Sounds very interesting, especially since AI is what got me interested in programming (and later game-programming) in the first place. Are you working on any particular project, or is it research in general?

Sure, Im off to Portugal now and then, but its not very often. Last time was about 3 years ago. And I usually go to Lisbon, since that is where my dad lives. Its a beautiful city, but I kind of like Algarve more Wish I knew better Portuguese, though, but since Im fluent in Spanish that usually isnt a problem.

I dont know where I heard that Portugal was pretty prominent in the field of AI (when compared to other european countries)...wish I could remember.

Btw, could you tell me you opinion on the Game Institute? Im considering taking some course during summer, but Im just not sure.

----PATRIOTISM----
“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done.
And I am Caesar.”
— Julius Caesar

"I am enormously proud to be an American. I would say that the things that our corporate-controlled government has done at best are shameful and at worst genocidal-but there''s an incredible and a permanent culture of resistance in this country that I''m very proud to be a part of."
- Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine

Well, my AI revolves more around artificial life and creating neural networks with more internal rules, that can grow and shrink, like axons and neurons that die if they dont have any impact on the net, or places where more neurons flourish, because there is a lot of nervous energy passing thru that junction. I''m also developing my fuzzy logic skills. Of course i know my share of game AI, that is, real-time artificial intelligence.

Game Institute? I love them. My first course there, which i''m about to complete in 2 weeks, was a 12 week-course on Binary Space Partioning Trees and Possible Visibility Sets.

Recently I joined another course, OpenGL, which will greatly complement the OpenGL engine I''m building, and they''ll throw more technical stuff at me, stuff that usually doesn''t end up here in the forums.

You also have email and mIRC, so you can have long talks and take out all your doubts about a particular question, issue.

Also, BSP trees being complex as they are, I almost got the hole concept on the first lesson! The slides and the audio-voice over of their lessons really takes into the subject being discussed. Its quite good, IMHO.

If you ever sign in on one of their courses, drop me a line. Maybe we end up being class mates, ehhehe They''re opening up a new DX9 course real soon, the end of this month I think, wich I''ll also take.

You should try a cold vacation one of these days, and go up north, to Serra da Estrela. You''ll have a ball! ;P

[Hugo Ferreira][Positronic Dreams]
I Am Digerati.

quote: Original post by dopeflow
yea, counterstrike is ONLY the most popular online game right now and has been for like 2 years.

It may be popular, but then look at the average CS server... if you play half decently, you either:

1) get accused of cheating
2) get banned for cheating
3) get abused

The CS community seems to be mostly filled with immature youngsters using their parents computers. Personally (and Im sure that many people would agree) that the HL2 scene would be better off without them.

Pull off a decent round in CS and you get accused/abused/banned... pull off a decent round in War3/Q3/most any other game and you get complimented in most cases.

-----------------------
"When I have a problem on an Nvidia, I assume that it is my fault. With anyone else''s drivers, I assume it is their fault" - John Carmack

Pentium3id

I am most impressed with your AI skills. Well from what you say of your AI skills. I''m currently working on a board game brought to PC (think complex chess) and while we''re quite far away from needing AI it is a concern for future as none of us have much ai experience. The only ai I''ve ever done is small scripts for my baldur''s gate characters. If you would have any suggestions on where to begin, please let me know.

Mmmm fuzzy logic. It blows my mind

Anyway. I''d have to agree with Maximus to an extent on the CS crowd. I always found it frustrating trying to play. Half the time my team is blown away because we''re trying to be somewhat covert and some jerknut decides to start jumping up and down blasting his gun at everything that moves. That combined with the constant flames and "pwned!"''s that seem to flow from the woodwork... just kinda turns me off of CS. HL2 looks like a beauty and I kinda hope we some something new and innovative and let CS die.

Well, you''ll have to look up articles on solutions to those types of problems, like a mini-max tree, etc...
If you want to add complexity to it, make its parameters dinamic, so that youcan run a genetic algorithm on top of it, and generate opponents that face each other, until after enough simulation, you have a very good computer opponent to beat.
With this approach you can "save" "personalities", you can save gene-strings, and load them up later on, with a gene-string of average capabilities for a human player that alreadu knows the game rules and wants something more powerfull than the "very easy" setting...

Unfortunately, I don''t know much about this kind of A.I., and I''m really short on time, between my multi-api 3d Engine, robotics and messing with the HL Engine.
My kind of approach to AI is more of controled, but dinamic environments, like artificial life, as i said. I''m now working on "emergent intelligence", like, why is the "society" of ants so inteligent in its group form, but so "dumb" in its individuals...

This also has applications later on with Quantum Computing, but I don''t think I''ll be working with a QC any time soon, lol

Hope I helped, cya,

[Hugo Ferreira][Positronic Dreams]
I Am Digerati.

quote: Original post by Maximus
The CS community seems to be mostly filled with immature youngsters using their parents computers. Personally (and Im sure that many people would agree) that the HL2 scene would be better off without them.

I think you probably get a similar percentage of "immature youngsters" on other games, you'll just see more on CS because it is so damn popular.

quote: Original post by dopeflow
man, I bet the people at valve are so f***ing pissed at that mod.

I doubt it, that mod was one of the main reasons many people bought half-life (and still are buying it), it will have made them a crap load of cash.

I can't wait for CS to come out on HL2, it will be great (if done by the same people as before)



____________________________________
So long and thanks for all the fish
Team lead for LocoLAN, a scottish LAN party


[edited by - Goldsacs on June 11, 2003 4:58:08 AM]

Hugo:

Yes, emergent behaviour is awesome. It brings a new light to the concept of "free will" and "self-consciousness".

All creatures consists of various levels of components - roughtly, from the lowest; particles -> athoms -> molecules -> cells -> organs -> individual - and the behaviour of all the components in these different levels depend on increasingly more complex rules that are built on top of the rules in the previous levels.

Kind''a like programminglanguages, with 0/1 -> assembly -> C++ -> OpenGL.

So, since our so called "free-will" is only an abstraction of fundamental natural laws that our most minute particles are ruled by, it makes me wonder at what point "self-consciousness" is spawned. Or is it something that can exist on a number of levels, ie. are even cells self-aware to a certain point? And what about levels beyond the entire individual (like a human being), ie. diferent levels of societey; family -> city -> country -> world?

Well, if even higher levels of self-consciousness were to exist as a result of our joint behaviours, then I guess we would be talking about a God of some sort, hehe. Anyway, even if higher levels of consciousness are not self-aware, they surely exists as emergent behaviour.

Perhaps it would be a cool thing to look at the behaviour of the stock-market from an "emergent behaviour"-point of view. Since I got a thesis to do before I get my masters in international finance (yes, boring, and not much to do with computer-science), this could be a subject to write about.

Another idea is doing it about AI in stockprice-prediction, using neural networks (and even fuzzy logic) to determine patterns in stockprices, and using genetic algorithms to generate the best buy/sell strategies. If you have any suggestions, Id be happy to hear

Anyway, thanks for the input on Gameinstitute. I think Ill sign up for a course this summer. Havent decided which one yet, though, but Ill be sure to drop you a line to see if we will be classmates, hehe.

Holy crap, I checked out some pictures of Serra da Estrela, and it is awesome! Ill be sure to check it out on one of my trips to Portugal.

----PATRIOTISM----
“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done.
And I am Caesar.”
— Julius Caesar

"I am enormously proud to be an American. I would say that the things that our corporate-controlled government has done at best are shameful and at worst genocidal-but there''s an incredible and a permanent culture of resistance in this country that I''m very proud to be a part of."
- Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine

Btw, did you find a mod yet?

not yet, im looking slowly and wisely.
im working like a raging madman on my engine for the past
few days, i entered a "focus period", you know? a period
when you sit down to write some code, and it flows flawlessly
(almost at least). I''ve been in "the flow" for the last...
what?.... 6 days, which is awsome. I now understand the
stencial buffer much better. I also learned DLLs, and I already
have a plug-in system in the hoven, 98% working...

I love when I flow

Be sure to visit Serra da Estrela. Its awsome, and hotel
prices will drop this year im told!

[Hugo Ferreira][Positronic Dreams]
I Am Digerati.