(Annotations in Courier with Italics)
You should have decided upon a broad topic for your honour’s project and identified some issues associated with the topic that you want to research.
1. Formulate a research question for your project. Details on the research question can be found in presentation 1 in the module folder.
“Is it possible for a combination of A.I. and A-Life techniques to not only be used to create an enduring eco-system, but also to calculate the boundaries that allow this system to remain stable and identify if the techniques can help the system to recover from “natural” disaster and/or user interaction and thereafter return the system to a state of equilibrium.”
The topic sounds really cool but the question is a bit of a mouthful. Does the stuff about natural disaster and returning to a state of equilibrium need to be mentioned as they are already partially implied. The recovery could then be discussed further once the question has been stated.
2. When developing a research question you must produce a question that can be answered by performing literature research, practical experimentation and critical analysis. The question should also focus the activities of your project.
a) What is the focus of your project?
The focus of this project is to combine specific A.I. and A-Life techniques to allow the creation of a self-maintaining 3D eco-system. The boundaries that allow the system to remain persistent will be determined. The eco-system will then be subject to random “natural” disasters and/or user interaction. The main focus would therefore be to see if the techniques could be used to create the eco-system and if these techniques can recover from the disasters and restore the system back to a state of equilibrium.
What sort of eco-system will be created? Underwater? land? Ailen? That might be outside the scope of this worksheet, but I think it would definitely need a lot of consideration.
b) What information do you need to find out about?
There are numerous differing A.I. and A-Life techniques existing that could be used in this project. These techniques would have to be studied to find those that are most relevant and appropriate and that would best suit the task.
The framework that the project will use will be researched, i.e. will it be built from scratch using OpenGL or DirectX? Or would it be easier to use a pre-existing 3D-engine.
Although largely depending on how you want to approach the graphical side of things, I would recommend a pre-built engine (ogre?). Animation, lighting, model loading atc are usually already implemented leaving you to focus more on the topic at hand. What sort of visual assets would you be using.
c) What Experimental work do you need to perform?
The experimental work will take place once the most appropriate techniques have been selected. Small demo applications showcasing each individual technique may have to be constructed to get a better understanding of the implementation issues surrounding the technique before the final application that combines them all is constructed.
Might be a good idea to look into already existing eco-system simulations outside of the games world.
3. How will the information that you obtain in 2 allow you to answer the research question?
The research mentioned above will provide better knowledge of the selected techniques and allow a better judgment to be made of whether or not it will be possible for the selected techniques to perform the task. It should also supply the knowledge to construct a working three dimensional model which can show case if the techniques can firstly create a stable eco-system, secondly, determine the boundary conditions and finally, allow the system to endure disasters and/or user interaction.
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