Transcript Lecture 1

Lecture 1
CS148/248
UC Santa Cruz
School of Engineering
[email protected]
3 April 2007
Class Mechanics
UC SANTA CRUZ
What is interactive narrative?
 Somehow combine “interactivity” and “story”
 What is interaction?
 What is story?
 The two terms seem to be in conflict
“I won't go so far as to say that interactivity and
storytelling are mutually exclusive, but I do believe that
they exist in an inverse relationship to one another…
Interactivity is almost the opposite of narrative; narrative
flows under the direction of the author, while interactivity
depends on the player for motive power…”
Ernest Adams in Gamasutra
UC SANTA CRUZ
The holy grail of interactive narrative?
UC SANTA CRUZ
Live in a storyworld
UC SANTA CRUZ
Questions about the holodeck
 Are all holodeck experiences story?
 What are the limitations of a pure, first-person,
realist perspective?
 Are there stories for which it is inappropriate (or at
least unlikely) for the player to be the protagonist?
 Let’s look at other examples that have been called
interactive stories
UC SANTA CRUZ
Example 1
UC SANTA CRUZ
Example 2
UC SANTA CRUZ
Example 3
ZORK I: The Great Underground empire
Copyright (c) 1981, 1982, 1983 Infocom, Inc. All rights reserved.
ZORK is a registered trademark of Infocom, Inc.
Revision 88 / Serial number 840726
West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
>open mailbox
Opening the mailbox reveals a leaflet.
>read leaflet
(taken)
"WELCOME TO ZORK!
ZORK is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it you will explore some
of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortals. No computer should be
without one!"
>
UC SANTA CRUZ
Example 4
UC SANTA CRUZ
Example 5
UC SANTA CRUZ
Artificial Intelligence and Story
 Story generation
 Story understanding
 Drama Management
 Autonomous Characters
UC SANTA CRUZ
Story generation I: Morphemes & grammars
 Morphemes – story events or “functions”
 Vladimir Propp analyzed Russian folk tales
 Example morphemes: The hero leaves home, the hero is
given a difficult task, the hero defeats the villain
 Grammars – hierarchic combination rules
 Story grammars – use story functions by analogy to
linguistic elements
UC SANTA CRUZ
Sample output & story grammar
once upon a time there lived a dog. one day it happened
that farmer evicted cat. when this happened, dog felt pity
for the cat. in response, dog sneaked food to the cat.
farmer punished dog.
story  setting + episodes
episodes  episode + episodes
episode  story_event + emotional_response + action_response
Joseph story generator – R. Raymond Lang
UC SANTA CRUZ
Story generation II: Author simulation
 Model authorial knowledge beyond story structure
 Examples: Authorial goals, plans, knowledge about the
world
UC SANTA CRUZ
Terminal Time
Collaborators: Steffi Domike, Design Department, Chatham College
Paul Vanouse, Art Department, SUNY Buffalo
UC SANTA CRUZ
History engine
Goal trees (ideology)
Historical events
Audience feedback
Audio-visual
elements
UC SANTA CRUZ
Terminal Time architecture
Media Retrieval &
Sequencing
Natural Language
Generation
Rhetorical
Devices
To multimedia front
end
Storyboard
Biased event
Rhetorical Goal Trees
Knowledge Base
Event
Event
Event
Event
Event
Event
UC SANTA CRUZ
Interactive Drama
Plot structure
Tension/Complexity
Climax
Crisis
Falling action
Rising action
Exposition
Inciting
incident
Time
Denouement
Characters
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Personality
Emotion
Self motivation
Change
Social relationships
Consistency
Illusion of life
UC SANTA CRUZ
Story AI: authorship and interaction
The Enemy
 Author has control but
 All interaction paths must be pre-coded by author
 Can only make very small stories
 Bits of story can’t be incrementally added
UC SANTA CRUZ
Drama management
 Policy for “story piece” selection
 An alternative to explicitly coded links
Actual sequence
Selection policy
Story library
UC SANTA CRUZ
General interactive drama (story) architecture
UC SANTA CRUZ