411 research outputs found
Tile Pattern KL-Divergence for Analysing and Evolving Game Levels
This paper provides a detailed investigation of using the Kullback-Leibler
(KL) Divergence as a way to compare and analyse game-levels, and hence to use
the measure as the objective function of an evolutionary algorithm to evolve
new levels. We describe the benefits of its asymmetry for level analysis and
demonstrate how (not surprisingly) the quality of the results depends on the
features used. Here we use tile-patterns of various sizes as features.
When using the measure for evolution-based level generation, we demonstrate
that the choice of variation operator is critical in order to provide an
efficient search process, and introduce a novel convolutional mutation operator
to facilitate this. We compare the results with alternative generators,
including evolving in the latent space of generative adversarial networks, and
Wave Function Collapse. The results clearly show the proposed method to provide
competitive performance, providing reasonable quality results with very fast
training and reasonably fast generation.Comment: 8 pages plus references. Proceedings of GECCO 201
An interactive evolution strategy based deep convolutional generative adversarial network for 2D video game level procedural content generation.
The generation of desirable video game contents has been a challenge of games level design and production. In this research, we propose a game player flow experience driven interactive latent variable evolution strategy incorporated with a Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Network (DCGAN) for undertaking game content generation with respect to a 2D Super Mario video game. Since the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) models tend to capture the high-level style of the input images by learning the latent vectors, they are used to generate game scenarios and context images in this research. However, as GANs employ arbitrary inputs for game image generation without taking specific features into account, they generate game level images in an incoherent manner without the specific playable game level properties, such as a broken pipe in the Mario game level image. In order to overcome such drawbacks, we propose a game player flow experience driven optimised mechanism with human intervention, to guide the game level content generation process so that only plausible and even enjoyable images will be generated as the candidates for the final game design and production
LoGAN: Generating Logos with a Generative Adversarial Neural Network Conditioned on color
Designing a logo is a long, complicated, and expensive process for any
designer. However, recent advancements in generative algorithms provide models
that could offer a possible solution. Logos are multi-modal, have very few
categorical properties, and do not have a continuous latent space. Yet,
conditional generative adversarial networks can be used to generate logos that
could help designers in their creative process. We propose LoGAN: an improved
auxiliary classifier Wasserstein generative adversarial neural network (with
gradient penalty) that is able to generate logos conditioned on twelve
different colors. In 768 generated instances (12 classes and 64 logos per
class), when looking at the most prominent color, the conditional generation
part of the model has an overall precision and recall of 0.8 and 0.7
respectively. LoGAN's results offer a first glance at how artificial
intelligence can be used to assist designers in their creative process and open
promising future directions, such as including more descriptive labels which
will provide a more exhaustive and easy-to-use system.Comment: 6 page, ICMLA1
Interactive Evolution and Exploration within Latent Level-Design Space of Generative Adversarial Networks
Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are an emerging form of indirect
encoding. The GAN is trained to induce a latent space on training data, and a
real-valued evolutionary algorithm can search that latent space. Such Latent
Variable Evolution (LVE) has recently been applied to game levels. However, it
is hard for objective scores to capture level features that are appealing to
players. Therefore, this paper introduces a tool for interactive LVE of
tile-based levels for games. The tool also allows for direct exploration of the
latent dimensions, and allows users to play discovered levels. The tool works
for a variety of GAN models trained for both Super Mario Bros. and The Legend
of Zelda, and is easily generalizable to other games. A user study shows that
both the evolution and latent space exploration features are appreciated, with
a slight preference for direct exploration, but combining these features allows
users to discover even better levels. User feedback also indicates how this
system could eventually grow into a commercial design tool, with the addition
of a few enhancements.Comment: GECCO 202
Deep learning for procedural content generation
Summarization: Procedural content generation in video games has a long history. Existing procedural content generation methods, such as search-based, solver-based, rule-based and grammar-based methods have been applied to various content types such as levels, maps, character models, and textures. A research field centered on content generation in games has existed for more than a decade. More recently, deep learning has powered a remarkable range of inventions in content production, which are applicable to games. While some cutting-edge deep learning methods are applied on their own, others are applied in combination with more traditional methods, or in an interactive setting. This article surveys the various deep learning methods that have been applied to generate game content directly or indirectly, discusses deep learning methods that could be used for content generation purposes but are rarely used today, and envisages some limitations and potential future directions of deep learning for procedural content generation.Presented on: Neural Computing and Application
Utilizing Generative Adversarial Networks for Stable Structure Generation in Angry Birds
This paper investigates the suitability of using Generative Adversarial
Networks (GANs) to generate stable structures for the physics-based puzzle game
Angry Birds. While previous applications of GANs for level generation have been
mostly limited to tile-based representations, this paper explores their
suitability for creating stable structures made from multiple smaller blocks.
This includes a detailed encoding/decoding process for converting between Angry
Birds level descriptions and a suitable grid-based representation, as well as
utilizing state-of-the-art GAN architectures and training methods to produce
new structure designs. Our results show that GANs can be successfully applied
to generate a varied range of complex and stable Angry Birds structures.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, Accepted at the 19th AAAI Conference
on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 23
Recent Advances in Transfer Learning for Cross-Dataset Visual Recognition: A Problem-Oriented Perspective
This paper takes a problem-oriented perspective and presents a comprehensive
review of transfer learning methods, both shallow and deep, for cross-dataset
visual recognition. Specifically, it categorises the cross-dataset recognition
into seventeen problems based on a set of carefully chosen data and label
attributes. Such a problem-oriented taxonomy has allowed us to examine how
different transfer learning approaches tackle each problem and how well each
problem has been researched to date. The comprehensive problem-oriented review
of the advances in transfer learning with respect to the problem has not only
revealed the challenges in transfer learning for visual recognition, but also
the problems (e.g. eight of the seventeen problems) that have been scarcely
studied. This survey not only presents an up-to-date technical review for
researchers, but also a systematic approach and a reference for a machine
learning practitioner to categorise a real problem and to look up for a
possible solution accordingly
Bootstrapping Conditional GANs for Video Game Level Generation
Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have shown im-pressive results for
image generation. However, GANs facechallenges in generating contents with
certain types of con-straints, such as game levels. Specifically, it is
difficult togenerate levels that have aesthetic appeal and are playable atthe
same time. Additionally, because training data usually islimited, it is
challenging to generate unique levels with cur-rent GANs. In this paper, we
propose a new GAN architec-ture namedConditional Embedding Self-Attention
Genera-tive Adversarial Network(CESAGAN) and a new bootstrap-ping training
procedure. The CESAGAN is a modification ofthe self-attention GAN that
incorporates an embedding fea-ture vector input to condition the training of
the discriminatorand generator. This allows the network to model
non-localdependency between game objects, and to count objects. Ad-ditionally,
to reduce the number of levels necessary to trainthe GAN, we propose a
bootstrapping mechanism in whichplayable generated levels are added to the
training set. Theresults demonstrate that the new approach does not only
gen-erate a larger number of levels that are playable but also gen-erates fewer
duplicate levels compared to a standard GAN
Illuminating Mario Scenes in the Latent Space of a Generative Adversarial Network
Generative adversarial networks (GANs) are quickly becoming a ubiquitous
approach to procedurally generating video game levels. While GAN generated
levels are stylistically similar to human-authored examples, human designers
often want to explore the generative design space of GANs to extract
interesting levels. However, human designers find latent vectors opaque and
would rather explore along dimensions the designer specifies, such as number of
enemies or obstacles. We propose using state-of-the-art quality diversity
algorithms designed to optimize continuous spaces, i.e. MAP-Elites with a
directional variation operator and Covariance Matrix Adaptation MAP-Elites, to
efficiently explore the latent space of a GAN to extract levels that vary
across a set of specified gameplay measures. In the benchmark domain of Super
Mario Bros, we demonstrate how designers may specify gameplay measures to our
system and extract high-quality (playable) levels with a diverse range of level
mechanics, while still maintaining stylistic similarity to human authored
examples. An online user study shows how the different mechanics of the
automatically generated levels affect subjective ratings of their perceived
difficulty and appearance.Comment: Accepted to AAAI 202
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