UBM Tech - Game Network

My Shopping Cart

[ 0 ] items in cart

View Cart | Checkout

Game Developer Research

Research Reports

Gamasutra

Contractor Listings

GDC Vault

Individual Subscription

GDC Audio Recordings

App Developers Conference 2013

GDC Next 2013

GDC Europe 2013

	GDC 2013
	GDC Online 2012
	GDC Europe 2012
	GDC 2012
	GDC 2011
	GDC 10
	GDC 09
	GDC Austin 08
	GDC Mobile 08
	GDC 08
	GDC Austin 07
	GDC Mobile 07
	GDC 07
	GDC 06
	GDC 05
	GDC 04
	GDC 03
	GDC 01
	GDC 2000 & Before

Newest Item(s)

Why Now Is the Best Time Ever to Be a Game Developer

Ingress: Design Principles Behind Google's Massively Multiplayer Geo Game

Playing with 'Game'

Gathering Your Party with Project Eternity (GDC Next 10)

D4: Dawn of the Dreaming Director's Drama (GDC Next 10)

Using Plot Devices to Create Gameplay in Storyteller (GDC Next 10)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Making CounterSpy (GDC Next 10)

Luck and Skill in Games

Minimalist Game Design for Mobile Devices

Broken Age: Rethinking a Classic Genre for the Modern Era (GDC Next 10)

Storefront > GDC Vault Store - Audio Recordings > More GDC > GDC 2005

View larger image

QTY:

An Orwellian approach to AI architecture
Price	$5.95
Adjustment
Type
Stock	Unlimited
Status
Weight	0 lb, 0 oz
SKU	GDC-05-115
Statistics

Description

An Orwellian approach to AI architecture,
4680

Programming, Lecture

Igor Borovikov
Senior Programmer, Sony Computer Entertainment America
The presentation introduces Brazil, a new approach to AI architecture. It is similar to Hierarchical State Machine (HSM) but offers finer granularity and higher level of decomposition resulting into greater flexibility. Brazil is derived from an Orwellian “bureaucratic dictatorship” metaphor. Examples of “bureaucratic dictatorship” are army, totalitarian state, some corporate organizations. The name Brazil itself is derived from the distopia movie by Terri Gilliam showing how free will is harmful to an Orwellian society. Hence all entities in the Brazil architecture (Agents, Dispatchers and Collectives) lack free will completely and are implemented as Finite State Machines. They possess certain (usually scripted) skills allowing them to accomplish some autonomous tasks. The entities are organized into hierarchies and communicate via commands and reports. Subordinate entities send reports to their supers and receive commands from them. There is no communication between same-level entities: whenever they need to act cooperatively, they need to be organized under some Dispatcher or Collective. Collectives are Dispatchers that are also responsible for creating subordinate entities. Dispatchers and Collectives can form hierarchies of arbitrary depth. Each entity can report to any number of Dispatchers but can belong to only one Collective. Game AI itself is the top level Collective. At the bottom of the hierarchy are Agents with nobody reporting to them. Scripting system for Brazil is based on simple mapping of states and event names to the scripts in a way similar to VMT. Polymorphic behavior of entities results from the ability to override handlers via inheritance or dynamically. Brazil is best applicable to the games where designers need predictability and precise control over behaviors. Brazil allows for building library of reusable components and modular design of AI. While deterministic approach prohibits emergent behavior, Brazil framework still can emulate it to some extent.

The audience will learn a new AI architecture applicable to wide range of games. The general methodology of Brazil can be used for designing game sub-systems besides AI as well. The underlying Orwellian metaphor provides consistent guidelines for extending and applying Brazil to many practical tasks.

Please leave this field blank.