Need suggestions for an Applied AI project

I have a course in my current semester in which I'm required to do a project on application of AI. I have decided to do this on game AI. I have 2 basic ideas: implementing an FPS bot(s) or implementing soccer AI.

I'm quiet a noob at AI right now, I've implemented basic pathfinding algos (A*, etc), and have studied about Finite state machines, some First Order logic, basic Neural Network stuff(Backpropagation ALgo), and am currently doing a course on Genetic Algorithms.

Our main focus is on the bot right now. Our plans include:

• Each 'bot' would be implemented using a Finite State Machine (FSM), which would contain the possible states the bot could have; & the rules for the action/state changes that are going to take place when it receives an input.
• In bot group movement, each bot would decide whether to strike, ways to strike; based on range, number of bots, existing fights using Neural Networks.
• By using genetic algorithms the opponents next move could be anticipated based on repetitive moves.

Although I've programmed a few 2d games till now in my free time (like pacman, tetris, etc), I've never really gone into the 3d area. We will most probably be using a 3d engine.

We want to concentrate most of our energy on the AI part. We would like not to be bothered with unnecessary details about the animation/3d models, etc. For example, if we could find a framework which has functions like Moveright() which just moves the bot to the right, it would be really awesome.

My basic question is : is it too ambitious to go about it in the way we have planned, considering the duration of the project is abour 3 months? Should we go 3d and use a 3d game engine? is it easy to use such engines, if you have no experience with them before? If yes, what kind of engine would be suitable to our project?

I came accross another idea, give开发者_C百科n in the book AI Game programming by example, where the player would have a top down view of the bots. Would that way be more appropriate?

Thanks .. sorry about the length of the question .. it's just that my problem is a bit too specific.

My basic question is : is it too ambitious to go about it in the way we have planned, considering the duration of the project is abour 3 months?

Yes -- but that's not necessarily a bad thing :)

Should we go 3d and use a 3d game engine?

No. Mainly because you said:

We want to concentrate most of our energy on the AI part.

Here's what I'd do, based on my experience (and knowing that, as a student, I often bit off way more than I could chew, too):

Make your simulation function irrespective of a graphical component. Have it publish "updates" to another layer, that consist of player and ball vectors. By doing so you'll be keeping your AI tasks separate from everything else, which means you have fewer bugs to worry about, and you can also unit test your underlying simulation much easier.

Take those "updates" and create your first "visualization" layer -- make it the simplest 2D representation possible. It could just be a stream of text lines: "Player 1 has the ball / Player 1 kicked ball at (30,40) with speed 20kph". That will be hard enough for your first pass since you'll be figuring out how to take data published by the simulation and doing something with it.

Your next visualization might add a 2D grid of ANSI graphics (think rogue-like) to actually show players and the ball moving. Your next one after that might be sprites. And so on. Note how you incrementally increase the complexity of your visualization... don't make your first step go to using a technology (3d graphics engine) you've never used before. (You'll never finish your project in that case.)

As for your questions about which route to take -- FSMs, NNs, GAs, top-down design -- you should rank your interest in them from most to least (along with the rest of your group) and then tackle them, in that order. You might consider doing one style for one team and a different design for the other team. You might want to make your FSM team play against a FSM team that's had an additional tweak done to it, in order to compare and contrast if you think your changes are actually being beneficial (you might be surprised and find out they make the team worse). Actually, that's where unit testing and splitting the simulation from the visualization come in very, very handy -- you should be able to "sim" as many games as you need to to get experimental results without worrying about graphics. You might even do it in batches overnight with scripts.

In general, my advice to you is this: break down your project into the tiniest pieces you can, and tackle them one at a time, so no matter where you're at when time runs out, you'll have something interesting to show off.

You could have a look at guntactyx, that's what I had to use when I did my AI unit at uni.

It takes care of all the display, physics, sound etc... for you, all you have to do is program your team of bots. The API includes functions to make the bot move left or right, shoot, hear sounds (like gun shots) etc... and it comes with a few sample bots so you don't start from scratch.

Also, it's quite fun to watch your bots battling your friends' bots :)