Half-Life 2 RTX will feature full ray tracing, DLSS 3, Reflex and RTX IO.

AI-Powered NPCs Get More Emotion With NeMo SteerLM

Bringing more AI to gaming, NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) introduces NeMo SteerLM. This new training technique enables developers to customize the personality of NPCs for more emotive, realistic, and memorable interactions.

ACE is a custom AI model foundry that aims to bring intelligence to NPCs through AI-powered natural language interactions.

New Games, New SuperPODS Come to GeForce NOW

GeForce NOW also gets new games as Ultimate members connect to more powerful servers.

NVIDIA announced GeForce RTX 4080 SuperPODs are now fully deployed throughout North America and Europe, bringing exclusive access to RTX 4080-class servers to Ultimate members.

Those servers will be kept plenty busy.

Coming soon, GeForce NOW members can stream AAA titles Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty DLC, PAYDAY 3 and Party Animals at launch from the cloud gaming service.

As part of NVIDIA and Microsoft’s collaboration to bring more choice to gamers, Microsoft Store integration will be added to GeForce NOW in the coming days.

Members will soon be able to stream over ten supported Xbox PC Game Pass titles at GeForce RTX 4080 quality across devices of their choice. More games from Xbox’s PC Game Pass library will be added to GeForce NOW on a regular basis.

Head to the cloud and stream new titles joining later this week, including DOOM 2016 from Bethesda.

See DLSS 3.5 in Action at Gamescom

DLSS 3.5 is being demonstrated in NVIDIA’s booth (hall 2.1, booth A10) at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, August 23-27.

Bill Dally — one of the world’s foremost computer scientists and head of NVIDIA’s research efforts — will describe the forces driving accelerated computing and AI in his keynote address at Hot Chips, an annual gathering of leading processor and system architects.

Dally will detail advances in GPU silicon, systems and software that are delivering unprecedented performance gains for a wide range of applications. The talk will show how techniques such as mixed-precision computing, high-speed interconnects and sparsity can take the large language models driving generative AI forward to the next level.

“It’s a really exciting time to be a computer engineer,” said Dally in February, when he was inducted into the Silicon Valley Engineering Council’s Hall of Fame.

Dally’s keynote will kick off the third day of Hot Chips at 9 a.m. PT on Aug. 29.

Registration is available online to attend the event virtually. The live event  at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, is already sold out.

In a career spanning nearly four decades, Dally has pioneered many of the fundamental technologies underlying today’s supercomputer and networking architectures. As head of NVIDIA Research, he leads a team of more than 300 around the globe who are inventing technologies for a wide variety of applications, including AI, HPC, graphics and networking.

Prior to joining NVIDIA in 2009 as chief scientist and senior vice president of research, he chaired Stanford University’s computer science department for some four years.

Dally is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Association for Computing Machinery.

He’s written four textbooks, published more than 250 papers and holds over 120 patents, and has received the IEEE Seymour Cray Award, ACM Eckert-Mauchly Award and ACM Maurice Wilkes Award.

More NVIDIA Talks at Hot Chips

In a separate Hot Chips talk, Kevin Deierling, vice president of networking at NVIDIA, will describe the flexibility of NVIDIA BlueField DPUs and NVIDIA Spectrum networking switches for allocating resources based on changing network traffic and user rules.

A new benchmark result for the NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchip will be part of a talk by Arm on leadership performance and power efficiency for next-generation cloud computing.

The event begins Sunday, Aug. 27, with a full day of tutorials, including talks from NVIDIA experts on AI inference and chip-to-chip interconnects.

The verdict is in: A GeForce NOW Ultimate membership raises the bar on gaming. Members have been tackling the Ultimate KovvaK’s challenge head-on and seeing for themselves how the power of Ultimate improves their gaming with 240 frames per second streaming.

The popular training title that helps gamers improve their aim fully launches in the cloud this week alongside a limited-time discount on Steam. KovaaK’s leads over 20 new games joining the GeForce NOW library this week.

Gamers Take Their Best Shot at QuakeCon

Droves of PC gaming fans converged at the GeForce NOW Lounge at QuakeCon over the weekend to take on the Ultimate KovaaK’s challenge. Attendees were among the first to play a custom GeForce NOW KovaaK’s demo — first on a free membership and then with 240 fps streaming on an Ultimate membership.

And it was clear just how much streaming from a GeForce RTX 4080 gaming rig changes the game. Over 58,000 sessions have been completed since the start of the challenge, and participants immediately saw their gaming scores improve by 1.6x just from playing on an Ultimate membership.

Attendees played for top placement on the QuakeCon leaderboard to win both bragging rights and some ultimate prizes. The top three slots on the leaderboard on each of the three days of the show, as well as the top overall slots were dominated by those using an Ultimate membership. Here’s what a few of them they had to say about Ultimate:

“This [Ultimate Tier] is a lot smoother — the responsiveness is great.” – David G.

“… there is so much clarity [with the Ultimate tier]” – Gordan M.

Raisy, a professional Quake champion player and second on the QuakeCon leaderboard, also weighed in on the Ultimate tier: “The smoother the gameplay, the better the experience.”

And Garrett “KovaaK” Krutilla, the co-founder and director of FPS design from The Meta, the developer of KovaaK’s, said: “The Ultimate membership provides a perfect place to train up on KovaaK’s, with access to powerful GeForce RTX 4080 servers for 240 fps streaming and ultra-low latency from NVIDIA Reflex. The scores that top players are getting on Ultimate prove that NVIDIA has made cloud gaming completely viable for competitive gamers in the FPS space.”

Members can still play the challenge at home. Each week, the leaderboard will reset for members to compete for the top three slots to win a six-month GeForce NOW Ultimate membership and a $100 Steam gift card. At the end of the challenge on Thursday, Sept. 21, the top three overall scorers will win:

First place: ASUS ROG Swift 240Hz monitor

Second place: ASUS Chromebook Vibe CX34 Flip

Third place: ASUS ROG Azoth and ROG Gladius III keyboard + mouse bundle

Upgrade to Ultimate today for the best performance in the cloud, up to eight-hour gaming sessions and exclusive access to RTX 4080 servers in the cloud.

Aiming for the Clouds

Members can now experience KovaaK’s in its entirety, now available for members to stream from the cloud.

Dominate every first- and third-person shooter game by training with KovaaK’s. Trusted by top pros, streamers and other gamers, the incredibly latency-sensitive aim trainer features over 175,000 player-created scenarios and shareable playlists, infinite customization options and cloned game physics. Members can even share their stats and achievements on KovaaKs.com.

The cherry on top: Members can level up with KovaaK’s at a 30% discount until Thursday, Aug. 21. Grab it today and train for more competitive gaming in the cloud. Pair it with an Ultimate membership for a 240 fps advantage and get used to being called a human aimbot.

The Cloud Is Buzzing

A new week brings more games to buzz about.

Experience the mad and macabre in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre from Sumo Digital and Gun Interactive. Take on the role of a notorious Slaughter family member or one of their victims in this third-person, asymmetrical horror experience based on the iconic 1974 film. Victims must use their wits and stealth to stay out of the family’s reach while Slaughter family players must track down and stop their guests from escaping. It launches day and date in the cloud this week.

Wayfinder is a new online action role-playing game from Airship Syndicate and Digital Extremes. Harness the power of a Wayfinder to control the chaos overrunning the world of Evenor. Wield a variety of unique abilities, from ebbing arcane magic and lethal melee to mystical tech. Wayfinders are stronger together, so grab a couple of buddies and stream together.

And Genshin Impact’s new Version 4.0 is now available to stream. Say hello to the long-awaited Nation of Hydro region Fontaine — a whole new area for travelers to explore — as well as new characters, weapons, artifacts and more. Play it from the cloud without worrying about system specs or hard drive space.

Members can look forward to the 22 new games joining this week:

• Desynced (New release on Steam, Aug. 15)
• Hammerwatch II (New release on Steam, Aug. 15)
• Moving Out 2 (New release on Steam, Aug. 15)
• The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood (New release on Steam, Aug. 16)
• Book of Hours (New release on Steam, Aug. 17)
• Gord (New release on Steam, Aug. 17)
• Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew (New release on Steam, Aug. 17)
• Wayfinder (New release on Steam, Aug. 17)
• Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (New release on Steam, Aug. 18)
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (New release on Steam, Aug. 18)
• Age of Wonders 4 (Epic Games Store)
• Amnesia: The Bunker (Epic Games Store)
• Darkest Dungeon II (Epic Games Store)
• F1 Manager 2023 (Epic Games Store)
• The Great War: Western Front (Epic Games Store)
• Inkbound (Steam)
• Kovaak’s FPS Trainer (Steam)
• The Outlast Trials (Epic Games Store)
• Project Highrise (Epic Games Store)
• Regiments (Steam)
• Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga (Epic Games Store)
• System Shock (Epic Games Store)

This week’s Game On giveaway with SteelSeries includes Genshin Impact in-game rewards and three-day Priority membership codes. Check the giveaway page for details on how to enter.

Where are you in the leaderboard for the Ultimate KovaaK’s challenge ? Let us know your answer on Twitter or in the comments below.

We aim to please.

Share your current #GFNUltimateChallenge high score below!

— NVIDIA GeForce NOW (@NVIDIAGFN) August 16, 2023

Editor’s note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on how artists, developers and enterprises can transform their workflows using the latest advances in OpenUSD and NVIDIA Omniverse.

Whether animating a single 3D character or generating a group of them for industrial digitalization, creators and developers who use the popular Reallusion software can boost their workflows with the latest update to the iClone Omniverse Connector released this month.

The upgrade enables seamless collaboration and expands creative possibilities for creators using NVIDIA Omniverse, a development platform for connecting and building OpenUSD-based tools and applications.

New features include real-time synchronization of projects, as well as enhanced import functionality for the Universal Scene Description framework, known as OpenUSD, which makes work between iClone and Omniverse quicker, smoother and more efficient. The update also comes with bug fixes and improvements.

Animating 3D Characters Better, Together

Creators across the world are using Reallusion iClone, a real-time 3D animation software, to bring their characters to life.

Solomon Jagwe — a 3D artist, animator and award-winning film director — uses Reallusion iClone and Omniverse for his work, which often focuses on environmental themes.

Jagwe, who grew up in East Africa, recalls fond childhood memories drawing the creatures he’d see when he ventured into the countryside with his brother. Even now, much of his 3D work begins with a simple sketch using pen and paper.

The artist said he always strives to create art that makes a difference.

For example, Jagwe created Adventures of Nkoza and Nankya, a video series for educating people of all ages on Ugandan culture. He modeled the sets for the series in Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya, animated in Reallusion iClone and composed in Omniverse.

“With the iClone Connector for Omniverse, I can easily render my iClone animations in Omniverse and take advantage of the iClone animation tools in combination with the Omniverse Audio2Face generative AI capabilities,” Jagwe said.

Jagwe’s entire creative pipeline is accelerated by USD, which acts as a common language between 3D applications and enables sharing full scenes across content-creation tools.

“OpenUSD makes it so much easier to transport all the textures and characters together in one place for animation,” Jagwe said. The artist added that he hopes his work inspires other indie filmmakers to bring their story ideas to life using iClone and Omniverse.

A scene from Jagwe’s educational series, “Adventures of Nkoza and Nankya.”

Another indie filmmaker, Benjamin Sokomba Dazhi, aka Benny Dee, has also mastered the art of animation. He’s landed roles as head animator for the film The Legend of Oronpoto as well as creator and director of the Cartoon Network Africa Dance Challenge.

Dazhi uses Omniverse with Reallusion’s iClone and Character Creator to supercharge his artistic workflow.

“The main challenges I faced when trying to meet deadlines were long render times and difficulties with software compatibility, but using an Omniverse Connector for Reallusion’s iClone app has been game-changing for my workflow,” he said.

A scene from one of Dhazi’s animated music videos.

Several other Omniverse community members recently joined a livestream to share their workflows using Reallusion and Omniverse. Watch the stream on demand:

Sync in Style With New Connector Updates

The updated Reallusion iClone Connector for Omniverse offers powerful integrations between the two platforms.

Users can now seamlessly synchronize their projects in real time thanks to new bidirectional live-sync capabilities. This means changes made in either iClone or Omniverse can be automatically reflected back to the other. Such bidirectional synchronization can be applied to animation-related changes for characters, such as skeletal and morph animation.

The iClone Connector also enables enhanced USD import capabilities. Users can now import static meshes, cameras and lights from Omniverse directly into iClone. This improved functionality includes a filter that allows importing assets with optimal efficiency based on their types.

See how designers can now preview Omniverse renders in real time while animating in iClone, as they enjoy seamless two-way USD data transfer:

Get Plugged Into the Omniverse 

Don’t miss our community livestream next week with Reallusion VP John Martin to learn all about the ways the iClone Omniverse Connector can advance your 3D character animation pipeline.

Watch NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote address at SIGGRAPH on demand to learn about the latest breakthroughs in graphics, research, OpenUSD and AI.

Like Reallusion, learn how anyone can build their own Omniverse extension or Connector to enhance their 3D workflows and tools.

Share your Reallusion and Omniverse work as part of the latest community challenge, #StartToFinish. Use the hashtag to submit a screenshot of a project featuring both its beginning and ending stages for a chance to be featured on the @NVIDIAStudio and @NVIDIAOmniverse social channels.

Get started with NVIDIA Omniverse by downloading the standard license free, or learn how Omniverse Enterprise can connect your team.
Developers can check out these Omniverse resources to begin building on the platform.

Stay up to date on the platform by subscribing to the newsletter and following NVIDIA Omniverse on Instagram, LinkedIn, Medium, Threads and Twitter.

For more, check out our forums, Discord server, Twitch and YouTube channels.

Featured image courtesy of Reallusion.

When it comes to preserving profit margins, data scientists for vehicle and parts manufacturers are sitting in the driver’s seat.

Viaduct, which develops models for time-series inference, is helping enterprises harvest failure insights from the data captured on today’s connected cars. It does so by tapping into sensor data and making correlations.

The four-year-old startup, based in Menlo Park, Calif., offers a platform to detect anomalous patterns, track issues, and deploy failure predictions. This enables automakers and parts suppliers to get in front of problems with real-time data to reduce warranty claims, recalls and defects, said David Hallac, the founder and CEO of Viaduct.

“Viaduct has deployed on more than 2 million vehicles, helped avoid 500,000 hours of downtime and saved hundreds of millions of dollars in warranty costs across the industry,” he said.

The company relies on NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs and the NVIDIA Time Series Prediction Platform (TSPP) framework for training, tuning and deploying time-series models, which are used to forecast data.

Viaduct has deployed with more than five major manufacturers of passenger cars and commercial trucks, according to the company.

“Customers see it as a huge savings — the things that we are affecting are big in terms of profitability,” said Hallac. “It’s downtime impact, it’s warranty impact and it’s product development inefficiency.”

Viaduct is a member of NVIDIA Inception, a program that provides companies with technology support and AI platforms guidance.

How It Started: Research Hits the Road

Hallac’s path to Viaduct began at Stanford University. While he was a Ph.D. student there, Volkswagen came to the lab he was at with sensor data collected from more than 60 drivers over the course of several months and a research grant to explore uses.

The question the researchers delved into was how to understand the patterns and trends in the sizable body of vehicle data collected over months.

The Stanford researchers in coordination with Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory released a paper on the work, which highlighted Drive2Vec, a deep learning method for embedding sensor data.

“We developed a bunch of algorithms focused on structural inference from high-dimensional time-series data. We were discovering useful insights, and we were able to help companies train and deploy predictive algorithms at scale,” he said.

Developing a Knowledge Graph for Insights With up to 10x Inference

Viaduct handles time-series analytics with its TSI engine, which aggregates manufacturing, telematics and service data. Its model was trained with A100 GPUs tapping into NVIDIA TSPP.

“We describe it as a knowledge graph — we’re building this knowledge graph of all the different sensors and signals and how they correlate with each other,” Hallac said.

Several key features are generated using the Drive2Vec autoencoder for embedding sensor data. Correlations are learned via a Markov random field inference process, and the time series predictions tap into the NVIDIA TSPP framework.

NVIDIA GPUs on this platform enable Viaduct to achieve as much as a 30x better inference accuracy compared with CPU systems running logistics regression and gradient boosting algorithms, Hallac said.

Protecting Profits With Proactive AI

One vehicle maker using Viaduct’s platform was able to handle some of its issues proactively, fix them and then identify which vehicles were at risk of those issues and only request owners to bring those in for service. This not only affects the warranty claims but also the service desks, which get more visibility into the types of vehicle repairs coming in.

Also, as vehicle and parts manufacturers are partnered on warranties, the results matter for both.

Viaduct reduced warranty costs for one customer by more than $50 million on five issues, according to the startup.

“Everyone wants the information, everyone feels the pain and everyone benefits when the system is optimized,” Hallac said of the potential for cost-savings.

Maintaining Vehicle Reviews Ratings

Viaduct began working with a major automaker last year to help with quality-control issues. The partnership aimed to improve its time-to-identify and time-to-fix post-production quality issues.

The automaker’s JD Power IQS (Initial Quality Study) score had been falling while its warranty costs were climbing, and the company sought to reverse the situation. So, the automaker began using Viaduct’s platform and its TSI engine.

In A/B testing Viaduct’s platform against traditional reactive approaches to quality control, the automaker was able to identify issues on average 53 days earlier during the first year of a vehicle launch. The results saved “tens of millions” in warranty costs and the vehicle’s JD Power quality and reliability score increased “multiple points” compared with the previous model year, according to Hallac.

And Viaduct is getting customer traction that reflects the value of its AI to businesses, he said.

Learn more about NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA TSPP.

Editor’s note: This post is part of our weekly In the NVIDIA Studio series, which celebrates featured artists, offers creative tips and tricks, and demonstrates how NVIDIA Studio technology improves creative workflows. We’re also deep diving on new GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU features, technologies and resources, and how they dramatically accelerate content creation.

The start of a new school year is an ideal time for students to upgrade their content creation, gaming and educational capabilities by picking up an NVIDIA Studio laptop, powered by GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics cards.

Marmoset Toolbag — a fully fledged 3D art production tool — just released version 4.06, a free update for Toolbag 4 users. It extends support of the OpenUSD file format and adds NVIDIA Omniverse compatibility, NVIDIA DLSS capability, AI OptiX denoising and speedups in rendering and baking — all RTX-accelerated.

Finally, this week In the NVIDIA Studio, popular influencer JiffyVFX talks about his viral video series, Doors to Realities, which garnered over 1.2 million views.

Create, Game, Study

GeForce and NVIDIA Studio RTX 40 Series laptops use the power of AI to accelerate content creation, gaming and study apps.

GeForce RTX 40 Series laptops deliver the ultimate performance for creative projects. Creators can quickly render 3D models and edit up to 8K HDR RAW videos to bring ideas to life — fast. The NVIDIA Studio platform supercharges over 110 creative apps and includes exclusive access to tools like the NVIDIA Broadcast app for enhanced creation, collaboration and remote learning. NVIDIA Studio Drivers provide maximum stability and lightning-fast performance for the most popular creative apps.

Gamers equipped with GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs have access to ray tracing-powered realistic and immersive graphics, a quantum leap in performance with the AI-powered DLSS 3, and the lowest latency and best system responsiveness for the ultimate competitive advantage.

For students in engineering, architecture, computer science and other STEM fields, Studio laptops can accelerate dozens of apps, aiding in the creation of smoother 3D design and modeling, faster AI training and simulation and more accurate machine learning models.

Fifth-generation Max-Q technologies use AI to optimize laptop performance, power and acoustics for peak efficiency. This enables thinner and lighter designs and a 70% improved battery life suited to serving student and creator needs alike. And DLSS is now optimized for laptops, giving creators incredible 3D rendering performance with DLSS 3 optical multi-frame generation and super resolution in Omniverse and D5 Render, as well as in hit games like Cyberpunk 2077.

Get the latest and greatest deals on Studio laptops today.

Marmoset Toolbag 4.06 Adds OpenUSD

Content exported from Toolbag to Universal Scene Description (known as OpenUSD) is now fully compatible with the Omniverse ecosystem.

The OpenUSD format delivers the notable advantages of preserving physically accurate material, mesh and lighting properties, even as content travels between 3D apps such as Blender, Marmoset and Unreal Engine.

RTX GPU-accelerated OptiX denoising is also available for smooth, interactive ray tracing in the viewport. Artists can now navigate in full quality without visual artifacts and performance disruptions.

Toolbag also integrated NVIDIA DLSS, which renders the viewport at a reduced resolution and uses sophisticated AI-based technology to upscale images, improving performance while minimizing reductions in image quality. This works especially well with high-DPI displays and is a great tool for maintaining smooth performance while working on full resolution with more complex scenes.

RTX GPU-accelerated rendering gives a 2x improvement in render times and a 4x improvement in baking. DirectX 12 migration delivers an additional 25% increase in rendering and baking performance.

Learn more about Toolbag 4.06. All new users receive a full-feature, 30-day free trial license.

Create in a Jiff

James Luke, a.k.a. JiffyVFX, never has to look far for inspiration.

“Various films, shows, comic book characters, artists and musicians inspire me,” said Luke. “But I’d say the biggest inspirational factor is watching other artists’ works and their behind the scenes content — I’m forever watching tutorials and breakdown videos on YouTube of how other artists create their content.”

Luke’s Doors to Realities series began with a simple idea: put the planet Earth outside a bedroom window using the Video Copilot’s Orb plug-in for Adobe After Effects.

“I began seeing people post collages or montages of different aesthetics — things like cyberpunk, art deco, neo-noir, retro-futurism — wondering what it would look like to transport to one of those worlds through a portal or a door of some sort,” said Luke. “What would a first-person perspective of that look like?”

More recently, Luke created a Japan-themed Doors to Realities video aided by his ASUS Zenbook Pro 14 Studio laptop, powered by a GeForce RTX 4070 GPU.

Luke used 3D modeling to create the environment featured in the video. He previously used Unreal Engine for the first two installments of the series, but this time, he experimented with Kitbash 3D’s Cargo app for a one-click import into Blender. It was a game-changer — finding and uploading models into Blender was never so speedy and efficient.

His GeForce graphics card enabled RTX-accelerated OptiX ray tracing in the viewport for interactive, photorealistic rendering. When the final renders were ready, Luke added the Doors to Realities template into an Adobe After Effects project with the clip already masked and ready to go. There, he added glow effects, one of over 30+ GPU-accelerated key effects, with keyframes set up from previous videos.

“All I had to do was plop the render in, copy and paste the glow effects with their intensity keyframes and then hit render again,” said Luke.

Finally, Luke added music and background sounds like bird chirping, a river stream and the sound of leaves subtly blowing in the wind.

The Studio laptop not only enhances Luke’s content creation experience but also boosts the efficiency of his workflow. “High frame rates, DLSS 3 and ray tracing — what’s not to love?” said Luke.

He encourages other creators to push forward and continue experimenting.

“Never. Stop. Creating!” said Luke. “Never stop learning! The only way to improve is to keep pushing yourself and the limits of what you can do.”

Check out JiffyVFX on TikTok.

Follow NVIDIA Studio on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Access tutorials on the Studio YouTube channel and get updates directly in your inbox by subscribing to the Studio newsletter. 

Rise and shine, it’s time to quake up — the GeForce NOW Ultimate KovaaK’s challenge kicks off at the QuakeCon gaming festival today, giving gamers everywhere the chance to play to their ultimate potential with ultra-high 240 frames per second streaming. On top of bragging rights, top scorers can win some sweet prizes — including a 240Hz gaming monitor.

Bethesda’s award-winning titles Doom Eternal, Quake, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Wolfenstein: Youngblood heat up the cloud this week, leading 21 new games joining the GeForce NOW library.

Plus, Baldur’s Gate 3 has been a hit with members. Make sure to upgrade to Ultimate and Priority memberships today to skip the waiting lines over free members and get into gaming faster.

Ultimate Power, Ultimate Wins

Warning: The GeForce NOW Ultimate membership is so good that gamers can no longer blame their hardware for losses.

To celebrate the completion of the Ultimate upgrade, GeForce NOW is giving everyone a chance to experience the full power of an Ultimate membership and 240 fps cloud gaming with its Ultimate KovaaK’s challenge. See how streaming from a GeForce RTX 4080 gaming rig completely changes the game.

GeForce NOW has teamed with popular aim trainer KovaaK’s to create a custom demo on the GeForce NOW app for PC and macOS. Free and Priority members can stream the demo, then get a free one-day upgrade to 240 fps gaming with GeForce NOW Ultimate to instantly experience a major performance improvement. Members will receive an email once their free one-day upgrade is available, and should make sure their device settings are optimized for the challenge.

Gamers can replay the demo unlimited times on Ultimate during the one-day upgrade and aim for the top score against other GeForce NOW members on the challenge leaderboard. QuakeCon attendees and those playing from home can compete for prizes through Thursday, Sept. 21. Keep an eye out on Twitter and Facebook for more details.

Ultimate members who’ve already been enjoying ultra-high 240 fps cloud gaming can also join in on the fun — just try to show the newcomers a little mercy on the leaderboard.

The Cloud Just Got Hotter

After warming up with the Ultimate Challenge, bring the heat over to Bethesda’s highly acclaimed first-person shooter games.

Hell’s armies have invaded Earth once again in Doom Eternal, the latest entry in the legendary Doom franchise. Traverse various dimensions to stop the demonic invasion and save humanity. Raze enemies in the single-player campaign, or grab some buddies for “Battlemode” and face off against their demons as a fully armed, upgraded Doom Slayer in a best-of-five match. Each demon has unique abilities, while the Slayer can use its arsenal and power-ups to take the enemies down.

Grab the gaming classic Quake to step into the shoes of Ranger, a warrior armed with a powerful arsenal of weapons. Fight corrupted knights, deformed ogres and an army of twisted creatures. Brave it alone or with a squad of up to four players in an online co-op mode.

Take the fight over to the Wolfenstein franchise and battle against high-tech Nazi legions in a twisted version of history with Wolfenstein: The New Order, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Wolfenstein: Youngblood joining the cloud. Experience popular character B.J. Blazkowicz’s story in New Order and The New Colossus, then play as his twin daughters in Youngblood. Members can also experience Wolfenstein: Youngblood with RTX ON for real-time cinematic lighting.

Those returning to the series or experiencing them for the first time can stream at up to 240 fps with a GeForce NOW Ultimate membership, which offers peak performance that’s helpful whether facing off against demons, war machines or other players around the world.

Bring on the New

The newest season of Apex Legends, the popular, free-to-play, battle-royale first-person shooter game, is now available to stream. Apex Legends: Resurrection brings a new look and deadly new abilities for offense-focused character Revenant. Plus, members can battle on new stages for Mixtape on Broken Moon. Or, gamers can put their skills to the test in a new Ranked season and terrorize foes from the Resurrection Battle Pass.

Members can look forward to the 21 new games joining this week:

• I Am Future (New release on Steam, Aug. 8)
• Atlas Fallen (New release on Steam, Aug. 10)
• Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You (Free game on Epic Games Store, Aug. 10)
• Sengoku Dynasty (New release on Steam, Aug. 10)
• Tales & Tactics (New release on Steam, Aug. 10)
• Aliens: Dark Descent (Epic Games Store)
• Doom Eternal (Steam)
• LEGO Brawls (Epic Games Store)
• Quake (Steam and Epic Games Store)
• Session Skate Sim (Epic Games Store)
• Smalland: Survive the Wilds (Epic Games Store)
• Superhot (Epic Games Store)
• Terra Invicta (Epic Games Store)
• Ultimate KovaaK’s Challenge
• Wall World (Steam)
• Wild West Dynasty (Epic Games Store)
• Wolfenstein: The New Order (Steam and Epic Games Store)
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (Steam)
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (Steam)
• WRECKFEST (Epic Games Store)
• Xenonauts 2 (Epic Games Store)

This week’s Game On giveaway with SteelSeries includes RuneScape and three-day Priority membership codes. Check the giveaway page for details on how to enter.

And we’ve got a question before the weekend starts. Let us know how you do with the Ultimate KovvaK’s challenge on Twitter or in the comments below.

Who’s up for a challenge?

— NVIDIA GeForce NOW (@NVIDIAGFN) August 9, 2023

Thousands of hackers will tweak, twist and probe the latest generative AI platforms this week in Las Vegas as part of an effort to build more trustworthy and inclusive AI.

Collaborating with the hacker community to establish best practices for testing next-generation AI, NVIDIA is participating in a first-of-its-kind test of industry-leading LLM solutions, including NVIDIA NeMo and NeMo Guardrails.

The Generative Red Team Challenge, hosted by AI Village, SeedAI, and Humane Intelligence, will be among a series of workshops, training sessions and appearances by NVIDIA leaders at the Black Hat and DEF CON security conferences in Las Vegas.

The challenge — which gives hackers a number of vulnerabilities to exploit  — promises to be the first of many opportunities to reality-check emerging AI technologies.

“AI empowers individuals to create and build previously impossible things,” said Austin Carson, founder of SeedAI and co-organizer of the Generative Red Team Challenge. “But without a large, diverse community to test and evaluate the technology, AI will just mirror its creators, leaving big portions of society behind.”

The collaboration with the hacker community comes amid a concerted push for AI safety making headlines across the world, with the Biden-Harris administration securing voluntary commitment from the leading AI companies working on cutting-edge generative models.

“AI Village draws the community concerned about the implications of AI systems – both malicious use and impact on society,” said Sven Cattell founder of AI Village and co-organizer of the Generative Red Team Challenge. “At DEFCON 29, we hosted the first Algorithmic Bias Bounty with Rumman Chowdhury’s former team at Twitter. This marked the first time a company had allowed public access to their model for scrutiny.”

This week’s challenge is a key step in the evolution of AI, thanks to the leading role played by the hacker community — with its ethos of skepticism, independence and transparency — in creating and field testing emerging security standards.

NVIDIA’s technologies are fundamental to AI, and NVIDIA was there at the beginning of the generative AI revolution. In 2016, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang hand-delivered to OpenAI the first NVIDIA DGX AI supercomputer — the engine behind the large language model breakthrough powering ChatGPT.

NVIDIA DGX systems, originally used as an AI research instrument, are now running 24/7 at businesses across the world to refine data and process AI.

Management consultancy McKinsey estimates generative AI could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually to the global economy across 63 use cases.

This makes safety  — and trust — an industry-wide concern.

That’s why NVIDIA employees are engaging with attendees at both last week’s Black Hat conference for security professionals and this week’s DEF CON gathering.

At Black Hat, NVIDIA hosted a two-day training session on using machine learning and a briefing on the risks of poisoning web-scale training datasets. It also participated in a panel discussion on the potential benefits of AI for security.

At DEF CON, NVIDIA is sponsoring a talk on the risks of breaking into baseboard management controllers. These specialized service processors monitor the physical state of a computer, network server or other hardware devices.

And through the Generative Red Team Challenge, part of the AI Village Prompt Detective workshop, thousands of DEF CON participants will be able to demonstrate prompt injection, attempt to elicit unethical behaviors and test other techniques to obtain inappropriate responses.

Models built by Anthropic, Cohere, Google, Hugging Face, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI and Stability, with participation from Microsoft, will be tested on an evaluation platform developed by Scale AI.

As a result, everyone gets smarter.

“We’re fostering the exchange of ideas and information while simultaneously addressing risks and opportunities,” said Rumman Chowdhury, a member of AI Village’s leadership team and co-founder of Humane Intelligence, the nonprofit designing the challenges. “The hacker community is exposed to different ideas, and community partners gain new skills that position them for the future.”

Released in April as open-source software, NeMo Guardrails can help developers guide generative AI applications to create impressive text responses that can stay on track — ensuring intelligent, LLM-powered applications are accurate, appropriate, on topic and secure.

To ensure transparency and the ability to put the technology to work across many environments, NeMo Guardrails — the product of several years of research — is open source, with much of the NeMo conversational AI framework already available as open-source code on GitHub, contributing to the developer community’s tremendous energy and work on AI safety.

Engaging with the DEF CON community builds on this, enabling NVIDIA to share what it has learned with NeMo Guardrails and to, in turn, learn from the community.

Organizers of the event — which include SeedAI, Humane Intelligence and AI Village — plan to analyze the data and publish their findings, including processes and learnings, to help other organizations conduct similar exercises.

Last week, organizers also issued a call for research proposals and received several proposals from leading researchers within the first 24 hours.

“Since this is the first instance of a live hacking event of a generative AI system at scale, we will be learning together,” Chowdhury said. “The ability to replicate this exercise and put AI testing into the hands of thousands is key to its success.”

The Generative Red Team Challenge will take place in the AI Village at DEF CON 31 from Aug. 10-13, at Caesar’s Forum in Las Vegas.