While I have been rigidly avoiding getting sucked into the vortex that is Facebook, I figured it was time to get onto Twitter. You can follow me as “IADaveMark“. I promise not to bombard you with useless messages… for a while, anyway.
|
 
|
|
|
IA Information
Communication
Dave Mark's book,
Other books Dave Mark
|
Archive for the ‘Announcements’ CategoryNow on Twitter…Thursday, September 10th, 2009Dave heading to AIIDE this year!Friday, September 4th, 2009I am going to be making the trek westward to attend AIIDE in October. I was a little in shock with having to pay for my own conference pass what with the fact that I am getting into most of them for free as a speaker lately. Regardless, the lineup of invited speakers is absolutely superb this year and I couldn’t afford to pass it up. They seriously went 5 for 5 on people I would love to listen to. The rest of the program has some fairly powerful stuff in it as well. What’s more, I’m very much looking forward to spending some time with my colleagues in the evening. From what I’ve been told, AIIDE is a very pleasant, informative, and inspirational event. See some of you there! Dave Mark to speak at GameX Industry SummitFriday, August 7th, 2009I will be speaking along with Kevin Dill (Rockstar-New England) at the GameX Industry Summit in Philadelphia this October 24-25th. From the GameX site: “GameX Industry Summit is designed by industry professionals for industry professionals. It represents a deep and concerted production between the GameX production team and five IGDA chapters in New York, New Jersey, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia, bringing together the best and the brightest of the video game industry, right in the middle of the rapidly expanding East Coast game industry.” Our lecture will be as follows: The Art of Game AI: Sculpting Behavior with Data, Formulas, and Finesse Whether designer, producer, or programmer, the term “game AI” summons visions of cold, sterile code. Programmers that deal in AI may be more specific in their definition by listing technical tools such as state machines, search or pathfinding algorithms, behavior trees, or planning architectures. While there is value in selecting the proverbial “right tool for the job,” in very few cases will simply using a chosen tool yield the behaviors that make our characters come alive. The life-magic that we breathe into our agents must come from the subtlety of the numbers, formulas, and relationships between data that we plug into those tools. This lecture will explore the challenges that are involved in constructing realistic behaviors, the mindset that one must adopt to accurately model these behaviors, and the techniques that can be used to construct them. We will show that many of the decision techniques can often be applied to a project regardless of the underlying logical infrastructure. The attendee will leave with a broad summary of how to approach the artistry of constructing artificial behaviors – and will likely have adopted the annoying habit of assigning values and formulas to everything they see around them. I’m very much looking forward to sharing the stage with my friend and colleague – and the tech editor of my book, Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI (God help him!) It should be a fun and informative hour of material. Silicon Prairie News Interviews Dave MarkTuesday, August 4th, 2009About a month ago, I was invited to sit down with Adam Templeton of Silicon Prairie News. He wanted to talk to me about Intrinsic Algorithm, my book, the state of game AI, and – more relevant to the purpose of their site – the Omaha Game Developers Association. We had a great chat for about an hour in the library on the campus of the University of Nebraska at Omaha. What resulted was a 20-minute video interview. I was very pleased to have spoken to SPN about not only my work, but about the possibility of a professional game development community here in Nebraska.
My thanks to Adam for an excellent interview and a pleasant afternoon.
Announcing Borut Pfeifer!Monday, July 27th, 2009A little over a month ago, we announced that Intrinsic Algorithm was expanding its consulting to include other industry veterans. At the time, we also had to play it a little close to the proverbial vest in that the people we were bringing on were still attached to their respective studios. One of those people has now left his full-time job, however, so we are able to make the formal announcement! Borut Pfeifer has gone out on his own – in part, to do his “own thing” and, in part, to work as an AI consultant under the Intrinsic Algorithm banner. Borut (LinkedIn) has worked in the game industry since 2000, first on online casino games and then at his own startup White Knuckle Games. Eventually he went on to work as an AI and gameplay programmer at Radical Entertainment (Scarface: The World Is Yours), and then as lead gameplay programmer on a PS3 launch title at Sony Online (Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom). He’s published articles in the Game Programming Gems series, the AI Game Programming Wisdom series, on Gamasutra, and has taught technical game design at the Vancouver Film School. Most recently he was the lead AI programmer on a game collboration between Steven Spielberg and Doug Church at EALA.
Games he has worked on include:
Technical Articles:
Game Business/Industry Articles:
Talks:
On behalf of Laurie, the rest of the (yet undiscolosed) consultants at Intrinsic Algorithm, and myself, I would like to express how pleased we are that Borut will be working with us to provide top-quality game AI for our clients.
IA Consulting is Expanding!Saturday, June 13th, 2009This has been in the works for some time, but we are finally announcing a major change in the consulting wing of Intrinsic Algorithm. Until recently, IA consulting consisted only of Dave Mark. About the time of GDC and the AI Summit, however, a number of AI programmers got together and decided that there was serious merit in joining forces to provide a combined service. At this time, IA Consulting includes three very experienced, full-time individuals and two “advisory” consultants. More detail on what those roles entail can be found on the IA Consulting page. Because we are in a transition period, some of these individuals are still with their companies. That is why we aren’t naming names just yet. As these people transition out of their jobs to work full time for IA consulting, we will announce who they are. Here is a summary of what the IA consultants bring to the table, however. 3 x Full Time Consultants
2 x Advisory Consultants
For more information on who we are, what we believe in, and how we work, please check out the consulting page. After all, doesn’t everyone need help with the intrinsic algorithms in their game? Details of GDC Austin LectureThursday, June 11th, 2009The information for my lecture, Cover Me! Promoting MMO Player Interaction through Advanced AI, at GDC Austin has been posted. Here’s the relevant information: Takeaway Session Description Speaking at GDC AustinSaturday, June 6th, 2009I will be speaking at the 2009 Austin GDC, September 15-18. Rather than the broad-based coverage of the GDC, the Austin GDC is more tailored to online games. In that vein, I will be doing a 1-hour lecture entitled “Cover Me!: Promoting MMO Player Interaction through Advanced AI“. More details soon. Back from E3!Saturday, June 6th, 2009I have finally returned from E3 in LA. Mom Nature didn’t seem to want me to get out of Denver last night, but I made it back. Thanks to all of you who I met with during the course of the week. As is always the case, there were a few of you whom I didn’t get a chance to speak with – such is the way of conferences like these. Please shoot me an email so we can discuss business.
I finally did manage to look at some of the stuff on the show floor on Thursday (which usually ended up with a discussion about business). I have to say there are certainly interesting things happening in the game industry. However, I was somewhat dismayed by the wide array of genericy (is that a word?) still on display. Some have asked if we have too many titles on the shelf. I would contend that we have too many titles that all do the same thing.
Anyway, it is nice to see E3 back the way it needs to be – but without all the excess that was there in 2002-2003 when I last attended. There were only a few areas of the floor where I could not hold a decent conversation with people. I especially liked how many companies had headphones attached to their demo systems – some with a link so that the demo person could talk to them through the headphones as well. Very nicely done. It cuts down on all the ambient noise on the floor and lets you hear what’s going on in the game. For some games that’s actually important, ya know!
One thing that was somewhat depressing was knowing that people playing a game for 5 or 10 minutes really have no way of grasping any AI other than the surface issues. They can’t “engage” with the game to feel things out. At that point, it’s only a slightly more interactive version of the “back of the box” mentality… it’s really difficult to hype AI in the promo posters and trailers. A 5 or 10-minute demo isn’t going to change all that much.
Anyway, back to going through my massive stack of business cards. Keep checking back for more news on some of the interesting conversations that took place during the course of the week.
Going to E3Friday, May 15th, 2009I will, indeed, be going to E3 this year. I will be speaking with a number of companies regarding AI consulting. If you are going to be (or are based) in town and would like to meet to discuss business, feel free to contact me so we can set something up. |
Latest blog posts:
|
||||||
