[gameAI_news] Game AI Newsletter (02/2008)

[AI SIG List for Game AI News]

Hi everyone, 

Wow - quite a while since the last edition of the newsletter! My apologies, 
but starting up all the research activities here at the university kept me 
pretty busy (the article from me below describes a bit what we're doing in 
our lab)! With everything up and running now ... by the way... anyone 
interested in joining? We have tons of open positions, hehe... anyway, here 
is the next edition - right before GDC! 

By the way, we will soon integrate our AIISC (Artificial Intelligence 
Interface Standards Committee) with the IGDA AI SIG website, moving to an 
open approach where the whole game development community can interact and 
contribute. More on this soon. 


With GDC just starting up, here are some sessions you might not want to 
miss: 

* Artificial Intelligence in Computer Games [Roundtables]
   https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=6156
   Wednesday, 2:30pm-3:30pm, Room 114, North Hall
   https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=6566
   Thursday, 5:30pm-6:30pm, Room 113, North Hall
   https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=6565
   Friday, 9:00am-10:00am, Room 111, North Hall 

* Procedural Data Generation in FAR CRY 2
   https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=6240
   Thursday, 9:00am-10:00am, Room 132, North Hall 

* Playing to Lose: AI and "CIVILIZATION"
   https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=6236
   Thursday, 9:00am-10:00am, Room 2018, West Hall 

* Streaming Open World Pathfinding
   https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=6256
   Thursday, 12:00pm-1:00pm, Room 2007, West Hall 

* Creating a Character in DRAKE'S FORTUNE
   https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=6169
   Friday, 9:00am-10:00am, Room 2001, West Hall 

* Designing and Implementing a Dynamic Camera System
   https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=6174
   Friday, 9:00am-10:00am, Room 3004, West Hall 

* Taming the Mob: Creating believable crowds in ASSASSIN'S CREED
   https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=6996
   Friday, 10:30am-11:30am, Room 132, North Hall 

* Semantic Environment Sensor System: Data-driven Interactions of Characters 
with the World
   https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=6643
   Friday, 2:30pm-2:50pm, Room 131, North Hall 

* Building a Better Battle: HALO 3 AI Objectives
   https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=6863
   Friday, 4:00pm-5:00pm, Room 3004, West Hall 

And I guess Ray Kurzweil will also have a bit to say on AI in his keynote! 

I missed the info on the annual AI programmers dinner this year, but if you 
interested, interrogate Neil Kirby or Steve Rabin if you bump into them at 
GDC! 


Some new game AI articles and resources on the web: 

ONLINE RESOURCE/PROCEEDINGS:
 Proceedings of the ICAPS 2007 Workshop on Planning in Games
 http://www.plg.inf.uc3m.es/icaps-pg2007/ 

ONLINE RESOURCE/PROCEEDINGS:
 Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and 
Games
 http://csapps.essex.ac.uk/cig/2007/index.jsp?page=papers.html 

ONLINE RESOURCE/ARTICLE:
 Game AI is Dead. Long Live Game AI!
 by Alexander Nareyek
 IEEE Intelligent Systems, 22(1), 9-11
 http://www.ai-center.com/references/nareyek-07-gameai.html 

ONLINE RESOURCE/ARTICLE:
 Modeling Opinion Flow in Humans Using Boids Algorithm & Social Network 
Analysis
 by Skip Cole
 http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1815/modeling_opinion_flow_in_humans_ 
.php
ONLINE RESOURCE/ARTICLE:
 Uncanny AI: Artificial Intelligence In The Uncanny Valley
 by David Hayward
 http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1436/uncanny_ai_artificial_.php 

ONLINE RESOURCE/ARTICLE:
 Book Excerpt: AI for Game Developers / Flocking
 by Glenn Seeman and David Bourg
 http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/282/book_excerpt_ai_for_game_develo 
pers.php 

ONLINE RESOURCE/MEDIA:
 Bungie Podcast on Halo 3's AI
 http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=12705 

ONLINE RESOURCE:
 Alex J. Champandard's game AI repository (with news/articles/forums/etc)
 http://aigamedev.com/ 

... and hundreds of pages of game AI info in this new book: 

BOOK:
 AI Game Programming Wisdom 4
 edited by Steve Rabin
 Thomson Course Technology
 http://www.courseptr.com/ptr_detail.cfm?isbn=1-58450-523-0 


Here are some links on some (relatively) new commercial players in the game 
AI area: 

COMMERCIAL GAME AI SOLUTION:
 xaitment
 http://xaitment.com/html/products/features.html 

COMMERCIAL GAME AI SOLUTION:
 Artificial Technology
 http://www.artificial-technology.com/produkte.php5?lang=eng 

COMMERCIAL GAME AI SOLUTION:
 AiLive
 http://www.ailive.net/products.html 


Lots of calls/events coming up: 

EVENT:
 Apply AI Innovation 2008
 Date tbc
 http://www.applyai.com/ 

CALL FOR PAPERS:
 International Journal of Computer Games Technology
 Special Issue on Artificial Intelligence for Computer Games
 Submission deadline: May 1, 2008
 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/si/aicg.html 

EVENT / CALL FOR PAPERS:
 2008 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games
 Submission deadline: July 15, 2008
 http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/cig08/home.html 

EVENT / CALL FOR PAPERS:
 Fourth Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital 
Entertainment (AIIDE'08)
 October 22-24, 2008
 Submission deadline: April 22, 2008
 http://www.aiide.org/ 

And some stuff from last year's AIIDE: 

ONLINE RESOURCE/ARTICLES:
 Some papers and posters from AIIDE 2007
 http://aigamedev.com/coverage/aiide-2007-papers
 http://aigamedev.com/coverage/aiide-2007-posters 


Finally - Have some time to help Jeff Orkin in his experiment to generate AI 
behaviors that mimic real player behaviors? Head over to:
 http://web.media.mit.edu/~jorkin/restaurant/ 


Have fun at GDC! (Unluckily, I have to skip it again because of the running 
semester.) 

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 

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