Development of Virtual Character Using ChatGPT

Artificial Intelligence(AI) has moved beyond existing as a concept mainly in science fiction and has now firmly integrated into our daily lives. Interest in AI has surged with the advent of natural language generation models such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, which can generate text and engage in conversations at a level similar to that of a human. Consequently, there is growing interest in the potential for AI to exist not merely as a technical entity but as a virtual human companion. This study originates from this background and aims to develop an AI virtual character that can interact with humans through voice. To achieve this, we use the Unreal Engine's Runtime Speech Recognizer plugin, based on OpenAI's Whisper model, to convert user speech into text in real time. The converted text is then sent to the ChatGPT API via the VaRest plugin to generate natural language responses. The generated responses are converted to speech using Text-to-Speech (TTS) technology and are expressed through facial animations of MetaHumans using MetaHumanSDK. The developed system allows conversations with virtual characters to appear as actual conversations with people, thus providing an immersive user experience. This research explores the possibility of AI coexisting as virtual humans and companions to humans through such a technical approach, serving as foundational research in preparation for a future where collaboration and interaction with AI become commonplace.