ai-tem testing ai in commercial game with emulator

AI-TEMTESTING AI IN COMMERCIAL GAME

WITH EMULATOR

Worapoj Thunputtarakul and Vishnu Kotrajaras

Department of Computer EngineeringCHULALONGKORN University, Bangkok, Thailand

Department of Computer Engineering, CHULALONGKORN University, Thailand

Forecast (Abstract)• Have you ever wanted to develop AI for

popular games, console games?• When you develop AI for games, how can

you test it? Is it hard to find a testbed?

• Are you bored of testing only PC games?


AI-TEM: Testing AI in Commercial Game with Emulator



Outline• The problem of finding Game AI

tesbed• The concept & framework of AI-TEM• Experiment: Using AI-TEM• Conclusion & Future work• Discussion



The ProblemCriteria of Testbed game.• Not too simple.• Has many ways to play.• Allows AI to show off its cleverness.• High quality, Nominee name, Accepted games.

What will you do to have that Testbed?• Develop a game for testing from scratch.• Use tool sets from some games.• Find open source games.• Find a game company that can give you source of their

game.• Use Testbed.



Inspiration of AI-TEM• Want to test AI in Winning Eleven, Street Fighter, The King of Fighter.• Robot, press controller, see the game. (R.O.B,

Gyromite?)

• Emulator & ROM can do that!• Observe game state, send controller signal.



Emulator & ROM

+ =

Game cartridge ROM Dumper Game ROM

Game console Game emulator Emulated game

ROM DATA



AI-TEM Framework

Emulator(VBA)

Game(ROM)

Menu Control

Game

State

Observer

Game

State

Normalize

AI

Python Interface

Input Controller

Artificial Intelligence Testbed in Emulator



AI-TEM with VBA

Why VBA?- Open Source- Many supporting tools - Many interesting games- Familiar

AI-TEM, VBA, VBA Link

http://vba.ngemu.com http://vbalink.wz.cz/index.htm

http://vba.ngemu.com/

http://vbalink.wz.cz/index.htm



Test game, Street Fighter Zero3

• One of the best fighting game. Also known as Street Fighter Alpha3.• Has many ways to play.• Can separate expert from novice.• Classic game, 1998 – 2006.

Credits: shinken209 From youtube

Credits: CybeRAkumA From youtube

* Video from Arcade Version



The Working of AI-TEMGame State Observer

1P Position XAddress: 0x20007C2

Value(16 bits): 002C(h)002C = 44

Game state NormalizerNormalize by subtract 44

1P Position X = 0

AI (run loop)

Char1.m_posX = 0

Int delta = abs(char1.m_posX – char2.m_posX);If (delta <= 10){ // do attack…}

AICharacter Classm_side:m_healthPoint:m_posX:m_posY:m_animation:



Example STZ3 Game state AddressGame State Data Address Data Size Example

*

character 1 position x axis 0x20007C2 16 bits 288**

character 1 char ID 0x20008EA 8 bits 0

character 1 bullet position x axis

0x200C0DA 16 bits 430**

character 1 HP Bar 0x2000818 8 bits 144

character 1 Animation 0x20007D0 32 bits 4992**

character 2 position y axis 0x20043D6 32 bits 95**

*Example, not exactly real value. **After normalized.

1

1

2

2

3

3

4

4

5

5

6

6



Example STZ3 RYU Animation DataPunch

Shoryuken

Etc

*Value after normalized



Example Python InterfaceFunction• CPGetData(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)• CPPressCustomCombo(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)

Data ID• GET_ANIMATION• GET_POSX• GET_GAUGE

Object ID• STZ3_P1• STZ3_HP_BAR_P1• STZ3_ISM_BAR_P2

p1x = stz3.CPGetData(ptr, GET_POSX, STZ3_P1)

p2x = stz3.CPGetData(ptr, GET_POSX, STZ3_P2)

delta = abs(p1x - p2x)

mytuple = ((PRESS_DOWN, 2), (PRESS_DOWN|PRESS_RIGHT, 2),

(PRESS_RIGHT, 2), (PRESS_B, 2), (0, 10))

if delta > 150:

stz3.CPPressCustomCombo(ptr, mytuple)



Discussion

• Is it hard to use?• About Finding Address. Game State Address is specific for game.

• About Collecting Game Data for reference.

(Animation data, Position range, Sprite size)

• Which AI to test? (Method, Topic)

• What game type? (Fighting, Soccer, FPS, RTS, …)

• VBA in AI-TEM.



Fight for the future…• Next scope for STZ3. Other ISM.• Other Emulators: Arcade, PlayStation.• Other Games.• Other features.



Thank you ~http://www.cp.eng.chula.ac.th/~g48wth/aitem.htm

[email protected] [email protected]



Tools supporting AI-TEM

Movie Record

Save / LoadStateAI

Automatic data collectionHelp collecting

game state data

for use in AI

Help debugging AI

Supporting AI Module- Help collecting game state data for use in AI- Help debugging AI- Help in training AI, Automatic Battle tool (new)

Game State

Observer

Memory viewer

Cheat search

Memory Compare

Modified to be

Game State Observer

Help finding address

for use in Game state

Observer

Supporting Game State Observer- Finding Game State Address- Modified to be Game State Observer

VBA Original Tools

Modified Tools



Auto Animation Collection Tool (for STZ3)For every character:• Force value in

address 20007C2 to change character animation

Capture frame

RyuValue

0*

RyuValue

N*… … … …

EagleValue

0*

EagleValue

N*…

Customize (.ini file)- Destination Folder- Number of Frames capture- Character list

*Example only



(New) Auto Battle Tool (for STZ3)

Automatic long run battle.Use for some AI that needs

it.(Ex. Learning type AI)

Customize (.ini file)- Number of Matches- Time for each match- VS Characters- ISM, Rounds- Built-in AI or Python AI

*New tool, not mentioned in paper



Search for Game State Address (1)

Search produces 14,756 results,“Please refine better”

Search produces 1,368 results,“Please refine better”

Example: Position Address

Use VBA Cheat search.Old value, 16bitsEqual, Hexadecimal

2 Search for addresses of which values increase.

Cont...

1 Begin...



Search for Game State Address (2)

Search produces less than 1,000 results,

Search produces interesting result.4 Search for addresses of which values decrease.

3 Still Search for addresses of which values increase.

5 Check 20007C2 in memory viewer… It’s OK.



Beware of Data Size when search

Continue to move forward.And search for address which value increase.

Address 20007C2 8 bits: FF16 bits: 01FF

Address 20007C2 8 bits: 2016 bits: 0220

Notice: 8bit value is decrease because overflow.8 bits will not found.16 bits will found.

*Example only: Value not match to real situation.



Memory Compare Tool & Game State Data Dump

- WriteGMDFile -> *.GMD- N GMD files- Memory Compare Tool- Set condition- 6 Result files 8, 16, 32 bits. Signed, Unsigned



About Coordinating ReferencePic1

Pic2 Left side Pic3 Right side

Red line is reference point for address 20007C2

RYU sprite size 32p 1-4Line3: middle of sprite

2C(h) = 44, 10p + 12p = 22p = 44u



Legal Information• Is emulation really legal?• Ok, so it's legal, but is it right?• Are ROM images legal?• Is distributing ROM images legal?

From: GAMEBOY-ADVANCE.nethttp://www.gameboy-advance.net/site/legal_info.htm



[email protected] [email protected]

Thank you ~http://www.cp.eng.chula.ac.th/~g48wth/aitem.htm

ai-tem testing ai in commercial game with emulator

Documents

commercial game

aitemtesting ai

test game

classic game

game company

emulatorinspiration

game state normalizernormalize

best fighting game