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Author Topic: Animals and other mass AI?  (Read 10234 times)

Köngen

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Animals and other mass AI?
« on: June 13, 2011, 01:19:49 pm »

Hmm, I was wondering if Outerra would have some kind of support for AI's spread out around the globe. It probably couldn't be done procedurally as there behavior would change in contact with players. Would also be advanced to get the right seed / equation for there behavior. Maybe there could be some neat function that would render and simulate these things only upon observing. I could imagine many cool games could be made with different types of animals or other entities spread out on the planet. This would provide several interesting elements such as hunting and survival. It's nothing I personally really need as I'm more interested in the vehicles but still I'd think it'd be an interesting feature. Just some speculation and a topic to discuss :)

Thoughts?
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C. Shawn Smith

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Animals and other mass AI?
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2011, 01:28:14 pm »

I seem to remember an article a few years ago regarding AI being driven by procedural behaviors.  I'll see if I can look for it.

From what I can recall, they were using it in such a way to control herds of animals with typical and very realistic behaviors, even down to when the camera came within a certain distance, the animals would "shy away" from it and effectively creating a bubble within the herd around the camera.  If the camera kept coming too closely, the herd would try to move away and continue "migrating."  They could also add predatory animals into the mix, and cause the herd to stampede.

I hope I can find it ... it was quite old (almost eight years ago, I think), and only used particles for the herds, but it was quite an interesting thing to watch it, especially if you like nature shows.
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C. Shawn Smith

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Animals and other mass AI?
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2011, 09:17:48 pm »

Been doing a ... uhh, frak-load of searches on the internet today trying to find that article ... wondering if I read it in a tech magazine now.  But no dice on the internet search today :(.  I'll do some more searching tomorrow evening after work.

I remember it was developed using government computers that were originally designed for weather prediction and forecasting.  A research team for a university studying flocking behaviors with birds versus herd behavior for land-based mammals realized how similar the interactions were between both the creatures and the weather patterns.  One heck of an interesting article.

They also eventually applied it to schools of fish, and supposedly were working on a common algorithm to simulate the patterns of ALL of the behaviors, with some success -- at least in those early days.
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What we think, we become -- Buddha
There is no spoon -- Neo, The Matrix
The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be. -- Carl Sagan
Outerra is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be. -- Me :)
- Yes, I'm still around ... just been busy with other projects ;)

Jak_o_Shadows

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Animals and other mass AI?
« Reply #3 on: June 14, 2011, 03:19:43 am »

*I like this guy, he asks good questions*

I remember reading a few years back about opensteer (http://opensteer.sourceforge.net/). There was even a blender game engine example (http://www.thomaskrijnen.com/bbs/). I never did much more than go "Well, thats cool".
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MiB

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Animals and other mass AI?
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2011, 09:27:45 am »

What are you looking here for are terms from A.I. as : "BOIDS" or "SWARM" ... ;-)
google ... youtube ... enjoy ... ;-)

(What I remember is that boids run on quite few and simple (ussually) fuzzy rules ... never did some deep digging in that ... but can do if something will get unclear ... ;-) )
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Jheuloh

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Animals and other mass AI?
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2011, 01:49:08 am »

Quote from: cshawnsmith
I seem to remember an article a few years ago regarding AI being driven by procedural behaviors.  I'll see if I can look for it.

From what I can recall, they were using it in such a way to control herds of animals with typical and very realistic behaviors, even down to when the camera came within a certain distance, the animals would "shy away" from it and effectively creating a bubble within the herd around the camera.  If the camera kept coming too closely, the herd would try to move away and continue "migrating."  They could also add predatory animals into the mix, and cause the herd to stampede.

I hope I can find it ... it was quite old (almost eight years ago, I think), and only used particles for the herds, but it was quite an interesting thing to watch it, especially if you like nature shows.

Fellow nature show person speaking. :D

I've been developing a game idea where the player is a (fictional) wild animal in a fictional world, the mention of procedurally driven NPCs is of great interest to me.
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