About me
I used to work on the EPSRC-funded project UCT for Games and Beyond, in which I investigated Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) methods for procedural content generation in creative domains. This involves ways in which MCTS – which is typically used for move planning in games and other decision problems – can instead be harnessed to analyse, optimise and design new games, artwork and other types of content.
Publications
Browne, Cameron; Colton, Simon; Cook, Michael; Gow, Jeremy; Baumgarten, Robin Toward the Adaptive Generation of Bespoke Game Content Book Chapter In: IEEE Handbook of Digital Games , pp. 15–61, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2014. @inbook{browne2014toward, title = {Toward the Adaptive Generation of Bespoke Game Content}, author = { Cameron Browne and Simon Colton and Michael Cook and Jeremy Gow and Robin Baumgarten}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/browne_ieeechapter14-2.pdf}, year = {2014}, date = {2014-01-01}, journal = {Handbook of Digital Games}, volume = {IEEE Handbook of Digital Games}, pages = {15--61}, publisher = {John Wiley & Sons, Inc.}, abstract = {In this chapter, we explore methods for automatically generating game content — and games themselves — adapted to individual players, in order to improve their playing experience or achieve a desired effect. This goes beyond notions of mere replayability, and involves modelling player needs to maximise their enjoyment, in- volvement and interest in the game being played. We identify three main aspects of this process: Generation of new content and rule sets; Measurement of this content and the player; Adaptation of the game to change player experience. This process forms a feedback loop of constant refinement, as games are continually improved while being played. Framed within this methodology, we present an overview of our recent and ongoing research in this area. This is illustrated by a number of case studies that demonstrate these ideas in action over a variety of game types, includ- ing: 3D action games, arcade games, platformers, board games, puzzles and open world games. We draw together some of the lessons learned from these projects to comment on the difficulties, the benefits and the potential for personalised gaming via adaptive game design.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inbook} } In this chapter, we explore methods for automatically generating game content — and games themselves — adapted to individual players, in order to improve their playing experience or achieve a desired effect. This goes beyond notions of mere replayability, and involves modelling player needs to maximise their enjoyment, in- volvement and interest in the game being played. We identify three main aspects of this process: Generation of new content and rule sets; Measurement of this content and the player; Adaptation of the game to change player experience. This process forms a feedback loop of constant refinement, as games are continually improved while being played. Framed within this methodology, we present an overview of our recent and ongoing research in this area. This is illustrated by a number of case studies that demonstrate these ideas in action over a variety of game types, includ- ing: 3D action games, arcade games, platformers, board games, puzzles and open world games. We draw together some of the lessons learned from these projects to comment on the difficulties, the benefits and the potential for personalised gaming via adaptive game design. |
Browne, Cameron Deductive Search for Logic Puzzles Conference Computational Intelligence in Games (CIG), 2013 IEEE Conference on, 2013. @conference{Browne2013a, title = {Deductive Search for Logic Puzzles}, author = {Cameron Browne}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/browne_cig13_2.pdf}, year = {2013}, date = {2013-01-01}, booktitle = {Computational Intelligence in Games (CIG), 2013 IEEE Conference on}, abstract = {Deductive search (DS) is a breadth-first, depth- limited propagation scheme for the constraint-based solution of deduction puzzles, using simple logic operations found in standard constraint satisfaction solvers. It attempts to emulate the processing limits experienced by human solvers, and, to some extent, the process by which they solve such problems. Any solution deduced by DS is guaranteed to be correct and unique. Further it provides an estimate of the deducibility of a given problem for human solvers and offers new ways of understanding deduction puzzles. Its performance is tested on a number of problem domains in cluding Japanese logic puzzles, a traditional logic puzzle, and a geometric placement puzzle.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {conference} } Deductive search (DS) is a breadth-first, depth- limited propagation scheme for the constraint-based solution of deduction puzzles, using simple logic operations found in standard constraint satisfaction solvers. It attempts to emulate the processing limits experienced by human solvers, and, to some extent, the process by which they solve such problems. Any solution deduced by DS is guaranteed to be correct and unique. Further it provides an estimate of the deducibility of a given problem for human solvers and offers new ways of understanding deduction puzzles. Its performance is tested on a number of problem domains in cluding Japanese logic puzzles, a traditional logic puzzle, and a geometric placement puzzle. |
Browne, Cameron; Colton, Simon Computational Creativity in a Closed Game System Inproceedings In: 2012 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG), pp. 296–303, IEEE 2012. @inproceedings{browne2012computational, title = {Computational Creativity in a Closed Game System}, author = { Cameron Browne and Simon Colton}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/browne_cig12.pdfhttp://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/browne_cig12-1.pdf}, year = {2012}, date = {2012-01-01}, booktitle = {2012 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG)}, pages = {296--303}, organization = {IEEE}, abstract = {This paper describes the early stages of an experiment investigating the role of the computer as a creative collaborator in the game design process. We introduce the Shibumi set, a closed game system so simple that its rule space can be completely defined, yet deep enough to allow interesting games to emerge. Constraining the search space to such a closed system has computational benefits, but had unexpected effects on the creative process of designers during a related game design contest. These effects yield some insight into the creative process of experienced game designers, in particular, the way they search for rule sets to realise desired behaviours, and suggest a simple unified model of the game design process. We suggest ways in which these insights may be incorporated into future work, to produce software that might not only search for new games more effectively and assist the designer as a creative collaborator, but to automate the game design process in ways that might be perceived as more creative.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } This paper describes the early stages of an experiment investigating the role of the computer as a creative collaborator in the game design process. We introduce the Shibumi set, a closed game system so simple that its rule space can be completely defined, yet deep enough to allow interesting games to emerge. Constraining the search space to such a closed system has computational benefits, but had unexpected effects on the creative process of designers during a related game design contest. These effects yield some insight into the creative process of experienced game designers, in particular, the way they search for rule sets to realise desired behaviours, and suggest a simple unified model of the game design process. We suggest ways in which these insights may be incorporated into future work, to produce software that might not only search for new games more effectively and assist the designer as a creative collaborator, but to automate the game design process in ways that might be perceived as more creative. |
Browne, Cameron Towards MCTS for Creative Domains Inproceedings In: 2nd International Conference on Computational Creativity, 2011. @inproceedings{Browne2011, title = {Towards MCTS for Creative Domains}, author = {Cameron Browne}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/browne_iccc11.pdf}, year = {2011}, date = {2011-11-01}, booktitle = {2nd International Conference on Computational Creativity}, abstract = {Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) has recently demon- strated considerable success for computer Go and other difficult AI problems. We present a general MCTS model that extends its application from searching for optimal actions in games and combinatorial optimisa- tion tasks to the search for optimal sequences and em- bedded subtrees. The primary application of this ex- tended MCTS model will be for creative domains, as it maps naturally to a range of procedural content genera- tion tasks for which Markovian or evolutionary ap- proaches would typically be used.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) has recently demon- strated considerable success for computer Go and other difficult AI problems. We present a general MCTS model that extends its application from searching for optimal actions in games and combinatorial optimisa- tion tasks to the search for optimal sequences and em- bedded subtrees. The primary application of this ex- tended MCTS model will be for creative domains, as it maps naturally to a range of procedural content genera- tion tasks for which Markovian or evolutionary ap- proaches would typically be used. |
Howlett, Andrew; Colton, Simon; Browne, Cameron Evolving Pixel Shaders for the Prototype Video Game Subversion Inproceedings In: The Thirty Sixth Annual Convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB’10), 2010. @inproceedings{HowlettAISB10, title = {Evolving Pixel Shaders for the Prototype Video Game Subversion}, author = {Andrew Howlett and Simon Colton and Cameron Browne}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/howlett_aisb10.pdf}, year = {2010}, date = {2010-10-01}, booktitle = {The Thirty Sixth Annual Convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB’10)}, abstract = {Pixel shaders can be used to create a variety of visual effects in 3D environments, far more efficiently than if produced using the standard graphics pipeline. For such efficiency reasons, pixel shaders are commonly used in video game rendering, to add artistic or other visual effects. We investigate the automated creation of novel shader programs for rendering scenes in the Subversion virtual game world, with a view to providing the player with a visually richer and more diverse 3D environment. We show how shader programs based on the OpenGL shading language may be represented in a hierarchical tree form. This representation admits an evolutionary approach to shader creation, and we show how the application of genetic programming techniques can lead to the evolution of new and interesting shaders. We harness this for an approach where the user supplies details of a fitness function for the overall look of the city environment. We experimented with a number of different fitness function setups in order to produce some preliminary results about this approach. While generally successful in the creation of novel and visually interesting shading effects with little effort, we find some drawbacks to the approach and suggest methods for improvement.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } Pixel shaders can be used to create a variety of visual effects in 3D environments, far more efficiently than if produced using the standard graphics pipeline. For such efficiency reasons, pixel shaders are commonly used in video game rendering, to add artistic or other visual effects. We investigate the automated creation of novel shader programs for rendering scenes in the Subversion virtual game world, with a view to providing the player with a visually richer and more diverse 3D environment. We show how shader programs based on the OpenGL shading language may be represented in a hierarchical tree form. This representation admits an evolutionary approach to shader creation, and we show how the application of genetic programming techniques can lead to the evolution of new and interesting shaders. We harness this for an approach where the user supplies details of a fitness function for the overall look of the city environment. We experimented with a number of different fitness function setups in order to produce some preliminary results about this approach. While generally successful in the creation of novel and visually interesting shading effects with little effort, we find some drawbacks to the approach and suggest methods for improvement. |
Colton, Simon; Browne, Cameron Evolving Simple Art-based Games Inproceedings In: Workshops on Applications of Evolutionary Computation, 2009. @inproceedings{Colton2009EvoGames, title = {Evolving Simple Art-based Games}, author = {Simon Colton and Cameron Browne}, url = {http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/colton_evogames09.pdf}, year = {2009}, date = {2009-10-01}, booktitle = {Workshops on Applications of Evolutionary Computation}, abstract = {Evolutionary art has a long and distinguished history, and genetic programming is one of only a handful of AI techniques which is used in graphic design and the visual arts. A recent trend in so-called `new media' art is to design online pieces which are dynamic and have an element of interaction and sometimes simple game-playing aspects. This de nes the challenge addressed here: to automatically evolve dynamic, interactive art pieces with game elements. We do this by extending the Avera user-driven evolutionary art system to produce programs which generate spirograph-style images by repeatedly placing, scaling, rotating and colouring geometric objects such as squares and circles. Such images are produced in an inherently causal way which provides the dynamic element to the pieces.We further extend the system to produce programs which react to mouse clicks, and to evolve sequential patterns of clicks for the user to uncover. We wrap the programs in a simple front end which provides the user with feedback on how close they are to uncovering the pattern, adding a lightweight game-playing element to the pieces. The evolved interactive artworks are a preliminary step in the creation of more sophisticated multimedia pieces.}, keywords = {}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {inproceedings} } Evolutionary art has a long and distinguished history, and genetic programming is one of only a handful of AI techniques which is used in graphic design and the visual arts. A recent trend in so-called `new media' art is to design online pieces which are dynamic and have an element of interaction and sometimes simple game-playing aspects. This de nes the challenge addressed here: to automatically evolve dynamic, interactive art pieces with game elements. We do this by extending the Avera user-driven evolutionary art system to produce programs which generate spirograph-style images by repeatedly placing, scaling, rotating and colouring geometric objects such as squares and circles. Such images are produced in an inherently causal way which provides the dynamic element to the pieces.We further extend the system to produce programs which react to mouse clicks, and to evolve sequential patterns of clicks for the user to uncover. We wrap the programs in a simple front end which provides the user with feedback on how close they are to uncovering the pattern, adding a lightweight game-playing element to the pieces. The evolved interactive artworks are a preliminary step in the creation of more sophisticated multimedia pieces. |