Integrating Story-Centric and Character-Centric Processes for Authoring Interactive Drama

Computer aided interactive drama has been widely applied for entertainment and pedagogy. Most existing approaches for authoring interactive drama use either story-centric or character-centric processes. In this work, we present a new framework that integrates both types of processes to support authoring. This framework uses a multi-agent system to control virtual characters in a story. The characters’ motivations are encoded as the agents’ goals, and are configured based on well-structured story paths generated using a partial order planner. This framework allows the use of a planner that has an equivalent model of the story as that in the multi-agent system or models the story at a more abstract level, e.g. only the plot points. We explore the use of this new framework for authoring interactive dramas. Preliminary examples of application are presented

Integrating Story-Centric and Character-Centric Processes for Authoring Interactive Drama

Computer aided interactive drama has been widely applied for entertainment and pedagogy. Most existing approaches for authoring interactive drama use either story-centric or character-centric processes. In this work, we present a new framework that integrates both types of processes to support authoring. This framework uses a multi-agent system to control virtual characters in a story. The characters’ motivations are encoded as the agents ’ goals, and are configured based on well-structured story paths generated using a partial order planner. This framework allows the use of a planner that models the story at a more abstract level than the multi-agent system, and thus avoids the effort of building equivalent models of the story using both the planner and the multi-agent system. We explore the use of this new framework for authoring interactive dramas. Preliminary examples of application are presented

Étude comparative de planificateurs appliqués au domaine des jeux vidéo

RÉSUMÉ L’utilisation de la planification dans une architecture de prise de décision d’un jeu vidéo est une technique récente et il existe peu de références démontrant son efficacité par rapport aux techniques usuelles. Notre étude consiste en une évaluation expérimentale de deux planificateurs, GOAP et HTN, dans l’élaboration d’agents autonomes dans un jeu de tir. L’objectif du projet de recherche est de déterminer s’il est avantageux ou non d’utiliser ces planificateurs selon les critères suivants : la qualité de l’agent, la qualité de la planification, la jouabilité et certains attributs de qualité non fonctionnels tels que les limitations comportementales,la facilité d’implémentation et la robustesse face aux changements de conception. Nous avons comparé les deux types de planificateurs à une technique usuelle, la machine à états finis. Les résultats obtenus montrent que les architectures utilisant la planification offrent une qualité d’agent supérieure à la machine à états finis, nécessitent en moyenne moins de temps de calcul, ne nécessitent pas de prévoir toutes les situations auxquelles l’agent fera face et sont plus robustes aux changements de conception. Toutefois, elles résultent en un agent moins réactif et l’implémentation de l’architecture GOAP est une tâche plus complexe que l’implémentation de la machine à états. Finalement, GOAP offre une qualité de l’agent légèrement supérieure à HTN, mais ce dernier est plus facile d’implémentation. En définitive, sans toutefois être sans inconvénient, les planificateurs possèdent des avantages à être utilisés dans une architecture de prise de décision d’un jeu de tir. Quant au planificateur le plus approprié, le choix devrait être réalisé en fonction des exigences spécifiques du projet.----------ABSTRACT The use of planning in a decision making architecture of a video game is a recent technique and there are few references demonstrating its effectiveness compared to conventional techniques. Our study provides an experimental evaluation of two planners, GOAP and HTN, in the development of autonomous agents in a shooting game. The objective of the project is to determine whether it is advantageous or not to use these planners based on the following criteria: quality of the agent, quality of planning, gameplay and some non-functional quality attributes such as behavioral limitations, ease of implementation and robustness to design changes. We compared the two types of planners to a conventional technique, the finite state machine. The results show that the planning architectures offer a superior quality of agent than the finite state machine, require less computing time, do not require to anticipate all situations that the agent will face and are more robust to changes in design. However, they result in a less reactive agent and the implementation of the GOAP architecture is a more complex task than implementing the state machine. Finally, GOAP provides a slightly superior agent quality than HTN, but the latter is easier to implement. Ultimately, though not without downsides, planners have advantages for use in a decision making architecture of a shooter. As for the most appropriate planner, the choice should be made according to specific project requirements