Workshop Schedule

An updated schedule will be handed out on site. The talks are grouped in sessions - roughly three presenters per session. There will be ten to fifteen minutes for general discussion at the end of each session; we encourage you to leave five minutes at the end of your presentation to field questions specific to your talk.

If you have any questions about your talk, or would like feedback on talk content or slides, please contact Dan Fu. Panel speakers should contact Robin Hunicke.

Our workshop will be held in the B2 Room of the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, located at 150 W. San Carlos St., San Jose, CA 95113, between Almaden Boulevard and Market Street. B2 is on the second floor Exhibit Level to the far left of the entrance.

Registration will be on the Exhibit Level of the Convention Center. The Marriott and Convention Center are connected on the same level as where registration will be held. Registration hours are Sunday and Monday, July 25 - 26, 7:30 AM - 6:00 PM. All attendees must pick up their registration packets for admittance to programs. The workshop will begin at 8:30 AM on both days, ending around 5:30 PM. There is one hour between the opening of registration and the start of the workshop. Ours is one of 16 workshops.

We are planning an informal get-together at dinnertime on Sunday at Gordon Biersch, located nearby the convention center at 33 East San Fernando St. We will provide directions at the workshop.

All in all this is going to be a large workshop with 60 participants, and the organizers look forward to an animated, lively discussion touching on current practices and future directions of the field. See you there.



Day 1

Sunday, July 25, 2004

8:30
Opening remarks

AI Tools for Scripting and Control
Moderator: Dan Fu

8:45
Turning playthings into digital extras: what the game industry can teach the special effects industry about crowd simulation
Paul Kruszewski - Biographic Technologies
slides

9:15
Rules versus Scripts in Games Artificial Intelligence
Nathan Combs and Jean-Louis Ardoint - BBN

9:35
Code Generation for AI Scripting In Computer Role-Playing Games
Matthew McNaughton, Jonathan Schaeffer, Duane Szafron, Dominique Parker, and James Redford - Univ. of Alberta
paper

9:55 Q&A

Strategy/Planning
Moderator: Craig Reynolds

10:10
Strategic Planning for Unreal Tournament Bots
Hector Munoz-Avila and Todd Fisher - Lehigh Univ.
paper | slides

10:30 Coffee Break

11:00
A Tactical and Strategic AI Interface for Real-Time Strategy Games
Michael van Lent, Paul Carpenter, Ryan McAlinden, and Poey Guan Tan - Univ. of Southern California, ICT

11:20
Call for AI Research in RTS Games
Michael Buro - Univ. of Alberta

11:40
Game Over: You have been beaten by a GRUE
Elizabeth Gordon and Brian Logan - Univ. of Nottingham
paper

12:00 Q&A

Learning
Moderator: Robin Hunicke

12:10
Integrating Learning in Interactive Gaming Simulators
David W. Aha and Matthew Molineaux - Naval Research Laboratory, ITT Industries
paper | slides

12:30 Lunch

2:00
Hierarchical Judgment Composition: Revisiting the Credit Assignment Problem
Joshua Jones and Ashok Goel - Georgia Tech
paper | slides

2:20
Bootstrapping the Learning Process for the Semi-automated Design of a Challenging Game AI
Charles Madeira, Vincent Corruble, Geber Ramalho, and Bohdana Ratitch - Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6), Universidade Federal do Pernambuco, McGill University
paper | slides

2:40 Q&A

2:50
Integrated Machine Learning For Behavior Modeling in Video Games
Ben Geisler - Radical Entertainment

3:30 Coffee Break

Game Commentary
Moderator: Jeff Orkin

4:00
Step One: Document the Problem
Baylor Wetzel
slides

4:20
MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research
Robin Hunicke, LeBlanc, and Rob Zubek - Northwestern Univ.
slides

4:40 Q&A

4:50
Closing remarks, instructions, adjourn for day

5:30
Reception at Gordon Biersch



Day 2

Monday, July 26, 2004

8:30
Opening remarks

Case Studies
Moderator: Jeff Orkin

8:35
MMP AI in Mythica
Aaron Khoo - Microsoft

9:00
The Suffering: A Game AI Case Study
Greg Alt - Surreal Software
paper | slides

9:25
Symbolic Representation of Game Worlds: Towards Real-Time Planning in Games
Jeff Orkin - Monolith Productions
paper | slides

9:50 Q&A

Path Planning and Tactics
Moderator: Craig Reynolds

10:05
State Estimation for Game AI Using Particle Filters
Curt Bererton - Carnegie Mellon Univ.

10:30 Coffee break

11:00
Dynamic Path Planning and Terrain Analysis for Games
Paul Brobst, Ramesh Saran, and Michael van Lent - Univ. of Southern California, ICT

11:20
Efficient and Dynamic Reaction to Fire
Christian J. Darken, Gregory Paull, and David J. Morgan - MOVES Institute, Naval Postgraduate School, US Army

11:40 Q&A

Game Commentary
Moderator: Dan Fu

11:50
Interactive Aristotelian Drama Through Hypothesis Resolution: Addressing experience in the definition of interactive drama
Joe Andrieu - Realtime Drama

12:30 Lunch

Challenge/Adjustment/Emergence
Moderator: Dan Fu

2:00
Creating Emergent Gameplay with Autonomous Agents
Borut Pfeifer - Radical Entertainment
slides

2:25 Semi-automated Gameplay Analysis
Finnegan Southey and Robert C. Holte - Univ. of Alberta
paper

2:45
AI for Dynamic Difficult Adjustment in Games
Robin Hunicke and Vernell Chapman - Northwestern Univ.
slides

3:05 Q&A

Poster Session
3:15
Utilizing Case-Based Reasoning and Automatic Case Elicitation to Develop a Self-Taught Knowledgeable Agent
Jay H. Powell, Brandon M. Hauff,
and John D. Hastings - Univ. of Nebraska at Kearney

Augmenting Wargame AI with Data Mining Technology
John Rushing, John Tiller, Steve Tanner,
and Drew McDowell - Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville, John Tiller Games

Knowledge-Gathering Agents in Adventure Games
Brian Hlubocky, Eyal Amir - Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Reflection in Action: Model-Based Self-Adaptation in Game Playing Agents
Patrick Ulam, Ashok Goel, and Joshua Jones - Georgia Tech
paper | slides

Light AI
Magy Seif El-Nasr - Penn State Univ.

3:30 Coffee Break

Narrative/Characters
Moderator: Robin Hunicke

4:00
Game AI: Balancing Authorship and Autonomy
Michael Mateas - Georgia Tech

Panel Discussion
4:30
A Search-Based Drama Manager
Ari Lamstein and Michael Mateas - Georgia Tech

Mediating the Tension between Plot and Interaction
Brian Magerko and John E. Laird - Univ. of Michigan

A Model for Participation in Social Interaction
Robert Zubek - Northwestern Univ.
paper | slides

Game Commentary
Moderator: Dan Fu

5:15
Intelligent Interfaces for Digital Games
Daniel Livingstone, Darryl Charles - Univ. of Paisley, Univ. of Ulster, Coleraine Campus
paper | slides

5:35
Closing remarks