stewacide on 07 March 2007
Kwaad said:
stewacide said:
AI is a *tiny* fraction of the processing requirements of any game (that isn't a chess sim). AI, unlike graphics, doesn't naturally improve with time as the hardware gets faster, and improvements generally aren't/can't be built on top of one another...
That is to say, AI in every game is a one-off hand-coded job - essentially the wheel is being re-invented in every game you play - and no game has AI remotely ambitious enough to strain any contemporary system: the bottleneck is with the code not the machine.
Moreover, AI processing by its nature calls for *HIGHLY* branching code logic, which is exactly what the PS3 and 360 are deficient at by design.
I strongly suspect this guy in his position has nothing to do with programming AI.
Wow. AI hasnt changed over the last 10 years. Back on Q1 The monsters just came straight at you shooting.
In new games like Killzone for the PSP, they find the nearest cover, figure out where you are, and find a place they can shoot you... without getting shot. That's been around for a few years on the way it's done. But this is a handheld. Not a home console.
An example of the AI on the home console is like. Heavenly Sword. Where there are 500 people on the screen EACH doing something diffrent. THAT is AI hell if you ask me.
Also games like SPORE wich use an AI to animate the creatures is a doozey. That takes an amazing ammount of power.
Games like Supreme Commander in beta, when you had more than 3000 units in the game, most controlled by a computer AI, telling them each, what is the best idea for each of them to be doing, with a seprate AI pathing them where to go.
AI has changed ALOT over the years.
You're only right in the sense that AI has been 'scaled up' to increase the number of CPU-controls 'bots', although that's mostly/totally because the graphics hardware now allows for it (there were RTS games +10 years ago with hundreds of individually-'thinking' cpu characters that run just fine on hardware a small fraction as powerful as the Wii).
AI is only as good as the programmers involved, hence why lots of games launch today with cutting-edge graphics but AI no smarter than +10 years ago on the PS1. Conversely I'm sure I could find tactical shooters from years ago with AI just as smart as the best today.
AI is the *serious* laggard in game design, because nobody has figured out a technique for having improvements compound (as they have with graphics in a major way, and physics to some extent).
