AI and Game Programming Unreal Tournament Project

Introduction UT is a FPS The competition Domination mode Domination points Teams of 3 bots First team to 100 points wins

Getting Started Installation: UT standalone server GameBots ActiveTcl TclViz JBuilder Foundation Javabots JRE v1.5.0_05 Misc.

Running an Experiment 1. Start the server 2. Start the vis. tool 3. Start Javabot

Creating a Bot Copy your BotTemplate.java to the directory: C:/…/jbproject/javabot/src/edu/lu Change the file name to.java Start JBuilder Foundation Open the Javabot project (javabot.ipx) Select the package edu.lu If.java does not appear, refresh the project Edit the template Rebuild the project

UT Basics All units are absolute UT units – no bearing to real world units Bot’s collision cylinder: 39 units tall with a radius of 17 units Full rotation: Radians: (UT_Rotation_Amt / 65535) * 2π Locations and Orientations x,y,z pitch, yaw, roll up and down, side to side, cartwheel

Server Messages Format: MSG_TYP {ATTRIB_TYP ATTRIB_VAL} {…} Ex. DOM {Id 1} {Location 23,43,13} {Controller 1} Attribute values returned as strings 2 Types of Messages Synchronous Asynchronous

Server Messages cont. Synchronous Messages: Sent in batches at regular intervals First message is type BEG, last is type END Constitute one atomic game state Ex. Visual updates, bot status reports Asynchronous Messages: Single messages, generated as events occur Cannot arrive during sync. message block Ex. Took damage, picked up a weapon

Client Commands Use same format as server messages Commands have persistent effects Ex. Start shooting, keep shooting until a stop shooting command is sent

Programming 2 Tasks, 2 Threads Message handling FSM Message Handling – two functions receivedSyncMessage() receivedAsyncMessage() FSM – one function runner.run()

Programming cont. Multithreaded: One thread handles messages One thread handles the FSM (runner) May need to use semaphores (synchronized) to avoid race conditions and such protected Object stateLock = new Object(); someMethod() { … synchronized (stateLock) { // shared variable manipulation }

Programming cont. Handling messages: Message m; String type, value; type = m.getType(); switch(type) {…} value = m.getProperty(PROP_ID);

Programming cont. Most commands can be sent with existing function calls (ie. runTo(x,y,z) Manually sending commands: Properties props; props.setProperty(ATTRIB_TYP,ATTRIB_VAL); client.sendMessage(MSG_TYP, props);

Random helpful info. edu.isi.gamebots.client.GamebotConstants, contains definitions of all the constants for MSG_TYP, and ATTRIB_TYP Use log() to print to the Javabot text area Note: change enableLog to false before submitting your final bot (or manually delete all your log() calls)

Server Adminstration You can set server settings and monitor your server through a web browser. After starting the server open a browser and connect to: :8888/Administer Username: Admin Password: Admin

Random helpful info. Sync. message blocks contain DOM messages Contain the coordinates of a domination pt. Tells who controls the domination pt. Use getPath(x,y,z) to get directions to a DOM pt. IMPORTANT: must tell the javabot client about your bot! Open edu.isi.gamebots.client.BotRunnerApp Locate the knownBots data structure Add the full name of your bot to the array