javiert

I know I could somehow tap in the middle and do some hacks here and there. Actually, that's what I think the guys developing Pogamut (https://artemis.ms.mff.cuni.cz/pogamut/tiki-index.php) are doing. But I'd rather make my bots connect directly to the server instead of passing through several TCP pipes and processes if it's possible. As I said, it's mor than enough for me to be able to connect to a server and move through the map. The issue I see with the SDK is that the control here lies in the SDK itself. That is, if the SDK were a client library I could use to connect to the game, load the map, etc, that would be a very different story. But right now the SDK runs your code. I'll look into the client-side SDK anyway, it will surely save me some time when Doom3 goes open source. BTW, just for flattering puposes, The Dark Mod was my main reason for buying Doom3

I'm afraid getting a real semantics module (not just the 2.0 crap) would be a real deal of work. Specially if you expect the system to learn new semantics My personal Holy Grail is making an agent talk and think about its own intentions.... and lie about them, theory-of-mind-y style. I'd rather get Mirror's Edge (or Tomb Raider!!!) moves now, and much later on think about making the taffer talk

That's the point. It's mainly an academic exercise. Maybe my previous post makes things clearer. If Doom3 were open source in, say, May, it would be perfectly fine for me, since I don't expect the server and network code to change that much. But I'm the pessimistic kind of guy that thinks that Open Source Doom3 will celebrate the New Year... I drool for Mirror's Edge moves in Thief. I weep like a child when the occasional small fence in Oblivion prevents me from jumping over it when it touches my *ankles*....... Anyway, XReal does seem like a fine middle ground until Doom3 finally goes out.

I'll try to explain the whole chain of events Some months ago I co-mentored a master's thesis on AI in games for a CS master student and friend of mine, together with a university professor. The issue was trying to create an AI that could play something similar to Thief, not as a guard, but as the taffer himself One of the problems was what game to use. The AI for RTS community have ORTS, which I don't know how good it is, but at least you can tinker with it. We couldn't find something usable out of the box, so half of the time was spent by the poor girl creating a makshift game engine in erlang (a very nice game for a game engine, I have to say). It would have to include the usual navigation (in old D&D-style square tiles), some rudimentary sensory system (sight and sound, with cool but simple algorithms for an object hierarchy following visual resolution [e.g. a 'rock' and a 'person' both look like 'big lumps' when looked from afar] including lighting and a simple model for sound propagation, taking doors into account) and the AI system. The "clients", whether human or artificial, connected via their own connections and played their "turns"; it was not too difficult to convert the turn gameplay into "realtime" gameplay later on. The AI system, in turn, has to make plans according to the initial goal ("go to room X, steal Y and go out without getting caught"), and includes a memory system to re-check features (like objects) seen during the trip in case further planning requires those features. All in all, quite cool But, it does *not* sem so cool on a sprite-based square tile Java window. So I thought that if I could manage the Dark Mod to run on an open source engine, one could eventually include the cool AI system in a standalone client that does not depend on the server. The open source engine, as I've mentioned before, allows further experimentation like, say, a distributed server or automatically deriving the game code from some formal specification. But I'd be glad just to connect an AI client to an open source engine running the Dark Mod for a start.

Pay me 3 months and it will surely take 3 months XD Now seriously, my first task is to isolate a library for the erlang and java VMs that can connect to an OpenArena/XReal server and at least use some functions from the AAS module to create the zones from the BSP tree. That should only be an issue of cutting code out her and there from the client. But it took me some time to find my way around the code...

And the Lua support is a plus! Isn't there also an exprimental development for replacing the QVM with a Java VM?

Now that's a couple of reasons Ok, ok, I'll get the XReal code and give it a try! Thanks!

@Serpentine: I know the mod is a direct port, and I'd have to redo a lot of things as they are changed. But at least it's a complete FP stealth game to which AI can be hooked The model part is definitely a point. I don't mind having robots chasing Chinese girls using the OpenArena models (although this strays a bit further from the Thief game), but having animations for physical moves would be a great plus. More about Xreal below... @New Horizon: I know about XReal. Some "extreme" comments about its prformance from around the net and the fact that the project is no longer available did move this choice a couple of steps backward in my mind. And the lack of a player base. As I said, the graphical part is not so important, but I agree that any modification for a quake3 derived engine will be easier to fit into the Doom3 engine when it is "freed" I think I'll try then ioq3 and try to set up a XReal test env at the same time. I'll evaluate Nexuiz just in case; sincerely, I don't think the network and server concepts have changed so much from the original quake, but I'll heed your advice and keep DarkPlaces only as a backup plan. Thanks a lot to everyone!

I'd rather not wait until the end of the year My impression is that changes in the engine will be done mainly in the graphics end. I wouldn't expect a comms API for bot clients on separate processes, or a high level language AI module, or a distributed game state engine (to allow multiple threads and servers) in the Doom3 engine, so I'll have to build them myself. I don't mind if the final look is not as polished as one would have on the Doom3 engine, but I need to be able to tweak these things right now

Hi, For research purposes, I'd be interested in porting the Dark Mod to an open source engine (mainly because one can then plug in high-level language environments like Java or erlang on which to quickly test new AI). The game engine itself should be no problem, I guess, but I'd like to know if there's any reason (lack of dynamic lighting, for example) for avoiding one. My initial choices are ioquake3 and DarkPlaces. Does this sound remotely feasible? Thanks a lot!!! Javier