^^ well obviously im biased, its the proposal i have given to my lecturer- and as my proposal counts towards my final grade, as im sure anyone would be - being told their project is a load of cr*p is quite upsetting!

Dont worry i didnt realise mine was a load of crap untill i was 70% done.

Don't worry, I didn't realize mine was a bunch of crap and dead wrong until one week after I submitted the paper version.

Just remember that you don't have to be all-positive about what you describe. A theoretical "how it works perfectly" paper is not as much a token of actual experience than a practical "why it doesn't work as we expected" paper.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/torsten_reil_studies_biology_to_make_animation.html

hope it helps
i think people from Rockstar have used some of this technology in gta4

ps
forgot about the website
http://www.naturalmotion.com/

peace

Just an update really, having taken on board peoples opinions and experience I have changed my research slightly. The question I am now looking to answer is 'are neural networks being used to their full potential in the games industry?' this type of question will provide more room for discussion - many people said their not used because better options are available etc.

The one thing that is troubling me now is - when I come to make a use for a neural network, what shall i do? (personally i believe this is the industry's problem!)

-Vehicle avoiding objects has been done
-Ants retrieving food beenn done
-Pacman - as shown earlier in thread has been done

Any suggestions?

How about the rubix cube problem?

Quote: Original post by sion5
The one thing that is troubling me now is - when I come to make a use for a neural network, what shall i do? (personally i believe this is the industry's problem!)

No, completely the opposite. It's not their problem at all. It's you who feels the need to sell neural networks, not industry who feels a need to buy them. You're the salesman: justify your product. You don't present a craftsman with a new and unusual tool and expect him to change his way of working to find a use for it. You find a situation the craftsman could use help with, and provide a tool for it to make his life easier.

Quote: Any suggestions?

You need to look at the actual problems industry tries to solve, or perhaps problems that you feel the industry could benefit from solving but currently avoids, and show how an neural network might apply to them. Personally I can't really think of any.

I was expecting a half arsed answer like that!

Theres clearly a divide between academics and "industry" programmers - that is to say any of you actually work or have ever worked in a games studio!

I think Mike McShaffry hit the nail on the head:

"The art of developing great game code involves knowing which mistakes and pitfalls to avoid and which coding techniques really work over time. The one important thing that I've learned over the years is that the distance between exuberance and experience is paved with mistakes, which makes older programmers a little less likely to embrace new things."

Game Coding Complete
by Mike McShaffry ISBN:1932111751
Paraglyph Press © 2003

Thanks to all who contributed anything useful - thanks to all who didn't get angry at my personal opinion - no thanks to all you arrogant bastards who gave me such a hard time because I tried to learn more about a subject!

Peace out

Quote: Original post by sion5
-Pacman - as shown earlier in thread has been done

Yes, but not necessarily done well. Take my code and do it better.

Quote:
How about the rubix cube problem?

Neural networks are not suited to this type of problem at all. If you have a specific, detailed proposal of how to apply them, feel free to voice it, however.

[Edited by - kirkd on August 11, 2008 1:55:12 PM]

no offense at all intended, but even suggesting the rubix cube as a problem for nueral nets to solve kind of betrays ur lack of knowledge about nueral nets. i dont meen that in bad way at all. in fact, i have an acm membership with a few books on datamining. if you want i can see about getting you access to them (they are electronic).

I think this thread should just be shut down. Lets face it, not one person has answered a question I have asked constructively. Maybe I named the topic wrong by calling it a discussion because what I was actually aiming for was "factual" information to a few questions that would help me start my research. Brett your right- I dont know anything about NN's and thats what I was aiming to correct.

I have a very pictographic mind, so when someone sais it cant be done without examples I find it hard to accept. When I see examples like Colin McRae rally that was trained via player input, I just dont see why this could not work for the Rubix Cube for example. There are a set amount of blocks and sides on a cube so there must be a mathematical relationship. By training the NN your aim would be for the NN to learn this relationship and then use this to solve a problem itself.

Kirkd, ibebrett, ActiveStorage, Rockoon1 + a few others - your great assets to the forum, your answers where helpful and expressed an opinion in an informative way. I learnt a few things from you. Just wanted to show my gratitude for not just flaming me on the first opportunity like many others and actually trying to help me understand.

To many peoples delight im not going to participate in this discussion any further. Unfortunately the world has lost its charitable nature and would sooner put someone down because they know less than try and help them understand and better themselves.

Regards,
Sion5