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To address today’s AI challenges, and to enable the creation of entirely new game worlds, AIseek developed the Intia processor. The Intia processor is the world’s first AI acceleration chip. The Intia processor is accompanied by a software development kit (SDK) for game developers. Using the SDK, studios can empower their AI modules and games with accelerated AI. The Intia processor’s accelerated AI functionality includes movement, sensory simulation and terrain analysis.

The Intia processor features pathfinding functionality that is both optimal and extremely fast. Unlike today’s software-based approaches (e.g., A*), the Intia’s pathfinding uses no heuristics, thereby guaranteeing that the optimal path will always be found. This optimality also means that the Intia processor avoids the common pitfalls of A*, including failures to find a path when one exists, and the generation of “artifacts” (e.g., weird, unrealistic paths). If a path exists, the Intia processor will always find it
The Intia’s pathfinding is not only optimal, it is also extremely fast. Processing time for each 100 nodes of path depth is only 10?s, making the Intia processor about 100-200 times faster than A*. Most importantly, this very significant speed increase gives the Intia™ processor the adaptability to support large, dynamically changing maps. Unlike traditional approaches, which use relatively static, pre-processed maps, the Intia processor supports maps that change continuously, with no pre-processing required. By removing this limitation, the Intia processor enables the creation of new game worlds that are based on large, rapidly changing environments.

The optimality of the Intia processor’s pathfinding includes excellent support for tactical considerations. Thus, in finding the required path, the pathfinding algorithm can take full account of any tactical information, such as the need to find a path that passes through certain locations (e.g., hiding points, enemy positions).

To facilitate the integration of the Intia processor with existing studio AI modules, all common game graph formats are supported. These formats including grids, navigation meshes and waypoint graphs.

The sensory simulation capability of the Intia processor features fast, highly accurate line-of-sight functionality. Unlike current methods, the Intia processor does not rely on simple point or box approximations for the bodies viewed. Instead, the actual visible area is computed. Again, as in the case of pathfinding, this increased accuracy eliminates “artifacts” (e.g. seeing through walls, failures to see an object that should be seen, etc.).
In terms of speed, the line-of-sight checks are several orders of magnitude faster than current methods: 512 agents can be checked against 512 agents in 0.02s. Once again, by leveraging this immense speed, very dynamic maps are naturally supported.

Alongside the speed and accuracy of its line-of-sight checks, the Intia processor makes available a sophisticated vision model. Under this model, the probability of detection depends on the size and characteristics of the area actually visible. Thus, as in the real world, small objects or objects that are farther away have a smaller probability of being detected. On the other hand, bright or fast-moving objects have a higher probability of being seen. Excellent support for hiding and camouflage is also included.

One area of AI that is particularly underexploited is terrain analysis. In today’s games terrain analysis is usually performed statically during the game design process; strategically important locations are identified once for the benefit of NPCs and remain fixed throughout the game. However, the advent of dynamically changing maps calls for a leap in terrain analysis speed and sophistication. The Intia processor answers this challenge with advanced terrain analysis capabilities that can be run in real-time to enable truly adaptive decision making.
To support such strategic planning at both character and game-wide levels, the following built-in topology analysis functions are provided:

T-connectivity: the area consisting of all points that can be reached at a given cost T.

Critical Points: strategic locations, sometimes called “choke points”, that form the bottleneck for getting in or out of an area.

Controlling Regions: areas that permit strategic domination of the terrain.

Moreover, via the SDK provided, the terrain analysis abilities can be easily extended to encompass custom functionality (e.g., wall building, ambush points etc.). In particular, tactical information may be overlayed procedurally on the game map.

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