Παραγωγή συμπεριφοράς πρακτόρων με τη χρήση του μηχανισμού επιλογής ενέργειας POSH

Τυροβολά, Αικατερίνα Β.

Master Thesis

Author

Τυροβολά, Αικατερίνα Β.

Date

2012-06-08

Abstract

The purpose of this project is the development of an intelligent Virtual agent’s behavior using POSH action selection mechanism in the Unreal Tournament 2004. An Intelligent Virtual Agent is the representation of an embodied entity with the capacity of autonomous behavior in the context of a virtual world. Action selection is a basic part of an agent’s behavior and is the means by which an autonomous agent solves the ongoing problem of choosing what to do next. One mode of action selection is POSH (Parallel rooted, Ordered, Slip-stack Hierarchical). POSH uses precast plans that constitute the structure of an agent’s behavior. For the practical implementation and for drawing conclusions using POSH as action selection mechanism, a thief – police officer scenario was created. The thief’s goal is to seek for and acquire the treasure while the police officer’s goal is to protect it. According to this basic scenario four different behaviors were created, two for each role. For the role of thief two behaviors were implemented, a brave unarmed thief and an armed one, while for the police officer’s role a hunter and a guard. Finally, the results of the combination of all four different behaviors were compared to determine which behavior was the most appropriate for each role. For the implementation of this project the use of several software packages was necessary. First of all, the platform of Pogamut (a plugin of Netbeans) was used for developing the behaviors. An important program for running Pogamut is maven. In addition, Gamebots were used for connecting Pogamut with Unreal Tournament 2004, which was the virtual environment. For the scenario’s implementation, the creation of a new map was necessary, along with a new game mode, which required a variety of changes in UT2004 using Unreal Script. The part of the project that required those programs to co-operate with each other, constituted a difficult challenge, but an interesting one to deal with nevertheless.