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| [ goodies | dev diary | chapter eleven ] |
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| #11 |
AI design |
Artificial Intelligence, an overview...
A brief diary this time, where the screenshots do most of the explaining. At this stage of Worms 3D,
we can't go into *too* much detail of the AI development, as you can no doubt understand
;)
Let Paul Tapper (Pinky Pig) and Phil Carlisle (zoombapup) guide you through the complicated business
of getting the AI Worms to put up a decent fight!
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| forum input |
The AI in Worms 3D is a massive undertaking... considering how we're also pulling together a list of
sneaky tactics players use in Worms games, with the hope of getting the AI to make use of some of
them too!
A Team17 'sneaky tactics' AI thread has been on the forum for nearly 2 weeks, and your input has
been great! We want to know your favourite sneaky tactics - we don't guarantee that the AI will use
them all, but we'll try to get as many in as we can, and you'll know that a little bit of the AI's
brain thinks your thoughts.
[ Sneaky tactics the AI should use ]
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| Mr Tapper |
Paul "A lot of the work on the AI happens on very simplified 'test-levels'. These
allow us to set up particular situations and check what the AI does. Having them graphically simple
means we don't get distracted by the prettiness, and makes it easier to actually see what's
happening. The screenshots (right) are taken from a test level, the actual levels released with the
game will be *far* more graphically pleasing ;).
To make things easier for ourselves, when programming in the worms AI, we use debug graphics to help
us visualize what the AI worms are thinking about."
Simply follow the thoughts of the AI by clicking on the screenshots (right)...
"The AI works by considering as many possible plans for its turn as it can, and then
choosing the best one. Each AI 'personality' has a large number of different 'importance weightings'
it gives to the results of each move, and chooses its favourite plan accordingly. For example, one
AI personality might avoid shooting your worm with low health because it would damage one of his own
worms, another personality would consider this a sacrifice worth making and go ahead
anyway."
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| Mr Carlisle |
Phil "The AI is getting to be quite agile now. Its able to use almost all of the
weapons, move freely around the levels and generally hit whatever target it
likes."
Recent additions have been the jetpack and parachute, which you can see in the accompanying
screenshots(right).
"It's taken quite a while getting the AI to be able to make the worm move around the level.
Considering the amount of possible obstacles, pitfalls and the dynamic nature of the environment
(when you can blow holes in the level, it makes the problem a lot harder).
Its nice to be able to instruct the worm to move from one position to another and watch it make its
merry way, it can avoid mines and other worms and definitely doesnt like going near water. Its also
able to jump up reasonably small heights and can cross over from one land block to another quite
happily.
So most of the 'low level' abilities (we call them actions) such as move to here, jump, face in this
direction, choose a weapon, fire a weapon etc. are completed."
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| [ goodies | dev diary ] |
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| Development Diaries |
We plan diaries right up until the end of the project and they will
appear every week or two, so keep popping back for updates. The great
thing about the diary is that so much just isn't written yet!
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| overview |
The graphics and images shown in the diaries so far don't come anywhere
close to where we are currently in terms of visual style.
The first few chapters merely serve to bring us 'up to date' to how we got
where we are. It's envisaged that we will catch up with current progress
by Christmas and the diaries will then mirror recent developments rather
than things from the distant past.
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The Bunker
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