IBM announces gameframe servers for MMORPGs

Today’s New York Times has an article, Sun and IBM to Offer New Class of High-End Servers, on new specialized high-end servers recently announced by both Sun and IBM. While Sun’s new machines are aimed at managing high-volumes streams of data (e.g., video), IBM’s is designed to support MMORPG games and virtual worlds.

“I.B.M. said its new video game server, which it is calling a “gameframe,” is being designed in collaboration with Hoplon Infotainment, a Brazilian game developer interested in creating a software layer it calls a “bitverse” to support virtual online worlds.
    There are already multiplayer games that support hundreds of thousands of simultaneous players, but the I.B.M. system will add an unparalleled level of realism to visual interactions, Mr. Meyerson said.
    He argued that in addition to gaming applications, this kind of technology could be used to enhance the performance and scalability of existing virtual worlds like Second Life, an Internet-based service that crosses the boundary between online entertainment and workplace collaboration.”

Hoplon Infotainment runs its Taikodom, a space-based, sci-fi massive multiplayer online game, on conventional IBM Z-series servers. The new IBM “gameframe” machines will combine high-performance features of mainframe computers with the parallel processing capabilities of IBM’s Cell Broadband Engine chip currently being used in the Sony PlayStation 3 game console.

The computer game industry needs software engineers that understand how to take advantage of the new classes of parallel processors that are being developed. As part of our effort to support the GAIM tracks, we plan to offer CMSC483 (Parallel and Distributed Processing) every year.

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UMBC Undergraduate Council approval for GAIM

The UMBC Undergraduate Council has officially approved both the Computer Science Game Development Track, and the Visual Arts Concentration on Animation and Interactive Media! Not that we were too worried, since everyone here is excited about them, but it’s certainly good to have official university-level approval.

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Making machines, and computer games, *really* intelligent

People are remarkably good at “muddling through”, at not getting completely stuck, at continuing to make some progress even when things don’t go as planned. Machines, on the other hand, tend to fail in dramatic fashion when they are faced with unusual circumstances.

UMBC professor Tim Oates is working on building more robust intelligent systems through metacognition, which is the ability to think about your own thinking. Meta-cognitive systems can notice when things are not going well (as opposed to just plowing ahead with whatever they were doing, which is what most systems do today), reason about possible sources of the problem, and try various repairs.

Professor Oates and his colleagues have constructed a meta-cognitive computer player for the tank game Bolo that learns from its mistakes and adapts its knowledge, tactics, and strategies as it faces new challenges in the game and more capable human or automated opponents. For more information see the ALMECOM pages and some of the detailed papers on metacognition in Bolo.

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NYT: PC games on the rebound

Today’s New York Times has an article on the PC vs. console games, PC Games, Once Down, Show Signs of Rebound.

Not so long ago, PC titles were the mainstay of video gaming, but they have slumped in recent years, overshadowed by a new generation of game consoles. Now they are showing signs of a comeback.
    Most prominent has been the strength of one of the most popular video games ever for PCs, World of Warcraft, a role-playing online adventure game that now has more than eight million subscribers.
    But retail sales of other titles are on the rebound as well. PC manufacturers and chipmakers are promoting the game-playing prowess of ever more powerful computers. And Microsoft has inaugurated a program aimed at making PC gaming more attractive, incorporating console-like features and easier online play.

The article mentions many factors: PCs are ubiquitous, consoles are expensive, RPGs are increasingly popular, and PC games are typically cheaper.

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Virtual instructors workshop, Georgetown 21-22 May 2007

If you are interested in applications of game and simulation technology to training, you might check out the IEEE Virtual Instructor Pilot Research Group (VIPRG), a voluntary international research group sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Learning Technology. VIPRG facilitates multidisciplinary research for pedagogically effective and culturally competent virtual instructors that deliver measurably effective instruction anytime, anywhere, and for any pace. The First Annual First Annual VIPRG Workshop will be held on the Georgetown campus in Washington, DC on May 21-22, 2007 (registration form).

Here’s how the group describes its goals and approach.

By 2010, it has been predicted that virtual humans will pass the Turing Test. In these predictions, people will not mistake virtual humans for real ones, but will interact naturally with them as information assistants, virtual coaches, virtual sales clerks, virtual teachers, entertainers, and virtual instructors. Perhaps, one of the most important applications of virtual human technology will be in the teaching domain. Before this vision can be realized, it will be important for the leading researchers in advanced learning technologies to understand the challenges involved with creating virtual instructors. These challenges intersect the areas of cognitive human behavior, learning technology, information technology, and software engineering. Ultimately, a universal architecture that extends the current state-of-the-art in learning technology must be created to facilitate the design, development, and deployment of virtual instructors across various domains. As a result, the Virtual Instructors Pilot Research Group (VIPRG), an organization underlying the IEEE Technical Committee on Learning Technology, was formed to continually investigate the science, technology and engineering requirements for developing pedagogically effective virtual instructors.

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IGDA DC chapter to meet 4/27 at EA/Mythic

The DC & Vicinity Chapter of the International Game Developer’s Association (IDGA) will hold its next meeting from 700-9:00pm on Friday, April 27th at EA/Mythic Entertainment in Fairfax, VA. For more information, see the announcement in the IGDA DC forum.

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How do I become a special effects expert?

The George Washington University’ is hosting a talk and discussion by Academy Award nominee and visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer on the topic How do I become a special effects expert?. Westenhofer holds a BS in computer engineering from Bucknell University and received a MS in computer science from GW in 1995.

Bill Westenhofer, visual effects supervisor and Academy Award nominee, will discuss what it’s like to supervise hundreds of digital artists in creating special effects for major film productions. In his work on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Westenhofer was responsible for overseeing nearly 400 digital artists and was one of four individuals nominated for an Academy Award for Achievement in Visual Effects in 2005. Westenhofer’s other credits include Elf, The Rundown, Men in Black 2, Cats and Dogs, and Babe: Pig in the City, which also was a British Academy of Film and Television Arts nominee.

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Adding AI to games

The Guardian has an article, The hard-thought race for intelligent gaming, on efforts to add AI techniques to games to make them more interesting.

“Gaming has a lot in common with everyone’s favorite heiress, at least in the public consciousness: it’s pretty, but dumb. And now that Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have released their latest games consoles, that statement becomes all the more pertinent - next-gen games look great, but they play like something that could have been made a decade ago. While visual fidelity has advanced exponentially over time, the technology that governs how games play, react and adapt - the artificial intelligence, or AI - remains relatively rudimentary.”

The article talks about Creatures, a series of artificial life simulation games developed in the 90sthat used various kinds of machine learning and Fable 2, an upcoming video game for the Xbox 360.

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Baltimore IGDA chapter meets 6pm Thr April 19 2007

Baltimore has an active local chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IDGA). The IDGS describes itself as

“The IGDA is a non-profit professional society that is committed to advancing the careers and enhancing the lives of game developers by connecting members with their peers, promoting professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the developer community.”

and now has over 12,000 member.

The Baltimore Chapter of IGDA is focused on “strengthening professional game development in the Baltimore area” through four specific goals:

• Fostering a sense of community among working game developers
• Keeping talent in the Baltimore area
• Attracting talent to the Baltimore area
• Showcasing the fact that Baltimore has a thriving professional game development community

Their next meeting is tonight starting at 6:00pmat the Treehouse Restaurant and Lounge in Cockeysville. The Baltimore IDGA meetings are “open to all who want to attend, regardless of IGDA affiliation”. If you are serious about a career in the game industry, you should check it out and consider joining.

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Big Huge Gamers at UMBC, 4pm Wed 18 April

Mike LaGrand and and Bryant Freitag of Big Huge Games will talk about their work and company at the weekly meeting of the Vangogh Lab at 4:00pm Wednesday April 18 in the CSEE conference room in ITE 325b. All students interested in game development, animation and interactive media are welcome to attend.

Big Huge Games is a computer game developer located in Timonium, Maryland. The company was founded in 2000 by four veteran game industry developers who wanted to apply the complexity and concepts of the turn-based strategy genre to the real-time strategy genre. The company currently has about 75 employees and publishes its games with Microsoft.

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