Links

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Last update: December 16, 2000, by William.

• CGF Previews and Reviews
• CGF Mission Sites
• Action Quake2 Sites

• Bot (News) Sites

• AI - game AI programming
• AI - team / tactical / multi-agent
• AI - general

• defense CGF R&D relevant tactical game AI

• previous work: Navy SEALs sQuad bot for Quake 1

CGF Reviews

• CGF 0.77 review by AWOL (Action Nation), July 16 99 [snippets / full]
• CGF 0.77 review by Oswald (6th Floor Repository), early July 99 [local copy]
• CGF 0.77 review by LM, early July 99 [local copy]

CGF (Additional) Mission Sites (ranked by site contents, Feb 2K)

• CGF Mission Depot
  great looking site, news, lots of missions, reviews, tips'n'tactics, FAQ and message board
• CGF Resource Site
  extensive site, with reviews and script design competitions!
• CGF Bot Central
  lots of missions (but few reviews), news, and forum for CGF!
  

Essential Action Quake2 sites

Action Quake2 official sites
• Action Quake2 home - the mod's HQ + binaries
• Action Quake2 map depot - quality maps
• Action Quake2 Actors Guild - essential add-ons

  Other essential Action Quake2 sites

• The Newbie's Niche - all you need to known to get into action

• Action World - action news site
• Action Nation - action news site

  
  
  Tactical Shooter mod sites

• Crossfire - new site cover everything action, CS, etc.

  Action Quake2 mods

• AQDT
  Teamplay extended AQ2, allowing for different teamplay objectives (capture the briefcase (CTB), assassinate the leader (ATL), escort the vip (ETV))
• Action Quake2: Gangsters
  

Other AQ2 bot(s)

• LTK (Licensed To Kill) - based ACE bot code, a DM/TM bot for AQ2 by RiEvEr of 'Redemption' bot fame

Bot Related Sites

• Bot Epidemic - the Total Bot Coverage bot site
• SABIN - bot open source project, some of it used in CGF

• Botman's Bots - Skeleton for Half-Life bots, and great forums as well
• PODBot for Counter-Strike - by Count Floyd, one of the better bots for CS

Game (AI) Programming Sites

• Game AI
  Steve Woodcock's site, very good info on the state-of-the-art of game AI
• Amit Patel's Game Programming Resources
  especially great on discussions of algorithms and concepts, a must-visit for anyone interested in fast A*

• Gamasutra game AI (programming) features, notably:
  • Stimulus Response Approach by Zombie's Charles Guy
    used for SpecOps (1) NPC's
  • (A* based) Smart Path Finding by Bryan Stout
    tackling navigation / path finding
  • Coordinated Unit Movement / Implementing Coordinated Movement
    by Ensemble Studios' Dave Pottinger, used for the Age of Empires RTS
• comp.ai.games newsgroup (or via Deja).
• John Laird & Mike van Lent's game research
  a more scientific look at game AI, from the University of Michigan
  • It knows what you're going to do: Adding anticipation to a Quakebot
    adding threat modeling and prediction to a Quake bot (most likely intended for one-on-one combat)

• FlipCode - great general purpose game development site

Team / Tactical AI Research Sites

• RoboCup
  Notably the simulator league is a source of much practical work on team AI and AI training.
  The following teams have great information:
  • CMU's CMUnited robosoccer simulator home
  And there's the general literature list.
  • RoboCup research publications
  
  Multi-agent (tactical) team AI
• ISI (Univ. of Southern Florida) TeamCore multi-agent project
• Milind Tambe's publications

General AI Sites

• Command Decision Model Technology Assessment
  US Army funded AI technology assessment by various authors, introducing and discussion:
  • rule based systems
  • fuzzy technologies
  • case-based reasoning
  • genetic algorithms and evolutionary programming
  • neural networks and bounded neural nets
  • lattice automata
  • planning systems
  • petri nets and colored petri nets
  More info on command agents is availabe in the same publication.

Recommended Book(s)

• Game Programming Gems", M. Deloura (ed.), Charles River Media, 2000
  great overview of game programming techniques, and AI addressed fairly well with AI architecture, state machines, path finding, path optimization, A*, and fuzzy logic
• Multi-Agent Systems : An Introduction to Distributed Artificial Intelligence
  by Jacques Ferber, Addison-Wesley, Feb. 1999

CGF Links

• Tactical Movement Planning for Individual Combatants, Reece, D., Krauss, M., Dumanoir, P.,
  in Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Computer Generated Forces and Behavioral Representation, 2000
  One of the few papers dealing with tactical path finding. Describes the relation between various terrain representations and tactical path finding. The CGF's approach is comparable, though more geared towards smaller 'worlds', and low CPU utilization.
• Issues Involved With Integrating Live and Artificial Virtual Individual Combatants, Dirk Ourston and Douglas Reece,
  presented at the 1998 Spring Simulation Interoperability Workshop, Orlando, FL
  This paper illustrates the problems of human - CGF interaction (using visual/aural cues), modeling direct and collateral damage, and realistic ways of movement.
• Soldier Agents in a Virtual Urban Battlefield, Douglas A. Reece,
  presented at the First Workshop on Simulation and Interaction in Virtual Enviroments, University of Iowa, July 1995
  (postscript reader required)
  This paper illustrates the problems of dealing with terrain features and obstacles, the need for modeling realistic behavior, and the corresponding computing costs.

  
  

• relevant CGF conferences (with on-line papers and presentations):
  • Computer Generated Forces & Behavioral Representation Conference (yearly)
  • Simulation Interoperability Workshop (twice a year)

Previous Work

• sQuad bots for Navy SEALs/Quake1
  Already providing MP5, M4, laser sights, rudimentary crouching and bots back in 1997. Weapons by Gooseman, of later AQ2 and CounterStrike fame. The sQuad bots are probably the first bots to use (very basic) squad tactics, crouch, and burst limited firing. The sQuad bots are limited (hard-wired) to operate on e1m1 ("the Slipgate Complex"). Work on the sQuad bots was done in the period Dec. 96 - Dec. 97.
  To play the bots, make sure you download version 2.01 (and the 2.2 fix if you have a 3D card - don't download 2.1 as it breaks the bots).
  See images above for a quick impression (MP5 armed dudes not visible). Still miss the view of MP5/SD (silencer visible) :(

  Locally available download: Navy SEALs for Q1 including sQuad bots (8 MB)

Miscellaneous Links

• Action Half-Life - the real Action on the Half-Life engine
  
  
• Team Fortress2 - the FPS featuring multiplayer tactical combat
  
  
• Blue's - (Action Game) News
• Keygrip2 - the tool for AQ2 movies and CGF screen shots