Aims
The purpose of this event is to provide a lively and informal forum for discussion on the state of the art for Non-Player Character (and Bot) Artificial Intelligence, and to gain a clearer picture of the main challenges and opportunities facing NPC AI in various game genres. The aim is to foster the development of research grant proposals and greater collaboration between industry and academia.
The event is sponsored by the EPSRC AI and Games Network.
Possible Discussion Topics
- Emotional Modelling for Synthetic Characters
- Flexible, dynamic planning
- AI for MMORPGs
- Fast learning algorithms NPCs
- NPC AI for Player Satisfaction
- Cooperation in NPC Teams
- Plug-n-play NPCs (and APIs to support this)
Schedule
| 09:00 | Coffee / Tea (Networks building Foyer) |
| Session 1 (Senate room) | |
| 09:30 | NPC AI Challenges for Machine Learning, and the Role of
Competitions Simon Lucas, University of Essex |
| 09:50 | Towards more expressive characters: applying cognitive appraisal Ruth Aylett, Herriott Watt University |
| 10:10 | Emotions and Synthetic Characters Aladdin Ayesh, De Montfort University |
| 10:30 | Emotional Modelling for Synthetic Characters Daniela Romano, University of Sheffield |
| 10:50 | This time with feeling....Approaches to more convincing simulated
emotional performance in virtual characters Jon Weinbren, University of the Creative Arts |
| 11:10 | Coffee / Tea (Networks building foyer) |
| Session 2 (Senate room) | |
| 11:30 | Planning and Quest Generation Richard Bartle, University of Essex |
| 11:50 | I Have a Cunning Plan: Putting AI Planning into Game Characters John Levine, University of Strathclyde |
| 12:10 | Natural Language Engineering: Where are we? Udo Kruschwitz, University of Essex |
| 12:30 | Using genetically optimised AI to improve game-playing fun for
strategy games Christoph Salge, University of Hertfordshire |
| 12:50 | Group movement and unit selection in RTS Games Mike Preuss, University of Dortmund |
| 13:10 | Lunch (Networks building foyer) |
| Session 3 (Networks building seminar room) | |
| 14:00 | Opponent modelling for poker and other games Peter Cowling, University of Bradford |
| 14:20 | Conflict mining and plan adaptation in games Yiannis Demiris, Imperial College |
| 14:40 | Multi-agent System Games in GOLEM Kostas Stathis, Royal Holloway College |
| 15:00 | Ability versus Enjoyability in DEFCON AI-bots Simon Colton, Imperial College |
| 15:20 | NPC Opinion modelling in Microsoft's Fable Adam Russell, University of Derby |
| 15:40 | Coffee / Tea (Networks building foyer) |
| Session 4 (Networks building seminar room) | |
| 16:00 | Discussion |
| 17:00 | End of Event |
Local Information
The event is based in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, at the University of Essex Colchester Campus. For travel information see here. The event is centred around square one on this campus map.
The coffee and lunch breaks will be served in the Networks Building Foyer.
The morning talks will be in the senate room (room 4.722), situated in the Psychology building, entrance on square one opposite the networks building (arrow shows entrance, go upstairs and along the corridor to the end).
The afternoon session is in the networks building seminar room (room 1N1.4.1), upstairs from the networks building foyer.
For those requiring overnight accommodation we recommend Wivenhoe House Hotel which is located on campus, a 10 minute walk away from the event.
Those staying overnight are invited to dinner at Wivenhoe House Hotel restaurant. Let us know in advance for the booking. Meet in the hotel bar at 7pm for dinner at approx 7:30pm.
For those travelling by car on the day, the pay and display car park is recommended (the 'P' in the centre of this map).