Comments: Gamespot's Best AI of 2005

Congrats, Jeff!!! ... And well-deserved!

Posted by Paul T at January 10, 2006 04:03 PM

Awesome news - and congrats! :)

Posted by Rob at January 10, 2006 08:52 PM

Congrats indeed, it's well deserved... Really looking forward to the GDC presentation too: http://www.cmpevents.com/GD06/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=2130

Posted by Borut Pfeifer at January 10, 2006 11:23 PM

Wow, thanks everyone!! What can I say... I found myself in a fortunate situation working on FEAR. I was at a company (Monolith) willing to give me the freedom to devote pre-production time to AI research. FEAR's designer Craig Hubbard came up with a concept that caught people's attention, without which no one would have noticed the AI. FEAR's lead level designer, John Mulkey, is a genius of game mechanics who fearlessly led his his design team to exploit every aspect of the AI systems, and really showcase them. And the schedule slips gave me plenty of time to play and tweak and play and tweak and play and tweak.

Getting acknowledgement from fellow game AI geeks means a lot, so thanks again!

I'm long overdue for a post to this blog! I am working on a new post, so keep your skirts on and I'll have something up soon.

jeff

Posted by jorkin at January 11, 2006 07:13 AM

the world best vidoe game

Posted by urka at January 12, 2006 07:10 PM

Pretty cool that FEAR took 'Best AI', and Condemned took 'Best Use of Upset, Disheveled Men'. Thats two AI related awards on the same code base, the same year!

I can't take any credit for the FEAR AI, but hopefully me working on Condemned in parallel helped generalize and strengthen the systems. ;)

Oh and if you hadn't heard Jeff, Bob Alexander handling the AI over on the Fear team now.

Posted by BrianL at January 15, 2006 05:57 PM

OK, I finally guilt-tripped myself into playing through the whole retail version of F.E.A.R. and completed the game a few minutes ago (love that huge effect in the street scene at the end -- WOW!).

Not that it hasn't already been said in this thread, but I just wanted to underline how impressed I was with the the brilliant use of cover, spatial competence, great team coordination, and well-crafted AI bark system ... It's hard to overstate how much the AI adds to the experience, and how well F.E.A.R. compares to some other PC titles I've played that don't take the challenge of artificial intelligence nearly so seriously.

Reach around and give yourself a huge pat on the back, Jeff :) I am thoroughly fucking impressed.

Posted by Paul T at January 16, 2006 09:40 PM

gosh, I'm blushing. Thanks Paul! I value your feedback, so I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the game. The FEAR AI owe their spatial competence to your NavMesh articles, and they have the Synthetic Characters group to thank for their papers on virtual brain architecture.

I guess I'll let the AI thank me for their bark system, which was my pet project, to see how far we could push the contextual combat chatter. Dynamic dialogue is something that I'm excited about right now, especially when integrated with action planning. Our combat chatter system for FEAR was actually not very sophisticated, but I think formalizing what drives characters to speak could be very powerful. I'm looking forward to reading Damian's article about combat dialogue systems in the upcoming AI Game Programming Wisdom 3.

Brian -- that rocks that Condemned got the upset, disheveled men award! I can't wait to see your team create men that are even more upset and disheveled in the future. Your insight was key on our AI systems, so I expect more good stuff is on the way.

ok, let's all hug.

jeff

Posted by jorkin at January 17, 2006 03:26 PM

> I'm looking forward to reading Damian's article about combat dialogue systems in the upcoming AI Game Programming Wisdom 3.

Erm ... we had to pull the article because MS Legal and Charles River Media legal couldn't agree on the wording for the contract.

:'(

Posted by naimad at January 17, 2006 07:12 PM

> we had to pull the article

I'm very sorry to hear that Damian, as I had the pleasure of peer reviewing it in our articles section. It was fascinating to see how your combat dialogue compared to our opinions dialogue system in Fable, and frankly I thought your system looked pretty sweet.

Posted by Adam R at January 23, 2006 04:38 AM

Hi,

I'm researching for an article on game AI for the major german computer mag c't (www.ctmagazin.de) and thus stumbled upon this page. It would help me very much to have someone in the industry, some AI-pro, to talk about his trade. I couldn't find email adresses on first glance, so perhaps you're reading your comments.

c't magazine is a very good and reputable mag. If you'd like to know more, please contact me at clemens doot gleich ät mnviecher.net.

Oh, and congrats to your award on Gamespot, Jeff.

Regards,

Clemens Gleich

Posted by Clemens Gleich at February 8, 2006 04:06 AM