hello it''s been a while i''m working in a binary DM like game, where the content is generated on the fly I have go as far as the sys could generate a story thematic structure and now i''m trying to add a layer of depth that it would generate also the content the universe rather than using the one provide by the author, in order to generate a full binary dm the idea come from an analysis of genre i have find once here it is: usually we use genre to classify piece of work in order to feel comfortable with the expectation that the work would provide when we expand genre into dimension we find that there is two major class : genre as impact on the audiance (comedy, horror etc...) and as conveying content (soap opera, heroic fantasy, etc...) as you can seen the most sensible for our project is genre as content what define content of a genre?? i have try exploding this into new dimension and find this genre dimension is: situation ( the way object are link together, the context) rule ( the way object react to each over or to special event) semantics (class of object within the universe) value ( the drive, the motive, goal, purpose and way to evaluate situation for each object) this can also help us to create content or even create a new set from scratch the idea behind that is that genre provide template in each of these dimension (for ex in heroic fantasy, dragon has a special place which don''t vary much or are get from as a variation from the norm of the genre) now the problem is how to find , build these template, how to classify them, how to write them down and how to code them to an extant these question as also ask >> if these dimension are good enough, is there any lack, did this all make sense to you thanks for replying >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> be good be evil but do it WELL >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This may help:
Generating Plot

I''ll answer any specific questions about the design that you may have after reading all that.

i have at least read some of them
i had participate some as well, but sometime i jeut get mad or bad at english seek for neoshaman in the ai forum and let me hear if you find something good

i have improve since the last time and everythings very clear now, i would say that it is more easy what we usually think, my model is based upon emotion and on the assumption that there is some cross between story and the way mind fct with emotion,

i beleive that emotion is was that dictate choice, most random generator use no emotion layer to generate information that we lack a sense of emotional reality

i beleive that could be done because as an artist, i know that something material such like a painting could convey emotion or not depending on how the artist express is art, then why not put this into an algorythm??

for now i''m just adressing technical and practical issue to enhance the model but the core of the emotion engine is based under a emotion syntax (thematic structure i call it) which is suppose to reflect our experiance as human and which has a large covering in art

hope this make sense
the next step after this binary dm is a binary dm which build is own meaning from his own experiance, >>> the binary creator which would express is own point of view, it''s a "promesse" i have made to kordova, timkin and bishop pass (i couldn''t find the english word right now, i put in french)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Interesting. What emotions are in your thematic structure and how are they related? Whose emotions are you modelling - the player''s? Each NPC''s?

well actually i have came first with a general model of emotion for every system, emotion in his broadest and non romantical view, as define as a retroactive regulation of a system, a kind of appraisal which define what's good or not, because i was struggling defining emotion for the emotion engine the project was first, but thanks to this definition it's turn that (once a model of a mind lay down) human emotion was not only that but also the appraisal of these emotion and their representation, and this is where the emotion come tricky to define, because the representation we have and what we feel is engulf in a loop that make things complex, it's hard then at the back end to see what's from emotion, representation and appraisal since they tend to mix up, but's also this confusion which make human emotion so cool and beautiful

once i have lay down that story mimick the brain thought through narration in order to encode emotion, i have seek for the way story is create and focus on this point, this as lead to idea then theme

the idea behind the thematic structure is that there is a limited amount of theme behind story, firts i have thought that there is 36 dramatic thematic unit possible, theme encode basic bias and problem of human being, but when chatting with my narration of cinema teacher, she says that actually they derive from 7 fundamental theme coin by a theorist vonoy (well not sure of orthographe) which is suppose to encode all class of story
theme actually is very deep root in human psyche and drama are the reflect of this psyche, and are also root in metaphysical question, story represent the internal experiance of the world, they are a more abstract language use to share experiance between human, mind to mind, through symbol and identification, today story is mostly use for they escapist power (life by procuration what you can't) and (narrative) video games specially continue this duty to a higher degree by combining it with the game power (which as a game designer i have study to a degree beyond the simple mechanism just as story i have seek the mind relation to the need of game and it's meaning and fonction)

then to answer the question, i'm not modelling the emotion of the player nor the npc, i'm modelling the underlign structure of emotion of the mind
however i don't plane to do it in a fine resolution already

the other funny things behind problem with emotion is that everything is aleady lay down to do so, but we have a bias perspective which made us focus on wrong item that come second, just like the old tale of the blind man and the elephant, i have, as a blind man which know is nature of blind, get around the elephant to approximate best is true nature

EDIT:
maybe i have to be more specific about the emotion structure i use, first there is "alert" emotion like i call them, they are hardcode and fire automatically a signal according to need of the system they are instinct pression in the mind, but through time the human brain has build a top layer emotion call "reason" which is link to the representational part (which hold memory)
yes i my model, rational thought is an emotion since it work for appraisal and evaluation, but with the ability to inhibit strongly the low level emotion
every emotion help manage the representational part of the brain by inhibit or reinforce learning towards an efficient and useful model from a human sense, this is where meaning is store, through the relation of experiance and memory and their emotional weight,
emotion then depends of basic needs fired by the brain and body, and the representation they convey + the things which is appraise and the representation they convey and find a way to resolve problem (retroaction regulation or thought) which is also appraise and have a model build upon,
all these interaction create quickly a complex intricate pattern that is all the spice of human nature

thematic structure then could be a mix of metaphysical question and maslow ladder

did this make sense??
on the technical side this had create a model which cross frame and neural network with emotion as supervising system, emotion themselves which is trigger by basic need, but with emotion appraise at the entry of the system as well, all couple with the decision system wich create action

the problem with actual generator is that they are very very powerful but they don't have this emotion bias encode in them, because it's a process which is encode and decode internally by human, the author has to build a kind of "semantic net" which put emotional value on basic unit and build a emotion syntax base on his own experiance, since the computer has no experiance, in order of the system mimicking this emotion flow
then when the algorythm would run it would seek a emotional goal to acheive and build the content according to, for ex: build an agressive arena or a peaceful place would not lead to the selection of the same item

now the problem is indentifying all the basic unit of a generator from emotion side to practical side and the link between them

did this sounds good?


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[edited by - neoshaman on March 18, 2004 8:43:09 AM]

oups....

let''s put the gibber aside and let''s back to pratiocal issue

the purpose of the post is to find the underlying structure of genre that we could easily manipulate them and match them with pattern, some of these pattern are cliche, archetype and stereotype, the fact is that they hold each of them element of thematic structure which once discovered help us to take other creation in an elegant way

if we take language we see that we could combinate word in various way but when all these combination could respect rule there are not all interresting, to be interesting they must have an intention to capt our attention, story is the same, actual generator has no build in intention systeme then could generate a lot of correct combination but only a few interesting one, that''s way we need to find the thematic structure since he hold some intention in his interesting way
this would lead to generator that not only generate universe but also tales on death, love or everythings else

but now we have to find the practical syntax to generate universe
and after through analysis of how common pattern fold in, find the thematic unit involve behind

notice that the computer doesnot hold a things about thematic but what the author would put in and base on his emotion and experiance
the dimension of thematic structure is normally hold in the value and semantics part, but really is more a relationship between the four part i have coin for genre as a content

did this apeal to someone??

this would be a basis to analyse character as well whiel struggling in a thematic space (resolving is problematic >>> deal with need and desire)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I understand what you're aiming for (mostly ). You really need to read that thread that I linked to above and the threads linked to in it if you haven't yet, because I already answered some of these questions. It's all about transformational generative grammar, and the logical language SOAR, and genre plot formulae, and schemas, and I think there's a diagram of a person's 'emotional space' in there somewhere. I'm willing to try to help you make this engine if we can both get all the data and agree where to start.

Do you know how to program a chat bot? I think that would be a place to start if you haven't yet.

Do you want to make NPC AI that tries to solve problems (difficult) or do you want to make NPC AI that just reacts realistically to the character's actions (easier)?

Edit: Also, could you check the spelling of "Vonoy", I don't think that's right. I'd like to read about his themes so I understand your starting point.

[edited by - sunandshadow on March 18, 2004 11:44:50 PM]

er... maybe i have stress to many point with the linguistic metaphore

i know how chatter bot work but for what i am lisp is best

i will check the link again
but i have read some of bishop pass, oluseyi and some other post about interpolated narratives and generated content

no i''m not focusing on character (this is a well study topic, i have only to go with my shoping list )

i''m dealing with character but universe, which is less view from an emotional structural space, but really it is!

lest me explain, i want to build an univers that convey meaning
to do so i have to find the static structure and then the dinamic structure, and by studying typologie of universe (genre) find the bond with thematic structure

is this more clear????

the key word is universe generator toward symbolic meaning!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A universe that conveys meaning - like having an AI writer arrange events so that they make a meaningful story? My idea was that the same engine that could model a writer or narrator could also model an NPC. The type of generation needed is actually the same, the use is only a little different.

Linguistic metaphor? You don''t think a literal linguistic approach would work? IMO it''s the _only_ think that would work if you have any intention of using your engine to generate actual sentences of story, whether they be narration or NPC dialogue or whatever.

actually i have find that there is many connection between modelling an npc and modelling a binary dm, the only difference is that the binary dm would be an internal thinking when an npc would be more external orianted

the fact is that we know how structurally a character (npc) is model externally and internally, when i want to create a character i bring the psychological, sociological dimension cross with a physical and situational description, then i have to fill each sub dimension of these to create a character,
in order to create a special type of character, a thematic character (for ex the egoistic wonder woman), i would choose accordingly element to convey this (surely a red dress as example) the reason that thereis a direction to make these choice thanks to thematic interest, the interest build the constrain which restrain the choice by a kind of WHY question, mean WHY i would put this element rather this one? for ex for a binarydm he would choose character thematic according to the story thematic (for ex self interest vs generosity), he would choose possible act or anything according to (each character must have a story fct, for ex protagonist, sidekick, opponent, then would have to be define one in fct of the another)
the problem i have face is that we have well covered character and story theory, but the space and context where they are place is less well known, we do it instinctvely but would be hard to do computionnaly without a bit of analysis

that''s the purpose of this topic
the universe has is own structure towards the content of a story and affect it, as well it affect the way the story would fold and the action taken

has coin in my start post there is 4 major point to define
SITUATION (space and time)
RULE (what regulate event and action)
SEMANTICS (class of object and title within the universe, character type, object, place etc...)
VALUE (the way semantics hold meaning, the way they have been evaluate in the thematic fct)

well i suppose that they must have to be refine a little maybe i didn''t choose the best name for them

until we haven''t fully explore this we can''t made a competant binary dm

for ex let''s took a simple game which is a kind of universe orianted >>> GTA 3 >>> it''s clear that the overall theme would be crime, then all object, relation, action, rule is consistant towards that theme and we don''t feel cheat if we can''t became a doctor i astronomy and cure cancer because it''s irrelevent of the theme, the binary dm must hold first a structure to handle universe before putting theme in it, the HOW to do viable organisation even if not interested at all (just like we could make meaningless phrase but correct from a technical point) and after find WHY these element would fold together (thematic structure)

let''s think that the engine is not a complete engine and work by layer, the first layer provide the structure, the last layer would arrange them in phrase, there are different task, we could separate them, we are still in a hi level layer so we don''t have to care for low level module for the moment, better to focus on a single problem at each time, i''m not designing the whole engine rather than a specific problem

ok then any more comments??
we focus on the context where our character would be create an act, we must first find his structure, then his fct towards the general model and then find how to link it withe the thematic strucure

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>