Posted: 8/5/2009 2:29 AM
Post subject: Mario AI Competition
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flagitious
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http://julian.togelius.com/mariocompetition2009/ It is a competition where your program is given the level data, and your AI bot must beat the level. I haven't read in full detail about it yet, apologies if I have over summarized. This looks like such a perfect competition for this site and there is a top prize of 500 USD. Teams are allowed. I haven't decided if I will participate yet, but I feel I should post this now to allow maximal time for anyone here interested to work / organize a team.
g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}
Posted: 8/5/2009 5:33 AM
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DaTeL237
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thats very interesting but they dont provide enough time imo (last update aug 4, probably deadline mid-august)...
TASes: [URL=http://tasvideos.org/Movies-298up-Obs.html]Mr. Nutz (SNES), Young Merlin 100% (SNES), Animaniacs 100% (SNES)[/URL]
Posted: 8/5/2009 6:33 AM
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SilentSlayers
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This sounds really awesome. Are we going to be able to see the results? I'd love to see the levels played by the bot and such. A really interesting concept, and hopefully, a good result.
Posted: 8/5/2009 5:36 PM
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ZeXr0
Joined: 8/27/2006
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Yeah that would be nice to see that. I don't why people don't have a little interrest in this. There was something that started to organize but no one had participate...
Posted: 8/5/2009 8:40 PM
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creaothceann
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Almost like a TAS! ;)
Posted: 8/6/2009 6:51 AM
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Bisqwit
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creaothceann wrote:
Almost like a TAS! ;)
That is awesome. In my opinion, the most difficult thing about creating an AI like that is to accommodate for moving objects ― especially those moving an irregular or unexpected path like the marmots that appear from sand, or flying turtles changing their velocity mid flight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlkMs4ZHHr8&annotation_id=annotation_219942&feature=iv This one does a walljump! :o This competitor's project page: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rb1006/projects:marioai
Posted: 8/6/2009 7:55 AM
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Wockes
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Maybe in the future TASes will be made entirely by bots. With some randomization to increase the replay value
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Posted: 8/6/2009 8:33 AM
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DaTeL237
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Wow that's impressive! and realtime as well :) now I'm getting really interested what else comes up for that competition&conference :D also I'm curious how well it'd handle hopping over enemies when required (e.g. 'holes' that cannot be simply jumped over) but reading how it works it should work no problem (because in that case the ways to get to the right-hand side of the screen are very limited) edit: also, It'd be fun to see 'minimize amount of jumps' or 'minimize time on ground' added as the 3rd goal :D... but clearly it doesn't add to reaching the 1st and 2nd goal hmm I'm getting achy to trying now :P
TASes: [URL=http://tasvideos.org/Movies-298up-Obs.html]Mr. Nutz (SNES), Young Merlin 100% (SNES), Animaniacs 100% (SNES)[/URL]
Posted: 8/6/2009 12:29 PM
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OmnipotentEntity
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Bisqwit wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlkMs4ZHHr8&annotation_id=annotation_219942&feature=iv This one does a walljump! :o
"In this version of Mario, when you're jumping while sliding on a wall, you jump backwards and upwards away from it. That's what the AI did twice to get out of the hole." Feature usage, not bug exploit. :) I thought that too at first actually.
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Posted: 8/6/2009 4:57 PM
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ZeXr0
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It's not too bad, but I'd like to see this perform when you have to go up some platform, or something other than going only to the left.
Posted: 8/6/2009 5:18 PM
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DaTeL237
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yeah It'd fail bigtime (seeing as his evaluation is focussed on how far mario has gone to the right without dying)... so suggestions for resolving things like that are welcome :D
TASes: [URL=http://tasvideos.org/Movies-298up-Obs.html]Mr. Nutz (SNES), Young Merlin 100% (SNES), Animaniacs 100% (SNES)[/URL]
Posted: 8/6/2009 6:37 PM
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ZeXr0
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I hope we'll see the video of this competition, it will be very fun to see how well/poor some people have done :P
Posted: 8/6/2009 7:23 PM
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Zurreco
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That YouTube clip is amazing. Why does it sometimes seem like there are multiple paths for the fireball?
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Posted: 8/6/2009 7:35 PM
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MUGG
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This competition is getting increasingly interesting. Those videos were amazing! It's interesting to see a bot play levels like this. Only issue I see right now in the video is that Mario sometimes ends up bumping into obstacles he could have jumped across. What baffles me is that walljump feature the AI used in the pit. Is it like in Mario sunshine or in NSMB (not sure, I haven't played that game) where you can jump towards a wall, slide on it and jump at any time you want? I don't think this should have been implemented for the competition to make it more challenging for the contestants. I mean, if a bot navigates into a pit then death is the punishment. Or else you could program the bot to autofire A when reaching a certain Y coordinate, am I right? Unless I miss the point of the competition... I hope to see more soon.
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Posted: 8/6/2009 8:00 PM
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Zurreco
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It looks like/was described as if it acts like NSMB, where holding against the wall activates a sliding mechanism, which can then lead to a wall jump on command. Also, I think the levels that the AI will run are randomly generated, so you can't simply program a jump at certain coordinates. At least, I think that is what you are asking...
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Posted: 8/6/2009 8:13 PM
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MUGG
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I mean, in such situations you could program the bot to press A after it has gone close enough towards the bottom of the screen (and that happens only if it entered a pit unless that pit is so large that the AI doesn't get the chance to touch a wall). Maybe larger pits could make it more difficult for the contestants but as I said I think this walljump feature shouldn't exist for this competition to make it more demanding.
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Posted: 8/6/2009 11:13 PM
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P.JBoy
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What about longer term planning? For a game like Mario I guess it'd just be warps and mushrooms, but still should be taken into consideration
Posted: 8/10/2009 11:34 AM
(Edited: 8/14/2009 1:00 PM)
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DaTeL237
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I was trying a little bit of the same... but ran into trouble :P basically what an Agent gets is 'observation' information, which describes per tile what it contains... converting this back into usable data (such that the game can be simulated to predict anything) is both inaccurate and tedious so simulating anything (for instance to evaluate future states) is very annoying I'm really curious how (or, if) the author of that A* agent did this (I don't see how an A* algorithm could work without simulating the game tbh... if someone does inform me) edit: in the this movie can be seen how mario sticks to a spikey.... rather than staying out of the spikey's tile... so somehow his AI 'knows' more than just tile-by-tile information edit2: what I'm saying is that either the author didn't make an agents based on the provided Agent interface, or I'm missing a crucial point somewhere edit3: that was the case, but now the competition's code got changed making exact accuracy possible :)
TASes: [URL=http://tasvideos.org/Movies-298up-Obs.html]Mr. Nutz (SNES), Young Merlin 100% (SNES), Animaniacs 100% (SNES)[/URL]
Posted: 8/14/2009 11:48 AM
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TakaM
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This is awesome, I wonder if the tech nintendo patented (and will be using in New Super Mario Bros Wii) will be as competent as this.
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Posted: 8/14/2009 2:13 PM
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Raiscan
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TakaM wrote:
This is awesome, I wonder if the tech nintendo patented (and will be using in New Super Mario Bros Wii) will be as competent as this.
I was under the impression that for each level a human-recorded input set is used and is played back after the game puts the player/enemies/level layout identical to how it is in the recording. I guess it'll depend on the game..
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Posted: 8/14/2009 3:20 PM
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TakaM
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Well that tech has existed for a long time, and if that were the case they wouldn't need to patent it. I was under the impression you can hand the game over to the computer at any point, if that's true it will be interesting seeing if the computer can find it's way out of the death traps I'll be setting up.
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Posted: 8/19/2009 11:44 PM
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nesrocks
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I need to leave a message somewhere: those videos are incredible! I'm not sure how similar the AI is to something like in smash brothers for example, where the AI seems to be on that skill level, but for the competition they only have access to RAM addresses, right? Is that much different from how an in-game AI would work?
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Posted: 8/28/2009 3:23 PM
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creaothceann
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Results are in: http://julian.togelius.com/mariocompetition2009/ Comments: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9es5y/mario_ai_competition_results_are_in_pdf/ There should be source code of all entries as well, somewhere...
Posted: 8/28/2009 10:15 PM
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ZeXr0
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To bad there isn't any video about the completion of the run.