A global leader in AI 3D large-scale models has teamed up with NetEase to make a major announcement

How many new possibilities can AI bring to user-generated content in gaming?

In early September, AI 3D generation company VAST partnered with NetEase’s *Egg Party* to integrate its Tripo AI 3D large-model technology into the game’s user-generated content (UGC) creation system.

The UGC ecosystem is a key factor in the success of *Egg Party*, and the development team has been continuously improving the content creation tools.

Historically, 3D art production has required specialized skills and significant manpower. In the gaming industry, art-related roles account for over 50% of the workforce, with a large portion of that involving 3D production. In the past, UGC platforms found it difficult to lower the barrier to entry for 3D model creation to a level accessible to the general public.

With the introduction of AI-powered 3D generation technology, players can now create 3D models using text or images and use them directly in map creation. This has significantly lowered the barrier to entry for content creation in *Egg Party* and increased the diversity of user-generated content.

In Egg Party, players use Tripo to generate models

AI 3D generation technology holds great promise, and this collaboration serves as an excellent example of its practical application. Teahouse has long taken note of VAST, the technology partner behind *Egg Party*. Founded in early 2023, the company completed a Pre-A+ round of financing worth tens of millions of dollars in June of this year, with each of its three funding rounds raising hundreds of millions of yuan, making it one of the highest-valued companies in the AI 3D large-model sector.

Founder Song Yachen, born in the 1990s, graduated from Johns Hopkins University. He previously helped establish the AI unicorn MiniMax and recently demonstrated the company’s products to the Premier at WAIC 2025 (World Artificial Intelligence Conference). Unlike the approach of treating AI merely as a tool for cost reduction and efficiency improvement, VAST has, from its early days, explored creating new applications through 3D generation technology.

Their collaboration with a UGC platform for a nationally popular casual game can be viewed as a milestone achievement.

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A Perfect Match

In fact, this is not the first time NetEase and VAST have collaborated on UGC gameplay. As early as 2024, the two companies had already implemented this technology in NetEase’s flagship open-world wuxia masterpiece, *Sixteen Sounds of Yan Yun*. The game’s innovative “Taiji of All Things” feature is powered by VAST’s AI 3D technology, allowing players to generate items with a single command—truly bringing the concept of “speak and it shall be done” to life.This initiative also pioneered the use of 3D generation as a core gameplay mechanic in the mainstream gaming industry.

Powered by the Tripo large language model and NetEase’s online 3D pipeline, this Egg Boy UGC feature has reduced the time required for AI-generated 3D model creation to just minutes, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for 3D modeling. The AI team at NetEase Interactive Entertainment’s Art Design Department stated: “This collaboration allows us to rapidly introduce entirely new experiences to our games;"For 'Artisan Eggs'—as the game’s players are affectionately known—this makes it easy to create UGC content regardless of their modeling skills; for the gaming industry, it pioneers innovative AI-3D gameplay, integrating AI more deeply into the gaming experience. It can be said that NetEase’s partnership with VAST to introduce AI 3D generation technology into the game’s UGC experience has not only established a new industry standard but also opened unprecedented creative possibilities for the millions of ‘Artisan Eggs’ in Egg Party."

Zhang Xinnan, Head of AI Business at NetEase Interactive Entertainment’s Art Design Center, said, “With the release of the new version, the performance of VAST’s TripoAI 3D large model has indeed improved significantly.” The art creation platform, developed primarily by NetEase Interactive Entertainment’s DreamMaker team, has now integrated the latest version of the TripoAI 3D large model and will be used to enhance 3D production efficiency across various game development teams in the future.

To meet a variety of needs, VAST offers a wide range of services.

As an AI company that prioritizes technical expertise, VAST is capable of generating models with exceptional precision. Their recently released Tripo 3.0 version has increased the number of model parameters from several billion to 20 billion, enabling 3D resolution at the 1-billion-voxel level—sufficient for industrial-grade applications even in standard mode.

In practical applications, there are many important factors to consider beyond just model accuracy. Take our collaboration with *Egg Party* as an example: for a massively popular mobile game, we also need to consider compatibility across different devices and model costs. In a sense, it’s even more crucial to strike a balance between quality, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

To address this issue, VAST uses intelligent low-poly generation technology to reduce the number of polygons in a model, efficiently delivering models with lower performance overhead.

For a long time, AI-generated 3D models have primarily been used by professionals, with AI serving mainly to reduce costs and improve efficiency. To address these needs, VAST offers a range of professional and user-friendly features, including intelligent component segmentation, intelligent texturing, and automatic rigging.

Thanks to these capabilities, they have attracted nearly 4 million professional developers worldwide, more than 40,000 SME partners, and over 700 enterprise clients—including major companies such as NetEase, Tencent, Sony, and Microsoft.

To gain a deeper understanding of users’ true needs, VAST has consistently conducted user interviews over the long term—even going so far as to call it the “CEO Program.” They have interviewed over 1,000 creators, spending two hours with each one, and shared the insights gained through company-wide emails.

Along the way, they’ve met many creators from diverse backgrounds: a 76-year-old retired art teacher from the U.S., a Japanese WebAR creator working on public service projects, a Russian model maker, an Israeli full-stack game developer, a senior concept artist at Disney, and a former art director at Blizzard… accumulating use cases that span a wide range of fields.

Through these in-depth discussions, VAST has gained a clear understanding of the evolution of 3D content creation:

Initially, 3D creation was exclusively a PGC (Professional User-Generated Content) domain, accessible only to those with professional training.With the advent of AI technology, the barrier to entry has begun to lower, giving rise to a wave of PUGC (Professional User-Generated Content) creators—people who may not be professional 3D artists but possess a passion for creation and a certain technical foundation. Now, through collaborations with popular games like "Egg Party," VAST is simultaneously striving to usher 3D creation into a true UGC era.

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The Potential of AI to Create New Ways to Play

Since the rise of AI, the industry has been hoping that AI will bring more innovative applications beyond simply reducing costs and improving efficiency.

In a sense, cost reduction and efficiency gains go hand in hand with innovative approaches—only when the technical barriers are low enough can the public’s creative drive be fully unleashed. When 3D creation becomes as easy as taking a photo, value creation will shift from repetitive labor to content innovation, enabling every ordinary user to become a creator of 3D content, giving images volume and shaping imagination.

As the one selling the shovels, VAST is actively working to make this happen.

In addition to offering Tripo Studio, VAST has a long-term goal: to put user-friendly AI tools in the hands of ordinary individuals—not just professionals—so that anyone can create 3D content. When that happens, the AI 3D sector could see the emergence of platform-level opportunities similar to those presented by TikTok.

From a long-term perspective, this collaboration between VAST and *Egg Party* presents an excellent opportunity—*Egg Party* is a major UGC platform with a large community of established UGC and PUGC creators, and the game boasts a high DAU and a young user base.

Through this partnership, VAST can put 3D creation tools into the hands of ordinary players, helping them invent new ways to play. In the process, VAST can also work with its partners to gather feedback and build up expertise.

In addition, VAST is exploring other ways to encourage more creators to use AI 3D for game development.

They have launched a dedicated section called Tripo GameHub, where creators can use the Tripo API and Vibecoding to develop games featuring real-time 3D generation as a core gameplay mechanic. Independent developers are integrating real-time 3D generation into a variety of game genres, including strategy games, auto-battlers, card games, and shoot 'em ups.

To date, two editions of Tripo GameHub have been held, and VAST will be showcasing the best entries from these events at the upcoming TGS (Tokyo Game Show).

In addition, they organize developer events and collaborate with universities to host lectures—with the aim of engaging more people and exploring together the possibilities of new applications brought about by AI.

Conclusion

VAST has a grand vision: to become the "TikTok of the 3D world." This goes beyond simply lowering the technical barrier; it involves building a comprehensive ecosystem for creating, sharing, and consuming 3D content.

In this vision, AI is no longer merely a tool for reducing costs and improving efficiency, but an enabler of creative expression. When enough ordinary people acquire 3D creation skills, and when creation, sharing, and interaction form a closed loop, the 3D content sector may experience explosive growth similar to that seen in short-form video.

This collaboration with *Egg Party* represents a significant step in that direction. By allowing millions of players to experience the joy of AI-powered 3D creation, VAST is validating and refining its product while also nurturing a community of future 3D content creators.

Just as the VAST team anticipated, when the barriers to 3D creation are low enough and the tools are user-friendly enough, human creativity will be fully unleashed. At that point, AI will not only transform the way games are made, but will also create entirely new gaming experiences and business models.