AI Vehicle Programmer .... the search continues

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
No NPC driving SRVs for the foreseeable future. This careers advert is not new, but it has been re-posted, perhaps with some more specific detail. They haven't found anyone so far, which emphasises the cutting edge of some of the features they seek to implement.

Should we be encouraged they are still looking for someone to take this forward? Yes ! But it means this feature for SRVs will be a long way ahead.

How many programmers would have direct experience of vehicle AI over rugged terrain in games ? A car racing game? On horseback? :unsure:

Should we be disappointed they don't have it ongoing already? Well, maybe it points to something beyond the New Era? It doesn't look like we will get this 'soon.'

My emphasis is in blue or yellow.

:)

"AI Vehicle Programmer

Frontier are the studio behind Jurassic World Evolution, Elite Dangerous and Planet Coaster. We are Britain’s biggest independent publisher and developer of videogames, based among the world-leading technology cluster in the historic city of Cambridge, England.
We are proud to be named one of the UK’s Best Places to Work by GamesIndustry.biz.
Come join our talented team of programmers working on Elite Dangerous!

We are seeking someone with the knowledge, experience and passion to work on driver AI and the challenges of driving and navigating vehicles on complicated, rugged terrain. You will play a major role in developing new game features for planetary surfaces, taking responsibility for AI control of vehicles and working with the rest of the team to enhance gameplay.

As part of our gameplay programming team, you will work with Frontier’s proprietary COBRA engine and the game systems that create our simulation of the whole galaxy. You will build upon the physics, driving model, navigation and networking systems to create driving AI that understands and explores the surfaces of procedurally generated planets. Working in a cross-discipline game development team you will build an understanding of how vehicle AI fits into the wider game, and help the team to enhance the game with the opportunities that vehicle AI offers.

This is a great opportunity to work on solving new and exciting problems associated with creating AI which can navigate, drive and take part in combat over many different landscapes within a procedurally generated galaxy of over 400 billion star systems, and trillions of planetary surfaces.

Responsibilities
  • Engage with QA testing and player feedback to improve the game experience
  • Spread knowledge of vehicle AI, mentoring others in best practices
  • Take ownership of the technical design and implementation of vehicle AI in the Elite Dangerous galaxy
  • Work with the design and content teams to identify requirements and expose functionality
  • Collaborate with other programmers to design and implement systems.
About you
  • Held a programming role on at least one commercially released game for console or PC, developed primarily in C++
  • Hands-on experience with game AI programming
  • Knowledge of vehicle handling models
  • Expertise with route planning, including understanding of performance and memory optimisation
  • Worked as part of a large programming team developing a complex codebase
  • Looking to develop their career as a programmer.
Desirable

  • Direct experience developing vehicle AI for an open-world game
  • Experience of networking player-controlled vehicles or other twitch gameplay systems
  • Understanding of game physics engines and driving models
  • Strong 3D maths and physics skills
  • Familiarity with adding features post-release to games with active players.
  • Cross-platform development experience including Xbox One or Playstation 4."
 

thistle

T
They wanted someone to "Spread knowledge of vehicle AI, mentoring others in best practices" so that doesn't necessarily mean others in the development team wouldn't take on the AI role. Having someone with specific experience would be ideal though.
 

Kelster87

Kelster87
M00ka said:
One wonders why FD are even asking. All they have to do is read their own forums, we all know that a lot here profess to be world leaders in gaming design, programming, networking - well every aspect of the genre and they all say they can do a better job.

Just hire them ;)
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I've dabbled in game content creation since Build engine days, I'd never claim to be any kind of expert.. Although it does give me an insight in to the work involved. Having watched BI struggle with vehicle AI on fairly simple terrain in the ArmA series, I wish FDev all the best.
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
The current drive (pun) for driverless cars in the real world is probably creating a dearth of programmers available for what FD seeks. As said above, even the military is in on this now.
 

DNA-Decay

DNA-Decay
Empty_Desert_-_panoramio.jpg
 

M00ka

M00ka
But is what FD is after that ground breaking? They are after someone to design and program a ground based vehicle, not a space ship. Lots of games have NPC controlled vehicles, lets see some that I have played recently: Boarderlands, any of the Far Cry series, even Battlefield and Call of Duty have them. Yes they have to work on different surfaces with gravity etc considered but this should not be cutting edge technology. Not saying I could do it, hell I still have to think twice when using a microwave but what FD are asking for isn't something that has never been done before either.
 

RamirezKurita

R
M00ka said:
But is what FD is after that ground breaking? They are after someone to design and program a ground based vehicle, not a space ship. Lots of games have NPC controlled vehicles, lets see some that I have played recently: Boarderlands, any of the Far Cry series, even Battlefield and Call of Duty have them. Yes they have to work on different surfaces with gravity etc considered but this should not be cutting edge technology. Not saying I could do it, hell I still have to think twice when using a microwave but what FD are asking for isn't something that has never been done before either.
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While I quite agree that it isn't truly groundbreaking, the majority of games that have NPC controlling vehicles in them tend to either have handcrafted maps (with manually added waypoints) or have areas specifically designated as roads or vehicle accessible. Even the later halo games, which had some pretty reasonable vehicle AI, wouldn't attempt to follow players into buildings with them even if the vehicle in question would be able to fit. The question isn't whether it has ever been done before, but whether it has been done successfully, believably and effectively in a procedural environment.

There's also the notable implication in the job advert that FD has very little knowledge of AI and pathfinding, so they are basically attempting to build this system from the ground upwards rather than simply trying to plug SRVs into some existing pathfinding code. Even worse, it's quite probable that all the current planetside stuff has basically been designed without any of the required "hooks" to allow easy access for AI development.
 

IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
The Farcry series have some reasonably acceptable AI Pathfinding Vehicle operations - though as far as Farcry 4, it still wasn't particularly hard to "trick" the AI into getting a vehicle stuck, which made relieving the AI of said vehicle rather a simple process. Elite offers up some rather interesting challenges though - with proc gen surfaces and random distribution of the 3 types of surface rocks and our inability to actually run over them, but rather to come to a dead haul trying to do so.
 

metatheurgist

metatheurgist
Dommarraa said:
There must be at least 4 qualified people somewhere in the world.
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That's the problem with job listings. Employers like to say employees have unrealistic expectations; they should check out their own ads once in a while.

I think the guys doing the DARPA autonomous vehicle trials might be qualified, as soon as they get a few years of game coding experience under their belt. :p
 

Stinja

S
Lightspeed said:
  • Engage with QA testing and player feedback to improve the game experience
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Well at least the advert confirms one thing: unicorns do exist in Frontier towers! ;)

I'll have to find the quote, but i remember reading one enterprise IT developer article saying that if you need a developer for a specialised role, it's probably better to just find a dev whos generally good/logical, fits with the team, and train them to do the role, rather than trying to find someone with all the unique skills you require.
 
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Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
RamirezKurita said:
While I quite agree that it isn't truly groundbreaking, the majority of games that have NPC controlling vehicles in them tend to either have handcrafted maps (with manually added waypoints) or have areas specifically designated as roads or vehicle accessible. Even the later halo games, which had some pretty reasonable vehicle AI, wouldn't attempt to follow players into buildings with them even if the vehicle in question would be able to fit. The question isn't whether it has ever been done before, but whether it has been done successfully, believably and effectively in a procedural environment.

There's also the notable implication in the job advert that FD has very little knowledge of AI and pathfinding, so they are basically attempting to build this system from the ground upwards rather than simply trying to plug SRVs into some existing pathfinding code. Even worse, it's quite probable that all the current planetside stuff has basically been designed without any of the required "hooks" to allow easy access for AI development.
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This is the problem having proc gen maps- some places even for commanders are impossible to get out of or cross. Height based maps (from my own limited experience writing A* pathfinding routines) restrict AI to the furrows (like Battlezone on the PC) and are fixed. FD would need to do a lot of remedial work on the planet surfaces to tone the craziness down, as well as make AI thats efficient enough to be used in an instance as well as be able to generate a way for each moon to have its own pathfinding routes.

But then it depends on exactly where you want surface vehicles to go- FD could at least fake it with traffic flows from the Outsider for example in and around outposts and surface cities.
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
Cmdr Holly Wood said:
Yeah, but they probably all work for DARPA or DSTL or one of the major defence contractors. If they do work in the civilian sector it's probably in the automotive industry or for someone like Google.
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The requirement of having held a programming role in a commercially published game is definitely a drawback here. Vehicle AI programmers that have worked on a game are rare.
Plus of course the current mess with the Brexit.
 

M00ka

M00ka
Rubbernuke said:
This is the problem having proc gen maps- some places even for commanders are impossible to get out of or cross. Height based maps (from my own limited experience writing A* pathfinding routines) restrict AI to the furrows (like Battlezone on the PC) and are fixed. FD would need to do a lot of remedial work on the planet surfaces to tone the craziness down, as well as make AI thats efficient enough to be used in an instance as well as be able to generate a way for each moon to have its own pathfinding routes.

But then it depends on exactly where you want surface vehicles to go- FD could at least fake it with traffic flows from the Outsider for example in and around outposts and surface cities.
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I agree but would it be a bad thing if the NPC drivers weren't very good and crashed a lot? Might generate some gameplay in getting mats and cargo from these crashes. And lets face it, it would be quite funny watching the NPCs drive off the odd cliff or get caught between to outcrops or whatever :D
 
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