It seems that our forum FAQ has gone walkabouts. After talking to Ferretman about it, we have decided to write a new one... erm, should I say that I foolishly volunteered! I'm sure I once knew not to volunteer for anything! Anyway, what I would like from the participants of this forum is all of the questions you can think of. Easy, hard, whatever. I will produce answers for the questions (or farm them out) and compile them into a new FAQ for the AI forum. To stimulate your brain cells, here's a few questions that are no-brainers for the FAQ: 1) What's AI? 2) What's Game AI? 3) I want to write an awesome AI that everyone loves... where do I start? 4) What AI techniques were used in (insert popular game title here)? 5) What's a Neural Network and how do I write one? 6) What's a Genetic Algorithm and how do I write one? 7) What's a Finite State Machine and how do I write one? 8) What's Fuzzy Logic? 9) What books should I read/buy to learn this Game AI stuff? 10) How do I get my units to move from A to B 11) Where can I get information about A* and other pathfinding algorithms? 12) Where can I study AI at college/university? 13) How do I get a job writing AI for commercial games? etc., etc.... So, post your questions here! A chocolote frog for the stupidest question! Cheers, Timkin PS: Don't ask how I'm going to get a chocolate frog to you for that stupid question you just posted... I'm not... I'm going to buy it and eat it myself as a reward for compiling the FAQ!!! Edited by - Timkin on January 7, 2002 12:58:13 AM

What is the distinction between AI and game logic? (hopefully this will be answered in question 1 though)

A list of links would be helpful to a lot of people, it probably doesn''t need to be too comprehensive, just giving links to the larger sites (gameai.com, generation5.org etc) and from there people can find a lead. I''ve noticed a lot of people afraid of using a search engine, whether or not it is because they don''t trust it I don''t know, but I''d say people would be a lot more trusting in sites a person has hand picked.

Also, a simple glossary of "AI terms" would possibly prevent misunderstandings too, things like "agent", "pathfinding", "state", "formation", "heuristic", "network" etc

Now, since I''m in Australia (although if memory serves me correctly, you are in Qld, I''m in Sydney), I suppose shipping charges for my chocolate frog will be low, so here goes a few attempts:

Where do I get an AI for my game?

How long before AI takes over the world?

How do I write the AI for scissors paper rock?

Why isn''t my AI very smart?

... actually, I think those questions could be made even better (or worse as the case may be), by changing from "an//the/my AI" to "the AI". Which gives me another idea:

My game doesn''t have any AI, does anyone have some AI they could give to me? I don''t need all of it though, just a couple of units worth.

and of course, the answer would be to search eBay

Trying is the first step towards failure.

- What is flocking ?
- What is artificial life ?
- What is a Discrete Hopfield Network ?
- What is a Auto/hetero associative memory ?

... and how do I code these things ?

PS: don''t bother sending the chocolat frog, I live in The Netherlands, about as far as you can go from Australia before you come closer again

Edo

"Why do people keep chewing me out for asking stupid questions and where can I go to find the answers in a safe, emotionaly nurturing way?"

Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development

"I am writing a fabulous game called All your base are belong to us, how do I code the AI part ''cause my friend asked me to do it, ''cause he is doing the graphics ? Thanks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 "

Or something like that. I know it''s more of a generic FAQ question than AI question, but it''s always nice to have people formulate their question in a slightly accurate manner, rather than in a "how do I code the Quake AI?" way... yeah I know, I am annoyingly mean, but heck, it''s for their own good.

Same with links : if there is no links that comes to our mind, the person asking should at least have a clue as how to use a search engine (''cause sometimes I wonder), maybe a reminder of how to search effectively ? OK, taht''s mean too, as most of us *have* searched before...

mmmm, not very useful. I''ll try to think about it more.

Oh, yeah, a link to other FAQs ? like the comp.game.ai FAQ ? Now that would be nice, wouldn''t it ?

Good luck timkin !



Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Actually ragonastick, I live in Melbourne... and I couldn''t send you a chocolate frog as I''m sure that either it would a) melt; b) taste like smoke; or c) be better served by giving it to a firefighter!

Oh, btw: if you ask a question that I cannot answer, that''s another chocolate frog (for me!) and YOU get to answer it!!! So far I haven''t seen anything particularly troubling! Keep trying though...

...and thanks for the input!

Timkin

quote: Oh, btw: if you ask a question that I cannot answer, that''s another chocolate frog (for me!) and YOU get to answer it!!! So far I haven''t seen anything particularly troubling! Keep trying though...

Getting a bit arrogant are we? I don''t think there are any questions too hard for you that would need to be put in the FAQ.


Also, some people might appreciate a few rough estimates on the complexity of different systems, like the number of states in an FSM for different types of games, the number of nodes in a NN and their arrangement for different problems.

Also, for people who just want to try out various ideas they have without worrying about defining the world, have some links to bot development places for them.

How does the AI know what to do?

Now, for my frogs, we had some heavy rain here, so I''m not under risk any more (I was told to be ready to evacuate on New Year''s), so the frog will be just fine. I don''t mind if it melts either, I do have a freezer

Trying is the first step towards failure.

quote: Original post by ragonastick
A list of links would be helpful to a lot of people

That''s what we have the Articles & Resources section for. Simply make sure you put a link to the AI resources in the FAQ, cause for some reason people keep missing the stinking Resource links at the top of every forum that has a corresponding Resource section.

I don''t know who you contact to add links, but you can email me with more links and I can add them to the section.

quote: Original post by ragonastick
Also, a simple glossary of "AI terms" would possibly prevent misunderstandings too, things like "agent", "pathfinding", "state", "formation", "heuristic", "network" etc

If you guys want to do that, then make sure you do it in the Game Dictionary and then add a link to it right after the link to the Resources.

I only have one question suggestion:

Q: What are decision and planning trees?

All my other ideas have been taken already



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Drew Sikora
A.K.A. Gaiiden

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Blade Edge Software
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I can''t think of any questions as such, but I''d like to see some sort of message that discourages people from saying "I just found a totally new pathfinding algorithm" before posting code that is just depth first search with an explicit stack or something.

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost ]

DECENT QUESTIONS
*Where can I find good tutorials on [insert AI type here]?
*[link to site mapping the history of game AI]
STUPID ONES
*How can I make a FuFSM-NN-AI?
*What does the ''I'' in AI stand for? Oh Oh! And the ''A''?
*How much money can I make making AI''s?
*Can I make an AI in MS Word?
*Where can I download HAL?
*Where can feel how fuzzy a Fuzzy State Machine it?

Hahaha! I kill me.

Alex Broadwin
A-Tronic Software & Design
-----
"if you fail in life, you were destined to fail. If you suceed in life, call me."
"The answer is out there."
"Please help, I''m using Windows!"