WorkSheet 2

1. Formulate a research question for your project. Details on the research question can be found in presentation 1 in the module folder.

Is it viable, on current technology to have cognitively modeled, self animating Non Player Characters (NPC's) on a mass scale within a game situation and what is the best method to achieve this taking into account, accuracy of the NPC's actions and the number of NPC's the environment is capable of supporting.

2. When developing a research question you must produce a question that can be answered by performing literature research, practical experimentation and critical analysis. The question should also focus the activities of your project.
a) What is the focus of your project?

The focus of the project is to find the best method of creating self animating, cognitively modeled non player characters for a situation where NPC's are needed on a mass scale within a game situation.

b) What information do you need to find out about?

The different methods of creating the system the NPC will use to animate itself based on the knowledge it gains and the directives it holds. These may include plan trees and a plan library, the use of situation calculus or perhaps the use of a scripting language to tell the NPC how to act.

c) What Experimental work do you need to perform?

I will need to create a basic 3D game engine as an environment for the NPC's. For it to be a realistic interpretation of a game, collision detection, accurate lighting, multiple environmental models and the like will need to be included in this. Once this has been completed I will create the systems which will animate the NPC's. These will integrated into the game engine and NPC's will be added until the frame rate drops below an acceptable level. The number of NPC's the environment can hold will be the initial bases for my results (the more NPC's that can be contained in the environment, the better) and the secondary criteria of the accuracy of the NPC's actions will be tested after this.


3. How will the information that you obtain in 2 allow you to answer the research question?

Once the different methods of cognitively modeling the NPC's have been found it should be fairly simple to integrate them into the game situation. The more information I can find about these methods, theoretically the easier it will be to determine the best method for answering the research question.