Game developers on academic research

In the past month, I’ve had the pleasure of attending two conferences bringing together academics and the games industry. The first was I3D, the Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games, sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH. The second was GSCSE, or Game Development in Computer Science Education. GDCSE was formerly the Microsoft Academic Days in Gaming Conference, but this year’s was co-sponsored by EA and held in cooperation with ACM SIGCSE. One of the most interesting things to come out of both was the perspectives of games industry veterans on the roles of university research in the games industry. Here are a few of my notes, from most researchy (I3D) to most industry focused (GDCSE).
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Brain-Computer interface for Second Life

Researchers at the Tomita and Ushida Laboratory of Keio University in Japan have developed a brain-computer interface that allows a person to control a Second Life avatar just by thinking.

“The system consists of a headpiece equipped with electrodes that monitor activity in three areas of the motor cortex (the region of the brain involved in controlling the movement of the arms and legs). An EEG machine reads and graphs the data and relays it to the BCI, where a brain wave analysis algorithm interprets the user’s imagined movements. A keyboard emulator then converts this data into a signal and relays it to Second Life, causing the on-screen avatar to move. In this way, the user can exercise real-time control over the avatar in the 3D virtual world without moving a muscle.” (link)

The range of functions supported is still limited, but are planning to support more complex movements and geatures.

The motivation is not to make your couch potato’s life even easier, but to develop the technology to “help people with serious physical impairments communicate and do business in Second Life.”

Here’s a video demonstrating mind control of a Second Life avatar.

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Eurographics announces Game Physics Innovation Competition

Eurographics, the European association for computer graphics, announced a competition for the most innovative use of physics in games. Any individual or group can enter, as long as the entry is not part of a shipping game. Entries are due August 24th, 2007. Grand prize is 1500 Euros to the entry judged to exhibit the best combination of innovation and technical achievement. Details at isg.cs.tcd.ie/eg07.

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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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