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Agitating for Dramatic Change Drama-O-Rama The following ideas and information are meant to work towards the idea of creating a drama engine, which includes dramatic rules, synthespians (special purpose semi-autonomous agents) and a bare stage. The bare stage would be the equivalent of a level editor, but the system also includes an interface that is designed to easily and intuitively input the basic tools of drama by a non-programmer: narrative elements, major and minor conflicting goals for the protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) and their allies, and a three-act structure. The goal is the facilitation of interactive dramatic works, where the experiencer is immersed in a drama (action/adventure, mystery, thriller, sci-fi, whatever) with seemingly aware and intelligent NPCs. The dramatist/storyteller/director creates a world ripe with atmosphere, populated by intelligent actors, and supplies a dramatic goal/challenge for the experiencer and experiencer's allies, and counter-goals for the antagonist, and antagonist allies. What happens within this dramatic context is unpredictable. In other words, the dramatist creates the dramatic potential, but the drama/story evolves in an unpredictable way based on the actions of the experiencer and the intelligent NPCs in a simulated living world.
The final result (finished dramaworld) is stripped of the dramatist's interfaces and is fitted with an end-user interface. The finished drama world becomes a sim for the experiencer, which can be copied and sold. Character auto-routines for simple behavior as expressed through facial expression and body language would be pre-defined, standardized, and "clickable" code generation for apparent emotional response to pre-defined stimuli, which is embedded in the environment and other characters. Reverse parsing and synthetic speech is assumed. Character emotional response generates code that is automatically embedded in text, to be parsed by a synthetic speech system. The embedded code triggers an emotional rendering of the synthetic speech. Haptek's Virtual Friend software already includes these abilities, although it is up to the user to manually create scripts with the embedded codes for the emotional coloring of speech (and for character movement, costume changes, morphing, etc.). In the system I see, the macro management of the drama engine takes over the script writing for the characters, based on rules input by the human dramatist. Some producers are beginning to experiment with the basics of what I'm talking about. For example, in Black & White your creature can be trained to interact with the objects and inhabitants of the game world through your Pavlovian tutelage. In Microsoft's game Halo, NPCs have knowledge about the "state of the world" as they've perceived it (memories of enemy sightings, weapon locations); an emotion system that changes based on events (growing more fearful during enemy onslaughts); and a decision-making system that consults the other three systems to decide whether to attack, run for cover, or initiate another behavior. John Laird and his colleagues have launched a research project at the University of Michigan to explore the possibilities of social interaction: an Unreal Tournament mod called Haunt 2, in which the player controls a ghost in a house inhabited by NPC "humans." Unable to handle most physical objects directly, the ghost must, in Laird's words, "entice, cajole, threaten, or frighten the AI characters into manipulating the objects in the world." The subtleties of Laird's social interactions are not yet commonplace in today's game AI, which still largely revolves around creating better military bots and training them to hunt down enemies in more believable ways, but the subtleties of social interactions is what we must go for in interactive drama. We need to go further. I look towards new tools such as AI.implant, DirectIA, and Stottler Henke's SimBionic, as discussed in Eric Dybsand's five-part series. Each of these products adds to a toolset, but the toolset must work within the context of a drama manager, and more tools are needed.
The specialized modules of Halo's artificial brains (see "Wild Things: They fight. They flock. They have free will. Get ready for game bots with a mind of their own" By Steven Johnson) mirror what we now understand about the human mind's architecture. Instead of a single general intelligence, the brain is more like a Swiss army knife of task-specific tools -- face recognizers, syntax decoders, memory subsystems -- that collectively create our varied and adaptable intelligence. What if we could take advantage of progress in these areas? The NPCs I envision should be sophisticated artificial intelligence bots -- their decisionmaking guided by complex neural nets and simulated emotions, their perceptual systems honed to detect subtle changes in their environment -- real-time perceptions about the world around them (aural, visual, and tactile). There should be nuanced natural language routines, perhaps Webcam gesture recognition, and machine learning. NPC's should be able to communicate among themselves, share new ideas and collaborate on group tasks. We're looking for managed, yet unscripted, emergent behavior, as always - based on the principles of drama. Proposed "Drama-O-Rama" Systems The following features would plug into something like current level editor software packages, which includes 3D environment creation, but would add the ability to introduce and tune the behavior of NPCs." Motivation Module Synthespians form goals and act as a result of wants and/or needs. Wants and needs are activated by timers or level detectors. Here are some examples of human wants and needs: hunger, curiosity, sleep, and acknowledgement. There are many more, of course. After a specific period of time, or at a specific level, a query is activated by a synthespian. The query is a request to retrieve relevant data in a memory system. Retrieved data is the basis for an action to be taken in an effort to maintain want and need levels, which are specific to each NPC.
Will Wright and his team for The Sims came up with a happiness landscape, borrowing from evolutionary theory's concept of a fitness landscape, in which organisms climb ever-higher peaks of adaptive fitness as natural selection runs its course. Rather than traversing a genetic landscape of fitness, you're traversing a spatial landscape of happiness, but it could also be a "wellness" landscape, or a "learning" landscape, or a "drama" landscape -- or a combination. This module would have an input for drama/story wants and needs specific to each major NPC character. In this way, the synthespians can act autonomously, as in a sim, but also are guided by the invisible hand of the dramatist. Memory System Module What
if NPC memory could work like human brains, in that linear, intellectual
data is stored in one part of a relational database, while pattern
recognition data (visual similarity, symbolic association,
association by opposite, association by color, and
association by theme, etc.) could be stored in the other
side? What if these two sides of the database were relational? What if this relational database was the center of a chatterbot like A. L. I. C. E. (http://alicebot.org). What if each NPC could be a chatterbot? This module would have an input interface to receive drama/story-inspired answers to synthespian wants and needs queries. Between the above module and this one, the dramatist is able to supply drama/story-inspired wants and needs, and also drama/story-inspired ways to solve those wants and needs in story-important synthespians. This module feeds into a Course of Action Module. Course of Action Module Though main characters would first act on the dramatist's main goals, synthespians would be able to form subservient goals as a result of their own wants and needs, and would have their own unique abilities to go about satisfying their wants and needs based on a course of action. In
order to accomplish these, the NPC would choose from potential physical
actions, or compose a statement/ question to be fed to the natural
language module. The physical action could be anything from a facial
expression of emotion, body language, or complex physical activities
such as travel, interaction with the environment or another NPC,
etc. Expert System Aural, visual, and tactile data is fed into the memory system, but also into an "expert system" module. For details of expert systems, see below, under Parts and Pieces. Living World Module The persistent dramaworld should be programmable through an easy interface so that environments can be imbedded with dramatic potential. The dramatist may wish to input data such as dynamic weather, geophysical, and atmospheric conditions, which can be triggered by proximity or by dramatic act (three-act dramatic structure). This is where the dramatist/storyteller inserts sets and props. This is like a level editor enhanced with inputs for actionable dramatic potential. Synthespian Evaluation Module Were needs and wants satisfied? If "yes" go back to an "unmet goals temporary database" or the Motivation Module. If "no" go back to data memory module for a new data search, followed by a new course of action, or try again if another course of action isn't found. This would be a continuous loop, until something intercedes - something like a more important drama/story-inspired action, the emergence of a greater need, the incapacitation of the synthespian, etc. Output Modules Real-time 3D animation execution. Real-time text or speech execution. Real-time music synthesis. Parts and Pieces Here are only some of the AI systems I've run across that may have the potential to be adapted for use in interactive-drama worlds.
Conclusion I'm saying four things.
Large
corporations have bought up smaller game companies. The tried and
true gaming genres have become dogma, even though the interactive
entertainment industry is just a child compared to TV, which is
a child compared to film, which is a child compared to thousands
of years of dramatic evolution in theatre and storytelling. But
large corporations are good at making money and loath to take a
risk. This puts the brakes on the evolution of interactive entertainment
- for now. It will take a brave company to break new ground. ______________________________________________________ |
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