DaSilva9 Posted December 26, 2009 Share Posted December 26, 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/technology/8426523.stm AI aims to solve in-game chatter By Chris Vallance BBC Radio 4 "Chatbot" technology is being used in an attempt to solve one of "the last uncracked problems" in games design. 221b, released in the run-up to the new Sherlock Holmes movie, harnesses the software to allow conversations between players and in-game characters. Gamers, who assume the character of either Sherlock Holmes or Dr Watson, must interrogate virtual witnesses and suspects to progress in the game. Success depends upon getting the right answers from these characters. "It's our role to predict what you might know at that point in the game and the questions you might ask," said Rollo Carpenter of Existor, which provided the technology. "The ways that you might say things to them are almost unlimited." 'Drama manager' Mr Carpenter is a two-time winner of the Loebner Prize, a competition that challenges computer scientists to build programmes capable of convincingly human conversations. When a player interrogates a game character in 221b, Carpenter's technology is used to analyse the question and to provide a relevant response. 221B screenshot Rather than attempting to create an exhaustive list of possible questions and the appropriate response, the characters in the game are capable of making a "fuzzy interpretation" of what is said to them. Pattern matching is then used to identify the appropriate answer for any given input by a player. The intention is to remove the frustration, familiar to any who played the old text-based adventure games, of having to guess the right way of asking a question or giving an instruction. While the technology allows the system to cope with the many different ways a player might attempt to elicit information from a suspect - the responses are limited. It is not the first game to have explored innovative approaches to language. Alex Champandard, a programmer who has worked on artificial intelligence for Rockstar Games and Guerrilla Games, believes one of the most creative approaches was used in the interactive story Facade. Players must interact with two characters, Grace and Trip, whose relationship is experiencing difficulties. "Since the AI characters are completely interactive, each time you play the outcome depends on your actions, said Mr Champandard. "Yet in the background there's a drama manager that makes sure the story keeps going." Voice triggers Dr Mike Reddy, who teaches games development and artificial intelligence at the University of Wales, highlights techniques used in the Nintendo DS puzzle game Scribblenauts. "In this game, the player evokes objects and characters by typing or writing their name," he explained. Scribblenauts screenshot For example, the player can write "helicopter" to summon the vehicle onscreen and use it to collect objects. Multiple objects can be "chained together" to solve problems. "The clever semantic implementation is to know what would happen when a Dog meets a Lion," said Dr Reddy. "The game has 22,000 plus words and has attempted to implement all the possible interactions. Put Death up against God, for example, and you get an interesting surprise." For big budget games, creating hi-quality voice acting and animation "on the fly" is a significant technical challenge. However, some games are attempting to move beyond rigidly scripted dialogue. Mr Champanard highlights the approach of the 2008 release Left4Dead "Each of the characters has a set of voice samples which can trigger based on events, situations and other dialog lines", he said. "This results in completely emergent short conversations depending on the situation." Completely convincing language based interaction with non-player characters remains one of the "last uncracked problems", according to Dr Reddy. But, he said, the games industry is making progress. "We have come a long way from 'All your base are belong to us' and 'TAKE AXE. THROW AXE AT DWARF'" Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yid Army Posted December 26, 2009 Share Posted December 26, 2009 Sound cool, but will not buy it yet as it sounds like it has a massive chance of being an infamous flop tbh. 'Ms. Smith, you are the prime suspect in the case of the murder of Mr. Grayson.' 'Okay lovie, would you like any sugar with that?' Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuartM Posted December 26, 2009 Share Posted December 26, 2009 think of the memory that would use up Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
santy001 Posted December 26, 2009 Share Posted December 26, 2009 It would be good for FM, there would be some right colourful team talks SI would have to program the game to deal with lol. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaka Sangoma Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 I would love to see the responses to press conferences, now they'll know what I really think of their questions Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Some Guy! Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Speak with iGod Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saxonaitor Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 speak with igod . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryds Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Do you really think that they could make it work in such a way that it would bring something good to the game, bug free and fully realised? Really? I don't for one second. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Some Guy! Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Do you really think that they could make it work in such a way that it would bring something good to the game, bug free and fully realised? Really? I don't for one second. It'd give the: "Quotes from the boot room" thread plenty more material, that's for sure! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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