[gameAI_news] Game AI Newsletter (03/2009)
AI SIG List for Game AI News
gameai_news at igda.org
Fri Mar 20 16:32:26 EDT 2009
Hi everyone,
By now you have probably already realized that the previously announced move
to an integrated forum/wiki/community platform for the IGDA's AI SIG still
hasn't happened. Unluckily, the IGDA faced many problems with implementing
the system, and finally switched to another one (Drupal). They're now trying
to get everything ready right after GDC, so this is likely the last
newsletter from this mailing list. I will try to move/transition the
subscribers to the new system, but in case this is not possible, I'll send
another note.
With things not going too well in the games industry with layoffs left and
right, people already asked me if I'm a bit crazy with starting up my new
company now (www.kingdom-crafting.com). The company, by the way, is not on
AI middleware but full game production, and you can certainly expect the
games to be extremely AI-heavy! And at least it's easier to hire good people
when starting up in the current economic climate :-)
--- GDC ---
GDC starts in a few days, and this time, it looks like it's a great treat
for everyone interested in AI! There are so many AI session that you can
likely stay the whole week only in AI sessions (and then likely collapse
thereafter)! Here is an overview of AI-related GDC action:
* Artificial Intelligence SIG Roundtable:
Of course the most important event at GDC :-) We will focus in particular
on potential short- and mid-term initiatives and issues to be addressed by
the AI SIG, how to utilize best our new IGDA infrastructure, and everything
else that you want to bring up!
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8578
Friday, 10:30am-11:30am, Room 112, North Hall
* AI Summit:
Yes, you read correctly! Two days full of AI-focused sessions!
General link: http://www.gdconf.com/conference/ait.html
And all the goodies:
* AI Summit Introduction and Welcome [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8958
Monday, 9:00am-9:15am, Room 2018, West Hall
* #define GAME_AI [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8957
Monday, 9:15am-10:00am, Room 2018, West Hall
* Preparing for the Future: As a Professional Game AI Developer, What
Should I Know? [Panel]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8276
Monday, 10:00am-11:00am, Room 2018, West Hall
* Animating in a Complex World: Integrating AI and Animation [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8277
Monday, 11:15am-12:30pm, Room 2018, West Hall
* 2008 AI Postmortems: SPORE, GEARS OF WAR 2, and BIOSHOCK [Panel]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8956
Monday, 2:00pm-3:00pm, Room 2018, West Hall
* AI and Designers: Mind the Gap [Panel]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8484
Monday, 3:00pm-4:00pm, Room 2018, West Hall
* Toward Solving Pathfinding [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8961
Monday, 4:15pm-5:15pm, Room 2018, West Hall
* Characters Welcome: Next Steps Towards Human AI [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8499
Monday, 5:15pm-6:00pm, Room 2018, West Hall
* Breaking the Cookie-Cutter: Modeling Individual Personality, Mood, and
Emotion in Characters [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8483
Tuesday, 9:00am-10:00am, Room 2018, West Hall
* When Good AI Goes Bad: Tools, Techniques, and Strategies for Testing
and Debugging AI [Panel]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8278
Tuesday, 10:00am-11:00am, Room 2018, West Hall
* From the Ground Up: AI Architecture and Design Patterns [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8500
Tuesday, 11:15am-12:30pm, Room 2018, West Hall
* The Photoshop of AI: Debating the Structure vs Style Decomposition of
Game AI [Panel]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8279
Tuesday, 2:00pm-3:00pm, Room 2018, West Hall
* Beyond Behavior: An Introduction to Knowledge Representation [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8498
Tuesday, 3:00pm-4:00pm, Room 2018, West Hall
* Parallelism in AI: Multithreading Strategies and Opportunities for
Multi-core Architectures [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8959
Tuesday, 4:15pm-5:15pm, Room 2018, West Hall
* AI Summit Final QA and Closing Remarks [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8960
Tuesday, 5:15pm-6:00pm, Room 2018, West Hall
* Steven & Neil's Artificial Intelligence in Computer Games Roundtables:
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=9418
Wednesday, 4:00pm-5:00pm, Room 121, North Hall
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=9415
Thursday, 9:00am-10:00am, Room 111, North Hall
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=9412
Friday, 12:00pm-1:00pm, Room 111, North Hall
* Other AI-related GDC events:
* Momentum vs. Character Animation [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8549
Wednesday, 12:00pm-1:00pm, Room 2007, West Hall
* Threaded AI For The Win! [Sponsored Session]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=9267
Wednesday, 12:00pm-1:00pm, Room 2011, West Hall
* Procedural Speech Generation: How to Achieve Open Ended Dialog in Games
Using Speech Technology
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=9137
Wednesday, 2:30pm-3:30pm, Room 3020, West Hall
* Character Pathfinding and Animation: How to Make Them Work Together
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=9320
Wednesday, 4:00pm-5:00pm, Room 131, North Hall
* How Sackboy Learned to Love Physics [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=9091
Thursday, 9:00am-10:00am, Room 135, North Hall
* On the War Path: Tactical AI in DAWN OF WAR 2 [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8855
Thursday, 9:00am-10:00am, Room 2024, West Hall
* Building AI behaviors from Improvisational Actors [Poster Session]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8989
Thursday, 12:15pm-1:15pm, Station 2, Second Floor, West Hall
* Directing the Prince Of Persia Camera: A Sustainable Development
Approach [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8976
Friday, 10:30am-11:30am, Room 2014, West Hall
* Robotic Testing to the Rescue [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8545
Friday, 12:00pm-1:00pm, Room 2022, West Hall
* State-Based Scripting in UNCHARTED: DRAKE'S FORTUNE and UNCHARTED 2:
AMONG THIEVES [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8548
Friday, 12:00pm-1:00pm, Room 2018, West Hall
* Aarf! Arf Arf Arf: Talking to the Player with Barks
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=8676
Friday, 11:10am-11:30am, Room 2002, West Hall
* Dynamic Walking with Semi-Procedural Animation [Lecture]
https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=9004
Friday, 4:00pm-5:00pm, Room 2018, West Hall
If this is not already enough, there's also some AI party fun to be had:
* AiGameDev.com Launch Party
http://events.linkedin.com/AiGameDev-com-Launch-Party-GDC-2009/pub/30086
Tuesday, 9pm-2am, Minna Gallery, 111 Minna Street
* ...and don't forget the IGDA Members-Only Party - though that's of
course not only AI-related! (and unluckily overlaps with the event above)
http://www.igda.org/gdc09/rsvp_gdcparty_09.php
Tuesday, 8pm-1am, IGDA Members-Only Party, Westin on Market (aka
Argent), Metropolitan Ballroom, 50 Third Street
I guess I will scream and run for some weeks thereafter if anyone even only
mentions "game AI"...
--- OTHER EVENTS ---
EVENT:
AAAI Symposium on Intelligent Narrative Technologies II
March 23-25, 2009
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/conferences/aaai-int2/
EVENT:
2009 AISB'09 Symposium: AI & Games
April 8-9, 2009
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~daniela/AISB09/
EVENT:
Paris Game AI Conference '09
June 10-11, 2009
Paris, France
http://aigamedev.com/site/paris-cfp-2009
EVENT:
The Fifth Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital
Entertainment
October 14-16, 2009
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Paper submission deadline: Abstracts: April 14, 2009
http://www.aiide2009.org/
--- STUDY MATERIAL ---
ONLINE RESOURCE/PROCEEDINGS:
Rob Zubek has compiled some direct links to previous game AI
events/conference proceedings that are now available as AAAI opened up their
library - great stuff!
http://www.ai-blog.net/archives/000158.html
ONLINE RESOURCE/ARTICLES:
Here is a list of recent Gamasutra articles in the game AI area:
* "Intelligent Mistakes: How to Incorporate Stupidity Into Your AI Code"
by Mick West (March 18, 2009)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3947/intelligent_mistakes_how_to_.php
* "Intelligent Brawling" by Tom Smith (February 19, 2009)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3931/intelligent_brawling.php
* "Creating All Humans: A Data-Driven AI Framework for Open Game Worlds"
by John Krajewski (February 4, 2009)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1862/creating_all_humans_a_datadriven_
.php
* "The Pure Advantage: Advanced Racing Game AI" by Eduardo Jimenez
(February 3, 2009)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3920/the_pure_advantage_advanced_.php
* "The Technology of F.E.A.R. 2: An Interview on Engine and AI
Development" by Christian Nutt (December 19, 2008)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3887/the_technology_of_fear_2_an_.php
* "Procedural Spooling In Games" by Mick West (October 2, 2008)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1605/procedural_spooling_in_games.php
* "Beyond AIML: Chatbots 102" by Bruce Wilcox (August 14, 2008)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3761/beyond_aiml_chatbots_102.php
ONLINE RESOURCE/MEDIA:
GDC 2008 keynote presentation of "The Next 20 Years of Gaming" by Ray
Kurzweil
https://www.cmpevents.com/sessions/GD/S7036i1.ppt
ONLINE RESOURCE/MEDIA:
GDC 2008 presentation of "Building a Better Battle: The Halo 3 AI
Objectives System" by Damián Isla
http://www.bungie.net/images/Inside/publications/presentations/betterbattle
.zip
ONLINE RESOURCE/ARTICLE:
Paul Tozour on "Fixing Pathfinding Once and For All" (July 26, 2008)
http://www.ai-blog.net/archives/000152.html
ONLINE RESOURCE/ARTICLE:
SIGGRAPH 2008 paper on Spore's "Real-time Motion Retargeting to Highly
Varied User-Created Morphologies" by Chris Hecker et al.
http://chrishecker.com/Real-time_Motion_Retargeting_to_Highly_Varied_User-C
reated_Morphologies
ONLINE RESOURCE/INTERVIEW:
Will Wright's 5 Prophecies about Artificial Intelligence (with video)
by Erik Sofge (October 16, 2008)
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4287680.html?series=60
ONLINE RESOURCE/TUTORIALS:
Tutorial slides from the CIG'08 IEEE Symposium on Computational
Intelligence and Games
("Learning to Play Games", "Inducing Agent Models from Examples",
"Measuring and Optimizing Player Satisfaction")
http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/cig08/tutorials.html
BOOK:
Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI
by Dave Mark
Course Technology PTR
http://www.courseptr.com/ptr_detail.cfm?isbn=978%2D1%2D58450%2D684%2D3
BOOK:
AI Game Engine Programming
by Brian Schwab
Course Technology PTR
http://www.courseptr.com/ptr_detail.cfm?isbn=978%2D1%2D58450%2D572%2D3
BOOK:
AI and Artificial Life in Video Games
by Guy Lecky-Thompson
Course Technology PTR
http://www.courseptr.com/ptr_detail.cfm?isbn=978%2D1%2D58450%2D558%2D7
NEW JOURNAL:
IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games
http://www.ieee-cis.org/pubs/tciaig/
ONLINE RESOURCE:
Well, AiGameDev.com is not really a new site, but they have substantially
revised and improved their content. Really very cool what they're doing!
Check it out:
http://aigamedev.com/
ONLINE RESOURCE:
Dave Mark's site with lots of game AI resources:
http://www.intrinsicalgorithm.com/
(including notes & audio recordings from last GDC's AI Roundtables and an
interview with Bioshock's AI lead!)
ONLINE RESOURCE:
Daniel Harabor's page with lots of pathfinding-related info:
http://harablog.wordpress.com/
--- MISC ---
... and some info on a new German player in the AI middleware game (no, it's
not me this time!) as well as some other interesting news:
COMMERCIAL GAME AI SOLUTION:
EKI One by Artificial Technology GmbH
http://www.ekione.com/home
INTERESTING NEWS:
Nvidia and AMD to accelerate gaming AI on GPUs
http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/605389/nvidia-and-amd-to-accelerate-gaming-a
i-on-gpus/
Wow... judging by the length of this newsletter, AI is becoming pretty hip!
See you guys perhaps then at our GDC AI SIG session next Friday - and I'll
keep you updated how we will proceed with the transition to the new IGDA
site framework!
Best,
Alexander Nareyek <alex at ai-center.com>
Chair of the IGDA's AI SIG
http://www.igda.org/ai/
P.S.:
Did I miss anything? If you want to add anything for the next newsletter,
please let me know!
P.P.S.:
By the way, just as a note - please don't ask about including "general AI"
links in this newsletter. The field of AI is much too broad to cover, and
there are other newsletters out there that target the general topic in a
much better way. This newsletter is only for links/events/resources with a
strong "game" emphasis.
--
Alexander Nareyek
http://www.ai-center.com/home/alex/
Tel: +65 9223 1756 (mobile/cell)
Fax: +65 6779 1103
Director @ interactive intelligence Labs
http://www.ai-center.com/ii-labs/
Block E4, Level 5, Room 25
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
National University of Singapore
4 Engineering Drive 3
Singapore 117576
Director @ NUS Games Lab
http://www.ai-center.com/games-lab/
IDM Institute
National University of Singapore
21 Lower Kent Ridge Road
Singapore 119077
Studio Head @ Kingdom Crafting Pte Ltd
http://www.kingdom-crafting.com/
--
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