[gameAI_news] Game AI Newsletter (02/2005)

[gameai_news at igda.org]

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 <penny.debyl at usq.edu.au> 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 <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!