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Terrain Reasoning
Old fashioned war
Strategies:
Strengthen front
Attack flank
Pincer
Ambush rear
Terrain Reasoning
Old fashioned war
Strategies:
Strengthen front
Attack flank
Pincer
Ambush rear
Ambush rear
Ambush rear
Pincer
Flank
Fr
on
t
Strengthen front
Attack flank
Ambush rear
Flank
Rear
Pincer
Flank
Fr
on
t
Strengthen front
Attack flank
Ambush rear
Flank
Rear
MOUT
Dont get to play tanks and trenches much
anymore
Stupid nuclear bombs
stairs,
from water
bridge w.
1m / 3ft walls
wall,
1m / 3ft
building,
1 door,
2 windows
deep
wall,
water
2m / 7ft
?
Checkpoint
chokepoint
Sniper
long range view,
enclosed space,
stairs,
from water
bridge w.
1m / 3ft walls
wall,
1m / 3ft
building,
1 door,
2 windows
deep
wall,
water
2m / 7ft
Terrain Reasoning
These problems are instances of terrain
reasoning
Computers cant see
Sees raw data, not groupings, relationships
Humans very good at this
Building
Several game types require building
Most obviously Real Time Strategies (RTSes)
Factors
Place walls where they safeguard the most /
most important items
Place buildings near defense
Place buildings near resources
Building
Several game types require building
Most obviously Real Time Strategies (RTSes)
Factors
Place walls where they safeguard the most /
most important items
Place buildings near defense
Place buildings near resources
Building (contd.)
Lots of games need to be able to place things in
a good place
So they need to understand their environment
Where should we
build?
Them
Us
Red Tank
Base Value: 10
Propagation Divisor: 2
Propagation Distance: 3
Them
Us
One of
ours /
Them
Us
Computationally
simple and fast
Just adds and
multiplies
Linear growth in
computation time
8. Reminder: Go is Hard
for computers
10761 games
vs. 1040 vs. 10120
Influence Maps
Created in 1969 by Albert Zobrist
Computers didnt understand spatial patterns
This capability is important to human problem solving
Multiple Maps
Can have more than one type of influence
Represent different concerns / factors
Can use all of them at the same time
Sum across influence types / maps
For an RTS
Borders
Resources
Defensibility
Line of fire
Fog of war
Passability
Resources
Exploration
Threat
Light level
Historical
Emotion (fear, beauty, etc.)
Anything you make up
Desirability Map
Summation of the above
Propagation
Can propagate however you want
Predefined actor halo, rules
Auto-propagation - linear, exponential, Gaussian, etc.
Roads
spread
influence
Lakes
block it
(for tanks)
Problems Revisited
Elf
Evil
Castle
O
R
O
O
O
O
R
O
X
O
O
R
O
R
O
O
O
R
O
O
O
O
E
R
R
-1
-1
-1
-1
-1
-1
-1
-1
-1
-2
-2
-2
-1
-2
-1
-2
-1
-2
-2
-2
Squares next to
castle worth -2
-1
-1
-1
-1
-2
-2
-2
-1
-2
-2
-2
-2
-1
-2
-1
Squares next to
those squares
worth -1
-2
-1
-2
-2
-1
-1
-2
-1
-2
-2
-2
-2
-1
-2
-2
-1
-1
-2
-2
0
Right here
-2
-2
-1
Right here
A* runs a lot
faster when
you do it this
way
Note:
Color, like
danger,
fades with
distance
A lot more
work for A*
Pincer
Flank
Fr
on
t
Strengthen front
Attack flank
Ambush rear
Flank
Rear
?
Checkpoint
chokepoint
Sniper
long range view,
enclosed space,
stairs,
from water
bridge w.
1m / 3ft walls
wall,
1m / 3ft
building,
1 door,
2 windows
deep
wall,
water
2m / 7ft
Inconspicuous
Overlooking distant locations
Overlooking key locations
Target locations lack cover
Hard to reach from target locations
Nearby cover for sniper
Hard to surprise
Flank protected
Have freedom of movement
Focus
Data We Need
Line of sight
Travel time from one point to another
Distance from one point to another
Which part of area do we belong to
Are we in a specific room, courtyard, etc.
weapon performance
1.5
1
0.5
0
0
100
1.0
0.5
2/9 = 0.22
0.0
protection
200
No focus
Adding History
Store Sniping behavior at each waypoint
Time spent sniping
Time spent at location
Time spent zoomed in
Shots fired
Breakdown by
Sniping spot
Weapon used
Direction faced
positive
sniping
experience,
after
40 rounds,
non-directional
sniping activity
tracking [ 0.0s]
sniper spot
analysis [~20 s]
level design
physics
waypoints
paths +
line of
sight / fire travel time
terrain analysis
game round
game round
game round
sniper
activity
traffic +
kills ...
reinforcement
learning [0.1s]
analyse activity
+ rerank locations
sniper
activity
sniping
ratings
Bonus Problems!
door
threat
window
?
Where to look for the threat?
What to aim for?
Option:
assume threat static
after moving out of sight
(often incorrect)
!?
Option:
assume threat continues
last observed movement
(incorrect after a little while)
!?
Good guesses
Visible spot closest to threat
First visible spot on predicted path
If you think hes coming back for you
First visible spot on shortest path back to you
2
1
Information
to track to
determine
value of spot
as a grenade
tossing spot
AI is much
easier with
good
debugging
tools
Have no direct shot at enemy. But we could throw a grenade from the green spot
We know we can hit this because we pre-computed it long before the game began
Grenades: A Warning
To throw grenades, need to know
Where to stand
Point to aim at
good
bad
oops, we
clipped
the wall
Its very important to be very precise. Or very bad things could happen
1
2
Repeat on
member
initiative
1
2
1
2
1
3
2
1
3
1
3
!#%&!
1
3
Questions?