GDC 2004 Impressions?

fup · 2004-04-23T23:30:08

mmm, this forum is unusally devoid of feedback from the GDC. It''s not like you guys to be silent. Was there some new technique revealed that was so stupendously groundbreaking and awe inspiring that you''ve all been forced to sign NDAs before they let you back into the world? How did it go? Who''s was the best presentation. What was discussed in the round tables. Anything new? How many people had to be turned away from the AI programmner''s nosh-up this year? Where do we get the top secret bootleg tapes?

Ferretman

276

April 17, 2004 11:05 PM

quote:Original post by GeniX
Most of the really interesting discussion actually happened at the AI dinner :-)

That was quite enjoyable, and the organisers should be thanked again. I hope next years venue proves just as good.

regards,

GeniX

www.cryo-genix.net

Thank you! As one of the organizers I appreciate that...the dinners are just plain fun and it''s a pleasure to put them together each year.

Ferretman

ferretman@gameai.com

From the High Mountains of Colorado

GameAI.Com

Ferretman
ferretman@gameai.com
From the High Mountains of Colorado
GameAI.Com

Ferretman

276

April 17, 2004 11:09 PM

quote:Original post by GeniX
While I enjoyed the roundtables I attended as a whole, I found the AI ones to be frustrating.

It seemed a lot of the things being said were argumentative, and its not really a practical medium to hold debates as such. Well at least for the size of the roundtables.

Perhaps the smoothest roundtable I attended was one on multiplayer tips & tricks of the trade.

- - - -

My impression is similar to InnocuousFox''s regarding the level of knowledge about AI that attendees had. Except I would say that of those who spoke, only two or three seemed to have studied AI in-depth. However I think it paints too bleak a picture to say that the roundtables attracted a lot of noobs.

Rather they attracted a lot of people who weren''t up for discussions, and so listened instead. I wouldn''t guess where they are at in the AI arena.

Although perhaps the environment would have been friendlier to discussion if a couple of the more outspoken individuals didn''t dominate the floorspace and circumvent the moderator in acquiring the floorspace to speak.

regards,

GeniX

www.cryo-genix.net

I have to agree wholeheartedly and as one of the moderators I''ll even come right out and say it--I was dang close to losing control of the discussion a couple of times, especially that first day. I apologize for that; the folks involved were , as you say, rather vocal ! I haven''t usually let that happen in the past, and I promise that should we do the roundtables again I''ll keep a tighter rein on things.

That said I thought the roundtables were fascinating this year...we really covered a lot of topics. The potential of hardware actually hitting the market was interesting, and I was quietly surprised at the lack of the middleware discussions that there have been in the past. Either developers are evaluating the products out there and keeping it quiet, or they''re just not interested at present.....

Ferretman

ferretman@gameai.com

From the High Mountains of Colorado

GameAI.Com

Ferretman
ferretman@gameai.com
From the High Mountains of Colorado
GameAI.Com

GeniX

114

April 17, 2004 11:44 PM

I attended your tutorial, Ferretman, and will agree there were some very interesting things mentioned.

I dont know if there has been a thread around here on it, so I will mention it anyways. Those interested in the AI hardware should keep tabs on http://www.aiseek.com for when it comes online.

I am most interested to see how they get around some of the obvious implementation issues - are there many AI algorithms that can be abstracted enough to be a useable generic solution across the board?

Some objections were cited by one of the more vocal participants in Ferretmans tutorial to a representative of this Israeli group doing the AI acceleration hardware. Amoung these was the need to transfer info to the card in great quantities, and then retrieve the info at a fast enough speed. At the time I remember thinking that this objection had sufficient grounds to probably render the hardware impractical on current systems.

However, I have recently been awakened to the up-coming PCI-Express technology. With some of the stats given for the x16 slots (initially one on a board - for the gfx card), I dont think the data transfer for and AI accelerator is an issue (provided it can be accessed via an x16 slot).

Anyhow, I am quite keen to see what solution is proposed. Whatever it is, it will be slow to catch on if anything comes of it. The industry (heres my great generalisation) seems to be quick to optimise and improve hardware solutions, but slow to welcome new ones.

regards,

GeniX

www.cryo-genix.net

regards,GeniXwww.cryo-genix.net

Anonymous

April 18, 2004 04:41 PM

quote:Original post by Ferretman
I was quietly surprised at the lack of the middleware discussions that there have been in the past. Either developers are evaluating the products out there and keeping it quiet, or they''re just not interested at present.....

I wonder if there would be more discussion on the middleware topic if there were more producers or leads in the room rather than AI programmers (who might feel as though the advent of AI middleware could hurt their careers).

IADaveMark

3,839

April 18, 2004 06:34 PM

quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
I wonder if there would be more discussion on the middleware topic if there were more producers or leads in the room rather than AI programmers (who might feel as though the advent of AI middleware could hurt their careers).

I disagree. I think producers and leads may be more enthusiastic, but with less understanding as to the feasibility, that enthusiasm may be ill-placed. The AI programmers would enjoy new toys, I''m sure - especially those that got rid of some of the redundant burden and allowed them to do "neat stuff" instead. However, the AI programmers are first going to think pragmatically about "is this really going to handle what I need it to handle without causing me to comprimise in order to utilize it?"

Dave Mark - President and Lead Designer
Intrinsic Algorithm - "Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

Dave Mark - President and Lead Designer of Intrinsic Algorithm LLC
Professional consultant on game AI, mathematical modeling, simulation modeling
Co-founder and 10 year advisor of the GDC AI Summit
Author of the book, Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI
Blogs I write:
IA News - What's happening at IA | IA on AI - AI news and notes | Post-Play'em - Observations on AI of games I play

"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

Ferretman

276

April 18, 2004 11:47 PM

quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
quote:Original post by Ferretman
I was quietly surprised at the lack of the middleware discussions that there have been in the past. Either developers are evaluating the products out there and keeping it quiet, or they''re just not interested at present.....

I wonder if there would be more discussion on the middleware topic if there were more producers or leads in the room rather than AI programmers (who might feel as though the advent of AI middleware could hurt their careers).

Well, it''s a good question, but honestly we''ve had quite a few of both in the room in the past. My experience (and this is not intended as a slam on anybody) is that producers don''t know enough to know if a package would be useful or not, and that developers essentially have to be convinced that any learning curve is worth the time/cost/energy.

A couple of years back the potential of middleware was hotly discussed (just look at my previous roundtable reports) and eagerly debated, but I think that the first generation of middleware fell a little flat with most developers. Since then there have been some companies come and go, and the current crop of toolkits (which Eric Dybsand did a fantastic job of reviewing a while back in Game Developer) have matured a great deal.

My general impression, when the subject came up, is that most developers who had experimented with middleware weren''t particularly interested in the current crop--it will take somebody new, and/or somebody with some academic background, to take the reins on this one.

Development of hardware and/or some common standards would help a lot too, come to think of it.

Ferretman

ferretman@gameai.com

From the High Mountains of Colorado

GameAI.Com

Ferretman
ferretman@gameai.com
From the High Mountains of Colorado
GameAI.Com

Chris Hargrove

256

April 19, 2004 04:21 AM

I went to many of the AI roundtables this year, and was admittedly one of the "more vocal" people that some of you are referring to. Without being accused of wanting to "take over" this thread too, I would like to offer two small points in self-defense.

One, it is the roundtable moderator''s job to rein in the conversation if he/she thinks it is getting out of hand; any failure to do so can easily make the participants think that everything is going just fine.

Two, even with our very vocal minority, there were plenty of situations in every single session I was in where the conversation significantly lulled. Any of the non-vocal majority who wanted to jump in at those times could have easily done so, but for the most part they did not. Heck, they didn''t even have to jump in; just raising a hand would''ve sufficed, but that still didn''t happen most of the time. If most people want to spend most of their time at a roundtable just listening, that''s fine, but that means that a few people have to do a whole lot of the talking to make up for it, and that''s exactly what happens. Roundtables are discussions, not lectures.

Next time, if you don''t want only a small number of folks holding the conch all the time, raise your hand and hold it for yourself once in a while.

IADaveMark

3,839

April 19, 2004 10:28 AM

Hey Chris... good to see you here.

One thing you said at a roundtable that rang a bell with me is when you brought up the 4 types of intelligence (strategic, tactical, logistical and diplomatic). Someone knows their personality and temprament theory, eh?

Straight out of David Keirsey''s work!

I actually submitted a proposal for a lecture that covered personality types and game design. It didn''t get through... this year!

@Ferretman... have you guys floated the idea of having an all day AI roundtable? There is far too much to discuss in one hour. We are usually just getting going by the end of the hour... and then the next day there is a different mix of people. If you were to disquise it as an all-day tutorial, it would be great. Break the day up into some different sections by type of AI, select some people to do some presentations on cutting edge work they have done, then open it up to discussion for a while on that topic. That way, there is some structure to the day and it doesn''t just wander... but it isn''t strictly a series of lectures or a panel discussion either.

By making it a tutorial (as defined by GDC), there is an extra cost for attending it - but that also makes sure that it is the attendees are either real AI programmers or people who are serious about getting into it.

Damnit... we all bitch about how AI isn''t getting the attention it deserves - and yet the graphics guys get all day sessions to do stuff. Why not the AI folks?

Dave Mark - President and Lead Designer
Intrinsic Algorithm - "Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

Dave Mark - President and Lead Designer of Intrinsic Algorithm LLC
Professional consultant on game AI, mathematical modeling, simulation modeling
Co-founder and 10 year advisor of the GDC AI Summit
Author of the book, Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI
Blogs I write:
IA News - What's happening at IA | IA on AI - AI news and notes | Post-Play'em - Observations on AI of games I play

"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

Timkin

864

April 19, 2004 08:23 PM

Very good idea Dave. It might be better though to make the format more of a conference workshop than a tutorial. A tutorial normally has the expectation of interactive learning, directed by one or more tutors, on pre-defined problems. That might be exactly what you were thinking, but since many of the attendees would have little or no implementation experience, it might prove a fruitless endeavour...and I don''t think you meant you actually wanted to teach techniques.

A workshop on the other hand is typically intended as a forum in which people can present information and then this information can be discussed by the group as a whole; a sort of ''think tank''.

I would suggest - for an all day workshop - inviting ~6 people to present information on advanced problems in Game AI and possible solutions they have considered for these problems. Have each speaker present about 15-20 minutes on the problem and the solutions they have considered (along with the problems they found with the solution methods) and then have about half an hour discussion on each problem. Break the day up into 4 sessions along the lines of

Start 9:00 am
Session 1: 1.5 hours (2 speakers)
Morning Tea: .25 hours
Session 2: 1.5 hours (2 speakers)
Lunch: 1.0 hours
Session 3: 1.5 hours (2 speakers)
Afternoon Tea: 0.25 hours
Session 4: 1.5 hours (further open floor discussion of any of the days topics or anything not covered)*
Finish: 4:30

*This gives people the chance to raise questions or provide ideas after having had some further time to think about the problem.

Timkin

IADaveMark

3,839

April 19, 2004 09:10 PM

I was using the word "tutorial" in the way the GDC uses it: a full day session on one of the first two days of the conference. It is not meant to imply format. However, it would be more like a workshop sort of environment or simply a very large roundtable. There could be general interest periods and then smaller, genre-specific sections such as the guys already do now.

Dave Mark - President and Lead Designer
Intrinsic Algorithm - "Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

Dave Mark - President and Lead Designer of Intrinsic Algorithm LLC
Professional consultant on game AI, mathematical modeling, simulation modeling
Co-founder and 10 year advisor of the GDC AI Summit
Author of the book, Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI
Blogs I write:
IA News - What's happening at IA | IA on AI - AI news and notes | Post-Play'em - Observations on AI of games I play

"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

GDC 2004 Impressions?

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