Next-Gen Content Creation for

Next-Gen AI

Damián Isla, Naimad Games

AI Content Creation

What’s the best way to author AI content for games?

(And who does the authoring?)(And what is “AI Content” in the first

place?)

“Photoshop of AI” Panel, GDC 09

The Starting Point

The central competency of Game AI is expressive power for the behavior

author,not “intelligence”

“Intelligence” is only useful insofar as It enables gameplay It supports the fiction It makes the game more fun

The Problem

AI is HARD

Technically complex Highly interconnected Impossible to test Culturally awkward

The Problem

Designer

Engineer

Fundamentally not in a position to fully specify all fun-relevant

behavior

Fundamentally not responsible

for fun

2 Solutions

1. Need a new breed of engineering-competent designers or design-sensitive engineers (Michael Mateas)

2. Need better authoring paradigms, a “Photoshop of AI” (Chris Hecker)

The Photoshop of AI

Why has game AI not settled on Common control structures Common authoring paradigms Common metrics Common APIs

Why are we so very, very far from WYSIWIG?

What does WYSIWIG even mean?

Wisdom from Douglas Adams

AI is a 5-dimensional

problem

How do you Visualize Explore Specify

that entire space?

AI Content Creation

How do we currently author AI content for games?

AI Content Creation

AI is HARD

Technically complex Highly interconnected Impossible to test Culturally awkward

The path of least resistance:“do it in code”

The path of least resistance:“do it in code”

AI Content Creation

Engineer Designer

Everything in code -

All procedure in code Exposed parameters

Framework in codeVisual construction /

managed coding

Harness Everything in script

Disclaimer(s)

This is my own highly-biased point of view.

Not going to talk about content creation for Strategic AI Living-world AI Procedural narrative Spatial Reasoning Etc.

(Also not going to define “AI”)

The State of the Art

Reactive

The State of the Art

when A happens, do Bx 10,000

Managing Complexity in the Halo 2 AI (GDC 05)

melee

shoot

grenade

uncover

pursue

cover

sleep

fight

search

hide

idle

root

BT Editor Prototype, Alex Champandard, AIGameDev.com

misBeHavinG BT Editor, Michael Dawe, Big Huge Games

Situation Editor, NBA 09: The Inside, Brian Schwab, SONY

Zombie, Steve Mariotti, Nihilistic Software

SPIROPS A.I.

Final Fantasy 12 Gambit System, Square Enix

The State of the Art

Planning

F.E.A.R., Jeff Orkin, Monolith Productions

F.E.A.R., Jeff Orkin, Monolith Productions

Planning

Opportunity?

A tool that allows designers to Influence Visualize Debug

their plans

The State of the Art

Affordance-based

The Sims, EA/Maxis

Halo 3: Building a Better Battle (GDC 08)

Halo 3: Building a Better Battle (GDC 08)

Environment markup in Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft

The State of the Art

Learning

AC Game Recording Viewer, Artificial Contender, TruSoft

AC Knowledge Viewer, Artificial Contender, TruSoft

The Restaurant Game, Jeff Orkin, MIT Media Lab http://theRestaurantGame.net

Behavior Capture

Pros: leverage the data-mining revolution Potentially no custom interface at all?

Questions: Iteration time Tweakability Transparency

Are we learning the right things? Are we learning the deep structure?

N-Grams

“They say all lovers swear more performance than they are wont to keep obliged faith unforfeited.”

- Shakespearean Quadrigram

Troilus and Cressida

Merchant ofVenice

Deep Structu

re Fail

Deep Structu

re Fail

The State of the Art

The Periphery

Kynapse UnrealEd Plugin, Autodesk

Havok Behavior

Endorphin, NaturalMotion

The Future

Middleware continues to eat away at the periphery of the intelligence problem Intelligent animation Pathfinding Gesture recognition Vision Natural language Behavior Capture

But what about the Photoshop of AI?

The Photoshop of AI

Warning: Craziness ahead

? ?

Façade, Mateas & Stern

MC Leon, Improv Technologies,

Siggraph ‘99

Constantin Stanislavski(1863-1938)

"If you know your character's thoughts, the proper vocal and bodily expressions will naturally follow."

"All action on the stage must have an inner justification, be logical, coherent, and real."

Method Acting

DesignerWhoa, whoa, whoa, stop. You should have run away screaming right there.

AIReally? What, because of the grenade?

Method Acting

DesignerNo, no, because of the kitten.

AIHuh. So I’m afraid of kittens?

DesignerYes.

Method Acting

AISo would you say I’m more afraid of kittens

or of water?

DesignerWell, I hadn’t thought of it, but … yeah, I

would say you’re more afraid of kittens.

AIAlright. Let’s go again!

Cooperative AI

Medical Expert Systems Mycin

CALO/IRIS

GPS Navigation

Clippy

2 Solutions

1. Need a new breed of engineering-competent designers or design-sensitive engineers (Michael Mateas)

2. Need better authoring paradigms, a “Photoshop of AI” (Chris Hecker)

2 Solutions

3. Both

Content creation for AI will continue to be extremely technical

It will be a form of coding It will be done by designers*

* where “designer” is defined as the person responsible for making the game fun.

Thanks

Alex Champandard, AiGameDev.com

Petra Champandard-Pail, AiGameDev.com

Michael Dawe, Big Huge Games

Brett Laming, Rockstar Leeds

Steve Mariotti, Nihilistic Software

Jeff Orkin, MIT Media Lab / Monolith Productions

Brian Schwab, SCEA

Bungie Studios