Bungie talks AI and animation

By Rob Fahey Published 31 July, 2008

It's all about picking up pencils.

The next big step for artificial intelligence in games will be making a character walk up to a table and pick up a pencil.

That's according to Bungie AI expert Damian Isla, who told Eurogamer that in his line of work, problems we assume to be easy usually turn out to be "impossibly difficult".

"In a lot of ways, the next step for AI is... Animation," Isla said. "Which is to say that AI has developed to a point where a lot of the big problems that we're solving are not really AI problems at all, they're animation problems.

"The example that I give to a lot of people is that we have yet to see an AI, or any kind of character in a videogame, that can walk up to a table and pick a pencil off the table. We literally don't know how to do that, because it's such an incredibly complicated process.

"You know, it's one of the classic problems of AI. The things that people think are hard to do, are actually easy. The things that people think are easy, are the hard problems. Everyone thinks, intelligence... Well, what about chess? Chess is really intelligent. From an AI perspective, though, it was a solved problem 30 years ago, and now we're beating the grand masters," said Isla.

The upshot, of course, won't be more games where you can pick up pencils in a realistic way, but games where characters react dynamically and fluidly to events around them - flexing joints and limbs in a realistic way to carry out a wide range of actions. An that.

Picture of Rob.

About Rob Fahey

Rob Fahey is a former editor of GamesIndustry.biz who spent several years living in Japan and probably still has a mint condition Dreamcast Samba de Amigo set.

Read more articles from Rob by visiting the Rob Fahey archive page.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • booner #1 4 years ago

    Indeed. So what's the new game(s) then Bungie....?

  • locus2k1 #2 4 years ago

    Bungie have been using AI in the cinematics of the Halo series, its discussed in the directors commentary of the Halos cinematics in the Halo 3 SE/LE :D It made me wonder how many other games out there use AI during theirs too, and to what extent

  • Eraysor #3 4 years ago

    Spore has pretty awesome procedurally generated animation, but look how many years that took.

  • CreepinJesus #4 4 years ago

    "Spore has pretty awesome procedurally generated animation, but look how many years that took."

    That's EA - they take years to do anything.

  • Ceatlan #5 4 years ago

    Eraysor,

    Spores procedural animation is pretty awesome, but at the same time its pretty limited. For example it lets you create characters with all their weight at the front, only a single pair of legs at the back, but still lets them walk without falling forward or pushing their fronts around on the ground. It both shows how far we've come and how far we've still got to go at the same time, and as you say they have spent a long time working on it.

    Edited by 1 at 31/07/08 @ 09:58

  • kingdumpalot #6 4 years ago

    Having just finished an AI degree myself, I totally agree. The problems I had were not making robots solve a maze, it was making them deal with dust in their motors or turning corners properly.

    That's the thing with all computers though, we've concentrated on things that humans find hard assuming that the easy stuff is easy for machines too. This simply isn't the case. We have to try to put into language everything that happens when we pick up a pencil, the vast majority of which is handled automatically by our subconcious.

  • Carpathian #7 4 years ago

    I know the fact it's Bungie will bring out the pro/anti bots as usual but it's a fair point made.

    I remember a few years ago having a very similar conversation with a few people only in our case it was the "making a cup of tea" process. When you actually break down the many things involved it suddenly exposes a number of decisions and movements that you never give a single conscious thought to - suddenly it's not the motor used to tip the kettle that is the issue but instead the position relative to equipment, kettle weight & how full it is, cup position, avoiding spillage, correct pouring speed for size of cup etc etc. To have an AI driven character do this in a realistic and non-scripted manner is a goal that sounds trite and pointless but would actually yield a huge amount of progress for the industry as a whole.

    Interesting stuff.

  • Jos #8 4 years ago

    blig_merk wrote

    "The Master chief will now decimate the Flood homeworld by poking them with a freshly sharpened Pencil! "

    Well if it worked for the Joker...

  • DarthInsinuate #9 4 years ago

    I'd prefer if more developers worked on getting half-decent facial animation on par with Team Fortress 2. Master Chief is probably the worst offender.

    Sumotori Dreams, ftw, btw.

  • SilasMalkav #10 4 years ago

    I thought Master Chief had excellent facial animations.

  • Nocturne #11 4 years ago

    The procedural animation in Grand Theft Auto 4 was an impressive step forward.

  • kingdumpalot #12 4 years ago

    They do say the pen is mightier than the sword. I suppose that applies to pencils too...

  • RedSparrows #13 4 years ago

    *Chief enters kitchen, where mob leaders angrily talk*
    HELLO GENTLEMEN!
    Who is this idiot? Get him!
    Let me make this pencil disappear!
    *Chief attempts to kill mob thug with pencil. Fails miserably*
    Ah fuck it
    *weeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiBOOM*

  • samiles #14 4 years ago

    Are there pencils in halo?

  • Saltefanden #15 4 years ago

    Paper Halo confirmed?