White Paper

The latest generation of consoles presents an opportunity for studios to opt for quantity over quality, by adding many more characters in their games than was previously possible. These crowds can have a dramatic impact on both gameplay and the overall experience. This article looks at how you can simulate large numbers of […]

This week’s Thursday Theory article looks at academic research in Neuroevolution of Augmenting Topologies (a.k.a. NEAT) developed at the University of Texas. In particular, you’ll learn how it’s applied at runtime in a video game to allow the actors to learn neat behaviors over time by evolution. (You can curse at the pun if […]

After a quiet week last week, there’s been an avalanche of news and great content in the world of game AI. In this roundup of smart links on AiGameDev.com, you’ll find book reviews and tips about machine learning, white papers about pathfinding and insights into a few games.
This post is brought to you by […]

This easter weekend at AiGameDev.com, we’ve rounded up many Smart Links from around the web, including reviews and their analysis, useful white papers, and news tidbits to keep you informed about anything relating to artificial intelligence in games.
This roundup is brought to you by Novack and Alex Champandard. If you have any news or tips […]

To build AI logic, game developers use a variety of different techniques depending on their preferences and the problem at hand. It’s interesting to note, however, that the overall architecture and methodology they use is often similar. Indeed, good techniques are often reinvented and great ideas spread fast in the games industry.
This week’s […]

euphoria, a physics-based animation system capable of synthesizing motion dynamically, has been getting a lot of attention recently. The gaming press in particular seems to have sunk to the level of screeching groupies. So, in the interest of providing you with balanced coverage, here’s a more technical (and possibly a little cynical) review […]

Saturdays at AiGameDev.com are dedicated to rounding up Smart Links from around the web. Now the GDC is out of the way, the news has settled back into its regular flow of interesting little nuggets…
This roundup is brought to you by Novack and Alex Champandard. If you have any news or tips for next […]

This week’s Thursday Theory article on AiGameDev.com covers a landmark paper in AI planning from the early 1970s. So the “New Approach” mentioned in the title is basically… *gasp* 37 years old! However, don’t be fooled by this seemingly type-written paper. The ideas and techniques described here not only have inspired most […]

AI research ties into games and simulations in many ways, but one of the most fascinating is the evolution of artificial life. Here’s a compilation of the best videos and white papers about applying genetic algorithms to generating the morphology and behavior of virtual embodied creatures in 3D worlds.
A big thanks goes to […]

Machine learning conceptually has many benefits for games, notably for reducing development times and creating AI that can adapt to the player. However, it is difficult to apply in the real-world! Transfer learning can help by improving the speed and quality of the learning. The idea is to use knowledge from previous experiences to […]

At a certain level, adaptation is a requirement for AI. If a game doesn’t have it, you end up living inside a movie you can’t change! In practice, all the traditional techniques (e.g. finite state machines, scripts) help developers implement adaptive behaviors, but things get tricky when you want to adapt to many […]

This is the third and final part of AiGameDev.com’s coverage of the research sessions relating to artificial intelligence at the GDC in Lyon. Be sure to read part 1 (about concurrent behaviors and Bayesian learning) and part 2 (about Embodied Communicational Agents).
This article in particular covers research into machine learning, and how it can […]

Thursdays on AiGameDev.com is dedicated to the theory behind game AI, so expect to find descriptions and links to white papers from a variety of relevant fields. This week is a little different in the last minute build up to GDC Lyon, so I’ll dig up some of the most relevant and interesting […]

What are rapidly-exploring random trees and how can they be a applied to games? This article looks at the theory behind this algorithm, and shows how it can be applied in practice — including to animation, navigation graph generation, and motion planning.

This week’s Thursday Theory post features an interview with Julian Togelius. Julian got his Ph.D. by doing research into computational intelligence (CI) — a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) inspired by biological systems. He has published multiple papers about applying these techniques to video games, notably racing games.
I caught up with Julian by […]

This review explains one of the more recent innovations in path-finding to deal with greater numbers of actors and larger dynamic worlds. In particular, HP-A* (pronounced “A Star”) is capable of reducing memory usage and the cost of searching for an optimal path by automatically generating a hierarchical representation of the navigation grid.

The Thursday Theory post this week takes another whitepaper from from the Symposium on Interactive 3D Games and Graphics 2007 that’s helpful for game AI, and breaks it down into the basic ideas. See the previous post in this series for more about character animation.
This second entry is from the University of California and […]

This is the last article of the Siggraph 2007 coverage on AiGameDev.com. Feel free to catch up with all the previous posts here (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
This paper is from the University of British Columbia and introduces techniques for physically-based biped locomotion control. There are two contributions in this paper:

It provides […]

Continuing the Siggraph 2007 roundup for character animation (see this previous post to catch up). The remaining papers take an approach leaning towards physical simulation rather than pure motion capture.
One paper from Seoul National University Movement Research Lab presents an biped behaviors simulated from human motion data. Once again, this project has two […]

This paper from CMU Graphics Lab presents techniques for constructing and searching interpolated motion graphs, notably by representing the desired motion as an interpolation of different paths through a motion graph, and applying an anytime A* algorithm to search through the graph of possible motion clips. This approach combines the benefits of the motion graphs for creating natural looking transitions, yet it allows the animation to be constrained physically also.

Siggraph 2007 has been running for a few days now. Make sure you catch up on the three previous posts describing control innovations for character animation.
This paper is from the Texas A&M University Graphics and Animation Lab, and involves optimizing motions based on constraints using a statistical dynamic model. The innovation in this […]

Siggraph 2007 is underway today. See the previous two articles discussing this year’s innovations character animation technology.
Today’s research project is from the Carnegie Mellon Graphics department, and involves creating responsive characters from motion fragments. There are two main innovative ideas behind this paper:

Gathering traces from the gameplay helps model player movement.
Using reinforcement learning […]

Siggraph 2007 starts tomorrow. This post continues from yesterday’s review of character animation technology, discussing how this year’s innovations can be applied to game AI.
There’s another paper from University of Washington Animation Research Labs which presents a near-optimal continuous controller. There are two major innovations used:

A low-dimensional reinforcement learning algorithm to learn a […]

Siggraph 2007 is around the corner, and that means new technology for game developers to play with! In terms of game AI, the most interesting part of the conference is character animation, as it promises to deliver realistic motion for lower investments.
One paper from University of Washington Animation Research Labs presents an active learning […]

This article covers this year’s Artificial Intelligence in Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE ‘07). The proceedings are packed with useful information for game AI developers who want to stay up-to-date with the cutting edge. Below is a list of papers that can be found online for the posters track.

This article features coverage from the Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE ‘07) conference, featuring the most cutting edge research in game AI. The proceedings read like a “who’s who” in the field, and there’s lot to learn from! Here’s a collection of highlights from the conference, and references that can be found online.