From gameai_news at igda.org Wed Feb 23 10:21:40 2005 From: gameai_news at igda.org (gameai_news@igda.org) Date: Wed Feb 23 10:24:49 2005 Subject: [gameAI_news] Game AI Newsletter (02/2005) Message-ID: <200502231021.AA869269618@ai-center.com> Hi everyone, It's only a few days until GDC, so here is the latest game-AI-related info to bring you up to speed! There will be a lot of interesting AI sessions at GDC (see previous edition of the newsletter), and I hope to see you all there! Let's start with some GDC updates: Our AI Interface Standards Committee has decided on this year's focus of the GDC session. If these topics match your interests, don't forget to come along! EVENT UPDATE: AI Interface Standards: First Specifications Friday, March 11, 2005, 9:00am - 11:00am http://www.ai-center.com/events/gdc-2005-roundtable/ Focus: - World Interfacing - Rule-based Systems - Goal-oriented Action Planning Here is an update from Neil and Steve regarding the Game AI Programmer's Dinners at GDC: EVENT UPDATE: The 8th Annual AI Programmers Dinner Friday, March 11th, 7:00pm Jillian's at Metreon Meeting: The group will gather at a place to be determined in Moscone after the last GDC session ends at 6:30. We will head over at about 6:45. Reservation: See Neil Kirby or Steve Woodcock at GDC, and hand Neil or Steve your business card and a US $20 bill (you will want to bring additional money to the dinner to cover your bar tab). Neil and Steve can be found wandering around trying to figure out where everything in Moscone West is and going to tutorials on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday they can be found moderating the AI roundtables. If all else fails, check the speakers lounge. Note: Last year, all slots were filled by the middle of Wednesday! Sponsors: CMP Media, Charles River Media, and Microsoft GDC is of course not the only place to be for game AI! The international AI conference, IJCAI-05, will have a workshop focusing on computer/video game AI: EVENT: Reasoning, Representation, and Learning in Computer Games A workshop of the Nineteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-05) Sunday, July 31, 2005, Edinburgh, Scotland http://home.earthlink.net/~dwaha/research/meetings/ijcai05-rrlcgw/ Here is an announcement for a game AI competition at the AAAI-05 conference - unluckily, it's only about "academic" games like chess: EVENT: General Game Playing Competition held in conjunction with the Twentieth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-05) July 9-13, 2005, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania http://games.stanford.edu/competition.html Be careful with the following, as I saw on their webpage that the event has been moved and postponed. I suggest that you contact Penny Baillie-de Byl if you are interested in a submission for the special session: EVENT: Special Session on Intelligent Agents in Computer Games at the Agent-Based Simulation 6 workshop now: September 12-15, 2005 now: Erlangen, Germany Paper submission deadline: May 15, 2005 http://www10.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/abs2005/ For more upcoming events, please check our previous game AI newsletter! A new book of the Game Programming Gems series will appear tomorrow. The book includes many articles on AI, from A* to state machines: BOOK: Game Programming Gems 5 by Kim Pallister (editor) Charles River Media http://www.charlesriver.com/titles/gamegems5.html A listing of AI articles in this series can usually be found at: http://www.aiwisdom.com/. They will surely add the content of the new book soon. Another book on game AI is set to appear on July 15: BOOK: Artificial Intelligence for Games by Ian Millington The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology http://books.elsevier.com/mk/?isbn=0124977820 Here is a book excerpt for a book that I listed in the last newsletter: ONLINE RESOURCE/ARTICLE: Book Excerpt: Artificial Intelligence for Computer Games: An Introduction: "Perceiving" by John David Funge http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050121/funge_01.shtml The following book is not directly on AI, but might be interesting to you with respect to the overall goal of game AI applications: BOOK: A Theory of Fun Reviewed by Raph Koster Paraglyph Press http://www.theoryoffun.com/ There has also recently been a related journal special issue: JOURNAL/SPECIAL ISSUE: Exploring the Concept of Media Enjoyment Special Issue of Communication Theory Volume 14, Issue 4 (2004) http://ct.oupjournals.org/content/vol14/issue4/index.dtl Ian Wilson has started a blog about emotional characters and how to produce them. If you are man enough to stand the shrill color scheme, head over to: ONLINE RESOURCE/BLOG: Emotional Characters http://blog.emotion.ai As a final note, the Game Developer Magazine currently runs a series of articles on Optimizing Pathfinding by Sean Barrett. The first article appeared in the December 2004 issue, the second one in the January 2005 issue. Hope to see you at GDC! Best, Alexander Nareyek 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! From gameai_news at igda.org Fri Sep 16 20:49:02 2005 From: gameai_news at igda.org (gameai_news@igda.org) Date: Fri Sep 16 20:50:53 2005 Subject: [gameAI_news] Game AI Newsletter (09/2005) Message-ID: <200509162049.AA498729100@ai-center.com> Hi everyone, I guess you are all back from the summer holidays by now - so here we go with the new edition of the game AI newsletter! I've been pretty busy setting up a company in beautiful Prague (yes, on game AI of course :-)), and I apologize for being slightly slow in responding to e-mails for the last months. GDC turned out to be a great event (even though the new location was far from perfect) with many AI sessions, including our session from the AI Interface Standards Committee. You can find a brief description of our session here: ONLINE RESOURCE/REPORT: GDC 2005 Session Report: "AI Interface Standards: First Specifications" by Alexander Nareyek and Nathan Combs http://www.ai-center.com/extern/gameaisig/gdc-2005-roundtable.html Perhaps much more interestingly, the yearly report of the committee has been published: ONLINE RESOURCE/REPORT: The 2005 Report of the IGDA's Artificial Intelligence Interface Standards Committee Edited by Alexander Nareyek, Nathan Combs, B?rje F. F. Karlsson, Syrus Mesdaghi and Ian Wilson http://www.igda.org/ai/report-2005/report-2005.html As a teaser for next year, the committee will have the first version for pathfinding interface standards ready for next GDC! A semi-game-AI-related forthcoming event: EVENT The First International Workshop on Crowd Simulation (V-CROWDS ?05) November 24-25, 2005, EPFL, VRlab, Lausanne, Switzerland http://vrlab.epfl.ch/v_crowds_05/ And lots of new resource links! Here is a brief GDC report from Steve Woodcock - with many comments on the conference's AI sessions: ONLINE RESOURCE/REPORT: Random Thoughts About GDC 2005 by Steven Woodcock http://www.gameai.com/cgdc05observations.woodcock.html ( and the Pics from the 8th Annual AI Programmer's Dinner: http://www.gameai.com/aidinner2005.html ) ONLINE RESOURCE/REPORT: GDC 2005 AI Roundtable / Moderator Report by Neil Kirby http://www.gameai.com/cgdc05notes.kirby.html ONLINE RESOURCE/ARTICLE: GDC 2005 Proceedings / Handling Complexity in the Halo 2 AI by Damian Isla http://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2005/features/20050311/isla_01.shtml Some great stuff from the First Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE): ONLINE RESOURCE/ARTICLES: AIIDE / Invited Speaker Presentations http://www.aiide.org/aiide2005/talks/index.html ONLINE RESOURCE/REPORT: Report on the AIIDE conference by Andrew Stern http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2005/06/05/gulp-of-gamer-aiide/ and some more discussions: http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2005/06/07/thoughts-on-aiide/ And you surely didn't miss the release of Fa?ade, did you? If so, here is a link to the page where you can download it and find lots of info on their AI approach: ONLINE RESOURCE: Infos and download options for Fa?ade http://www.interactivestory.net/ Damian Isla has started a new blog on game AI! Check it out: ONLINE RESOURCE/BLOG: Game/AI http://www.ai-blog.net/ By the way, Craig Reynolds collects lots of resources and links at the following page: ONLINE RESOURCE: Craig Reynolds's Game AI Links http://www.red3d.com/cwr/games/ Other things: ONLINE RESOURCE/PROCEEDINGS: The proceedings of the IJCAI-05 Workshop on Reasoning, Representation, and Learning in Computer Games http://home.earthlink.net/~dwaha/research/meetings/ijcai05-rrlcgw/papers.html BOOK: AI Application Programming, Second Edition by M. Tim Jones Charles River Media http://www.delmarlearning.com/browse_product_detail.aspx?catid=20763&isbn=1584504218 (Note that Charles River Media has been acquired by Thomson Delmar Learning) So long for this issue - Enjoy the games of the forthcoming holiday season! Best, Alexander Nareyek 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.