Looking for scriptable sandboxes - Garry's Mod?

Lewisham

Hey guys,
I wasn't sure whether this should head over into H/A, but it's so game-focused I'm asking here.

I am looking for a programmable virtual world that I can place AI bots in to, so I can do AI research.

Where possible, the environment needs:
- Physics (this can be sacrificed if necessary)
- A way for the bot to perceive what is in the world (not simply being pre-programmed by a human with waypoints)
- Some way of creating objects which are themselves scriptable (like a car that will only start 7 out of 8 attempts)

What is there that can do this? I've been trying to get through the documentation for Garry's Mod, but I can't find anything which indicates you can write your own bots, let alone a way for them to perceive the world.

Does anyone have any ideas? Thank you G&T, you are my only hope.

Marty81

Oblivion. Havok Physics + the scripting language is pretty powerful (even more powerful if you get OBSE, the Oblivion Script Extender). I have some scripting experience with it. It's very easy to give NPCs various AI packages and change them on-the-fly, and it's easy to attach scripts to objects themselves. You can have object script blocks that run continuously as long as the item exists, script blocks that only run when the item is activated, etc. I'm not sure how easy it is to control what an actor does when you give him an AI package since I've not done any actual AI control with it, but I know some people are working on an AI overhaul mod for the game so at least there's that.

SoaL

With Garry's Mod and the Wire mod for it you can make "bots". In the sense of robots, I don't think you can code actual NPCs. But with a bit of effort you can make little vehicles that will be able to "see" obstacles and adjust accordingly, even finding targets and aiming weapons at them (and firing!). It takes a bit of practice, since the Wire mod is physical, like a little computer chip representing a logic gate that will check for "greater than" using two inputs.

But it can be quite limited until you can fully grasp all the things in Wire mod, even then, I don't think you can create the kind of bot you're looking for.

Shooter Mcgavin

You might want to look at http://www.beyondvirtual.com

You can download the starter kit for free, which is very functional aside from the fact that I don't think it lets you import your own meshes.

But it's a graphical game development environment. It's meant to be drag and drop I believe, and it's geared towards games that have large open environments like MMO's or Grand Theft Autos, and it uses the AngelScript language. Not sure exactly what all it will let you script with just the starter kit, but it might be worth checking out.

EDIT: I *DO* know that it has basic "NPC" artificial intelligence built in. Meaning you should technically be able to drag and drop a character into the world, give it some settings, and then let it be an NPC that walks around, does stuff, etc.

Lewisham

Hey guys,
Thanks ever so much for the help, I'd never have guessed Oblivion, but that shows I'm a tool who doesn't think things through properly

BeyondVirtual also looks useful, I'll have to have a poke around.

SoaL: Yes, I was reading about WireMod. It seems a shame that Garry's Mod only seems to be a big ragdoll arena rather than something to actually do real work in, there are a lot of people in the AI field that could really do with an easy way of just testing out concepts. GM would fill this void, but the perception/scripting just seems too limited right now.

If anyone has any more suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Phoenix-D

Mindrover might work, but the physics are wonky and the bots interaction with the enviroment itself is limited to "which way am I pointing? Is there a waypoint? Did I just hit something?" and reacting to the other bots.

IShallRiseAgain

I'm sure an RTS could very easily meet your needs, and I believe company of heroes has some type of physics in it.