Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Artists also are comfortable with re-creating the environment. A light on one
side of an object makes a corresponding shadow on the other. We've all seen it; we all
know that it would be incorrect otherwise. The ability to perform observation and
criticism doesn't simply lead to the realization that an error needs to be addressed;
it often leads to the solution itself. For example, “Make the floor darker on the side
of the object opposite the light.� Even though I lack the ability to necessarily fix it
properly, even I as a nonartist can often suggest the solution.
From a technical standpoint, the solutions are often fairly intuitive as well. For
example, to make the color of the blue floor darker in the shadows, use a darker
color of blue. To make the buildings in the distance look smaller, draw them
smaller. Truly, the models of how to accomplish many of the core features of art
have been somewhat solved for hundreds of years.
Acting Like a Pig
In contrast, game AI provides some challenges in a number of respects. For instance,
we can't just show our AI-enabled pig to someone and ask, “Does this act like a
pig?� The answer can't be rattled off as easily as one regarding the look of a pig.
Certainly, there are some obvious failure scenarios such as said pig flying about the
room in proverbially unlikely fashion. That should tip some of us off that some-
thing is amiss. However, it is far more difficult to state for certain while watching
Mr. Swine's behavior unfold onscreen that it is, indeed, acting the way a proper pig
should. There is a layer of abstraction involved that is not easy to translate through.
With the artwork, we see real life and then we see the representation of it. There
is an implicit equality there. If what we see in real life doesn't match what we see
in the representation, we can determine that it is wrong. Even if equality is not
reached, we are cognizant of a point of diminishing returns. We are accepting of a
representation that is pretty darn close to what we see in reality.
When watching behavior, however, we have to pass our understanding of that
behavior through a filter of judgment. “Is that the correct thing for the pig to do?�
To answer this question of equality, we would have to have an established belief
about what the real-life pig would have been doing in the first place. While we can
give generalized answers to that question, none of us can state for certain that every
pig will act in a certain way every time that a situation occurs.
Moving beyond pigs to behaviorally more complicated life-forms (such as
humans—although there may be some exceptions), the solution set gets significantly
larger. As that happens, our confidence in what we believe the entity in question
“should be� doing slips dramatically. While we may be more comfortable in think-
ing of possibilities of human behavior than those of a pig (seeing that we are, indeed,
human), the fact that there are so many subtle shades of those behaviors makes it
statistically less likely that any one of them is the “right thing� to be doing.
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