1. Entertaining AI: Using Rules from Improvisational Acting to Create Unscripted Emotional Impact Brenda Bakker Harger & Team Entertainment Technology Center Carnegie Mellon University

2. “I Own This Place” Live!

3. Entertaining AI: Using Rules from Improvisational Acting to Create Unscripted Emotional Impact Brenda Bakker Harger & Team Entertainment Technology Center Carnegie Mellon University

4. Improvisational Acting Status

5. High Status

6. Low Status

7. How does this relate to game design?

8. NPCs in games today…

9. Fellow Passengers Half-Life 2

10. Helpful Civilians Half-Life 2

11. Gang Members GTA San Andreas

12. Fable Frightened Villagers

13. The Sims 2 Sims

14. Sims

15. Current state of development Better drama or lower cost?Better drama or lower cost?

16. The “Uncanny Valley” The Polar Express

17. Why should we care? BelievabilityBelievability ImmersionImmersion Expectation of appropriate behaviorExpectation of appropriate behavior

18. Moments of truth An empathic moment with a character that we take for granted will happen in other art forms.

19. Our Approach: Improvisation More specifically, status.

20. Improv Acting Games Real-time, on-the-flyReal-time, on-the-fly Interactive, unscriptedInteractive, unscripted Shared authorshipShared authorship Follow rulesFollow rules

21. CROW CharacterCharacter RelationshipRelationship ObjectiveObjective WhereWhere

22. CROW CharacterCharacter STATUSSTATUS RelationshipRelationship ObjectiveObjective WhereWhere

23. Status Numeric representation –Quantifiable –Programmable

24. “I Own This Place” Demo real-time interactive demo made in Panda3D engine

25. Features in demo Simple reaction systemSimple reaction system Animation blendingAnimation blending Assigning value to the stage spaceAssigning value to the stage space Hand animationsHand animations Generated animationsGenerated animations

26. Applications of status Think of a game today + statusThink of a game today + status Dramatic impactDramatic impact New layer of depthNew layer of depth

27. Status-driven gameplay Possible game mechanics: –Observing status in NPCs –Knowing who to approach –Finding allies, ‘assets’, friends –Playing status to achieve a goal

28. Next steps Change in status within a scene.Change in status within a scene. –How does this affect a story –Deeper characterization –Status is always relative. Reworking existing scenes in games with status to see how they might play differently.Reworking existing scenes in games with status to see how they might play differently.

29. The Future We want : Feedback from audienceFeedback from audience An industry partnerAn industry partner –Individuals –Development teams www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/improv

30. Entertainment Technology Center Carnegie Mellon University Brenda Bakker Harger Chris Klug Current project team:Prior research by: Will Houng Dave Jimison Vivek JawaShalin Shodhan Melanie LamBen Smith Fang-Wei LeeTom Smith Eben MyersShanna Tellerman Josh Taylor Greg Wieder Josh Wilson www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/improv

31. “I Own This Place” demo “I Own This Place” demo Art & Animation Will Houng Fang-Wei Lee Greg Wieder www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/improv Engineering Josh Taylor Josh Wilson Melanie Lam, Producer Vivek Jawa, Technical Producer Advisors Brenda Bakker Harger Chris Klug