Re: [pygame] AI Module (was: Perlin Noise Function)

[kschnee <kschnee@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:25:18 +0100, "Hugo Arts" <hugo.yoshi@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> I think a dialog system qualifies as neither AI nor generalisable. What
> about customising dialog based on the main characters attributes, or
> perhaps
> NPC's speaking amongst eachother (with a player eavsedropping). What
about
> game devs that like the final fantasy/zelda style of dialog more than the
> Elder Scrolls one? Maybe NPCs should say different things at different
> times.
> And we're not even getting into graphical presentation. It's a very
> game-specific thing.
> 
> What you're proposing are all things that belong in a game engine more
> than
> in a lib like pygame.

I was working with the assumption of this stuff being for a module outside
of Pygame.

Re: replaceable functions within A*, this makes sense. For instance, the
way I did A* when I tried it assumed only orthogonal moves. Adding diagonal
moves or even 3D motion would, I think, just mean replacing the code that
decides what nodes count as "neighbors" from a given node. Changing the
cost-calculation functions would let you add considerations like whether a
node is considered enemy territory, hence more costly than usual for its
terrain.

Re: a dialog system, you don't really _need_ help to do a Zelda/FF style of
conversation. You can just, say, have a dictionary of NPC indices/names,
each linked to a string or a list of strings that get chosen from randomly
or when a global "plot" variable reaches some level.

With a "Morrowind" system you can get different responses at different
times (just make time/plot/quest status one of the variables), or based on
player attributes (same method), but you can't have NPCs converse. The
sequel did that, but I don't know how. Basically I'd like to see RPG
characters be at least slightly less moronic in 2008 then they were in the
original "Final Fantasy" (most console RPGs aren't even trying) and a
system like this one would be a fairly easy way to do that even in a
homemade game. As for graphical presentation, that's no problem; the code
would only provide text output, leaving the rest of the game to decide how
to present it.

What do you think of a not-just-dialog, yet simple, AI system suitable for
RPGs? Something that lets you offer a few kinds of interaction like
starting a shop screen, asking them to join you, or asking about some
topic? As with the pathfinding thing, part of the trouble would be with
making it generic enough to work with the various forms of movement &c that
people would use.

Re: speech synthesis, that's not so farfetched. Look up "PyFlite," which
implements a Carnegie Mellon speech-synth system called Festival;
specificially a simplified version called Flite. PyFlite is very easy to
start using, but it offers only one voice in that implementation. I've not
played with it enough to see if there's a way to get more voices for it, or
the ability to add simple <i>emphasis</i> or other cues like that. It might
be useful if there were at least half a dozen deadpan voices instead of
one.