Highlights form the most interesting topics during the conference and an open discussion about what to look out for over the coming months!
Alex Champanard, Phil Carlisle, Mikko Mononen and WIlliam van der Sterren (Consultant at GF/AI and contractor on Shellshock: Nam ’67 and Killzone 1).
My Thoughts
A nice wrap-up, although the comments of so few people on the future of AI is obviously a bit limited in scope.
Talk Content
Noting what has happened; FSM has the most talks, BDI has one, B-trees has one. Seems pathfinding is solved now thanks to Mikko!
Do’s and don’ts. Don’t do bad pathfinding jokes when struggling to return to the hotel. Do simplest solution, cheat and react.
Lots of thank yous…
Mikko mentioned how important the empathy was to understand the AI.
Phil mentioned the different low level (pathfinding etc.) and high level problems (why it is being done). It’s a lot less corporate and about passion; wanting to create the characters!
Questions
Q. What’s the next big thing in AI?
Phil: Interested in the social space. Human interaction.
Mikko: To me it is character stuff, like getting a foot planner on the pathfinder. In 20 years might have all the features. Personally going to raise the bar on what the industry can do so they can do interesting things. Games would be interesting using social stuff.
William: Need to shape the game for the player. Expect it’ll move out of the character and move to assisting the player.
Alex: Need to solve game development. 90% is hard work, not much creativity part. It really hurts AI, hard to make if the rest is hard. How do you drive towards getting things done in weeks not years? If more direct feedback on changes was available that would reduce turnaround time to get ideas to the market.
Phil: A lot of things like that are coming since the cost of content creation is so high. It takes away from the creative element, the industry needs to get that creative element of construction back.
Q. Industry is changing since getting report back from E3, not much money left in the console space. Now looking at iPhone, Android and social games. What do you think and how will this affect AI?
Phil: How many bandwagons can you jump on? Was iPhone, now Facebook stuff. Depends where you can get in and make the most money. Hoping AI has a lot of value there, but not sure you can make use of it.
Mikko: Kind of reached the boundaries of usability of certain things, need a wide range of platform for games.
Alex: AI during development more, asset creation for the iPhone or flash or whatever. Two trends are hand in hand.
Q. What will be around in the future in terms of gameplay which will mean new AI is needed?
Alex: Ken’s talk had one thing, the better control of games is also in it’s infancy.
Phil: Big thing is TV is dead, not interactive enough. A game/TV hybrid thing coming along. Interactive but deeply immersive experiences which re a bit like film, TV and a game. A mishmash of all those things. Might offer a new marketplace. If we can keep people engaged in that, it should work.
Q. Paris AI t-shirts?
Alex: Will give out the link!