Dmitriy Iassenev Talks A-Life, Emergent AI and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
By Shawn on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 10:46 PM PST In Game Companies, Game Platforms, Games, Games Industry
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is an amalgamation of FPS, RPG and survival horror that features a massive world populated by characters that live their lives both on and off camera. Dmitriy Iassenev, lead programmer at GSC Game World, talked with AiGameDev.com about A-life and emergent AI in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.
A-life is a system used to create a living world where characters live their own lives and exist all the time, not only when the player is interacting with them. Iassenev explains that the A-life used in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a simplified version:
“The A-life system follows the player’s movements, and switches the characters to online/offline as necessary.”
The A-life system is used to create faction bases, stalkers by campfires, and similar features that give S.T.A.L.K.E.R. a more realistic feel. More traditional “scripting” is used along with the system for characters that are involved in key points of the storyline.
Whether you have an interest in getting into the games industry or just want to know how the developers do it, this is a great article on AI in videogames.
via AiGameDev.com
Sweet. The AI and A-life system are some of the best parts of STALKER
http://stalker.filefront.com/news/Dmitriy_Iassenev_Interview_ALife_Emergent_AI_and_STALKER;37491
Complete with Gaming Today plug
xkdlJLCL
except for when they run into walls for 10 minutes or stand there with blank looks as you stab them
MEH. i can run any dx9 game on high to max (sans AA) and i can run FEAR on max (still used for benchmarking even brand new cards) yet this old game gives me less than 5 FPS in outdoor levels. so mad i wasted 20 bucks on it. i mean i know it’s supposed to be a good game, but this is the very first time in my 7 years of PC gaming that i have not been able to play a new game past the very opening scene. i always found a way to tweak here and there to achieve a decent framerate. guess the game just hates my system. maybe my new laptop will run it…
@matheus: Indeed matheus. Indeed…
Hey Mooshimooshi,
When I first bought S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: SoC I couldn’t play it either and it annoyed the hell out of me, but then I added a GB of RAM to my PC and it has worked seamlessly ever since. No tweaking needed. So what I am saying is that maybe you are running into a RAM issue on your PC..?
I can play STALKER maxed @ 1280×1024 (with shapertextures/SWOH mods) averaging about 50-75 fps
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz
2gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2800
BFG 8800GT OC 512mb
Not sure what your system is like though. It ran fine on my old one also, that was AthlonXP 3700, 2gb OCZ DDR, 7950GT 256mb.
i can run it at about 20-40fps @ 1680×1050 no mods and maxed
p4 3ghz
2gb ram
bfg 8800gt oce2 512
and i could run near max at 1280×1024 when i had the 7600 in the same system. so… best bet is buy a better gpu
it’s a RAM issue with me. it’s a powerful workhorse of a PC, but one that was built in ‘03 which means it’s capped at 1GB. i’ve been able to slide with 1GB for a while. i guess now it’s just impossible lol.
computers, man. one of my first computers had a hard drive that was like 5GB. back then that was a LOT