Application of Artificial Intelligence in Computer Games and Animation: Cognitive Modeling Methods: Cognitive Modeling Methods

Author: JOHNDAVIDFUNGE
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: 2004-05-01
Features: "Dr. John Funge has provided an academic bridge between artificial intelligence technology and computer game design, enriching both fields. By adopting Funge's cognitive modeling methods, future games will feature autonomous characters that are smarter, more agile, and more reliable. This book also serves as an introductory guide for AI scholars to enter the important commercial field of creating robust autonomous characters for games and animation. Funge brings us closer to the day when game characters will perform beyond just being 'a pretty face'." – Dr. Cratg Reynolds (SONY PlayStation)
"Dr. John Funge has written a convincing book describing a system aimed at guiding character behavior at a higher level of abstraction. He offers a new method for solving practical problems, encouraging graphics researchers and game developers to pick up AI textbooks." – Professor Bruce M. Blumberg (MediaLab, M.I.T.)
"This book originates from a series of new doctoral dissertations at the University of Toronto on advanced computer animation. Dr. John Funge's landmark paper has combined computer graphics and AI. Cognitive modeling is an attractive new approach, paving the way for intelligent characters to be widely applied in interactive games, multimedia creation, virtual reality, and the animation industry. John Funge has expanded the core of AI methodologies and used them to create unprecedentedly agile autonomous characters that inhabit highly dynamic virtual worlds. This outstanding book provides a comprehensive set of methods to create cognitive autonomous animated characters with basic 'animal logic,' enabling them to be directed more like human actors. John Funge's perspective will inspire researchers and technicians in computer graphics and AI to tackle the challenge of creating anthropomorphic characters." – Professor Demetri Terzopoulos (University of Toronto)
This book primarily studies the application of AI cognitive modeling methods in computer games and animation. It integrates perceptual information into the "situation calculus" and uses "interval arithmetic" to represent "uncertainty," proposing a new method for establishing cognitive models of autonomous characters in virtual worlds. It presents an architecture combining high-level nondeterministic goal-oriented behavior with low-level deterministic predefined behavior, along with real-time coordination control solutions. Methods such as role guidance and action planning based on compound actions, role learning and knowledge acquisition based on decision trees, and action path optimization through automatic search based on situation trees are also discussed.
The integration and mutual influence between AI and computer graphics are rapidly evolving, and new intelligent autonomous graphical characters are beginning to be widely used in games, animation, multimedia, multi-user virtual worlds, e-commerce, and other Web-based activities. The modeling of intelligent autonomous graphical characters is the result of multifaceted efforts, from low-level geometric and physical models to middle-level biomechanical models and high-level behavioral models. The main focus of this book is on the "cognitive model" (CM) at the top of the "pyramid" of character models, using it to enable characters to know how to acquire knowledge and how to use that knowledge to plan actions.
When discussing some intriguing and challenging aspects of cognitive modeling, this book adopts an academic seminar approach, aiming to provoke readers' thoughts and further research. This book is not intended to be a manual on computer game tools. Anyone with basic computer science knowledge can understand the main concepts, though some chapters may be challenging and can be skipped without affecting the overall coherence of the content.