‍About Bunch

Bunch is a mobile digital world where people meet, talk, and share anything, from watching videos to playing games together. 

Built by a team of 35 and funded by many large game companies, from Supercell to Electronic Arts, Bunch aims to create a virtual playground where players hang out before and after playing their favorite games.

Exploring new ways to create live game content

Any game developer can tell you how challenging it is to manage a popular live game. These games require a constant pipeline of new assets to keep content fresh and players engaged. This was the challenge Bunch was trying to solve in their digital world - giving players true customization without compromise.

Creating a constant pipeline of virtual items and environments was critical for Bunch to keep their players engaged and build a vibrant in-game economy. One of the ways Bunch offers players a way to self-express is by allowing them to customize their avatars and virtual spaces. This created a constant need for new assets, which was nearly impossible to address with limited time and resources. 

Bunch turned to Layer’s gen-AI tools to help solve this critical challenge in asset development. The team needed a platform that was style consistent, fast, and simple to use. After training their first styles, Bunch artists began working directly with Layer for guidance on asset development. After implementing the quick fixes recommended by the team, they were convinced that Layer was the ideal solution to scale their art pipeline. Before leveraging Layer, Bunch typically shipped 3 completed game assets per week.

Building a team-wide art pipeline with Layer

While the Bunch team was skilled at building art from scratch, they needed a tool to collaborate and produce art consistently in their unique style. With Layer, the Bunch was able to set up an organization that allowed them to create, share, and collaborate on asset generation. These features were key for scaling up assets while keeping everything on-brand and at a consistent quality level.

The process began with a focus on avatars and virtual homes, which were important content pieces for player customization. More options gave a broader sense of agency to players, letting them create avatars and environments that matched their characters.

Training Bunch styles in Layer

Creation began with uploading original artwork consisting of  Avatar images and Homes with relevant captions. These worked to educate the Layer AI model on what the image is about for future training. 

Caption examples: material, lightning, gender, emotional state, outfits, poses, colors, hair, and distinct features.

Optimizing prompts & creating variations

Example prompts were then used to create outputs of style variations so the Bunch team could compare and select ideal variants.

The top versions were then chosen for forging.

Creating true player customization with unique assets

Getting the art pipeline to the level of consistency can be challenging at first. However, the Bunch team quickly realized adding specific types of images and writing detailed captions was key in getting the desired consistency. 

These were achieved through a combination of initial style training, forging variations, and experimenting with prompts. The team even leveraged tools such as ChatGPT to speed up the process for prompts and descriptions even further. Here are some examples achieved before and after the improved captioning. 

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In partnership with the Layer team, Bunch was able to generate concepts that matched their style very quickly around 10 assets per week and created a total of 40 assets. This resulted in players having a variety of avatars to pick from, with a huge range in styles and personalities. 

Combined with an increased selection in virtual homes, Bunch now was able to offer players true customization - leading to increased engagement and sentiment.

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