In this video Sci will undergo the task of... PARKOUR. He'll have to make his way through 7 stages as his artificial intelligence grows to meet the challenge. Will he be able to make it through the last stage? Let's find out.
The basketball is lore relevant
*===Song List===*
Windmill Isle (Sonic Unleashed) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b8TKhIz_ZY
Your Precious Moon (Portal 2 OST) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c624QWR3CXI
Radio Song (Portal 1) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD3v1B_aXw0
*===How it works===*
Sci uses the ML-Agents toolkit for unity, with policy proximity optimization as the trainer type
He has 182 inputs/observations
- 170 from raycasts; he has 5 looking down, 11 looking straight, and 1 looking straight down. Each of these with 2 outputs (one for distance, one for detecting what object it's hitting), each stacked 5 times to see how it changes over time.
- 12 from variables; distance to goal, touching the ground, rotation, and vertical velocity, each stacked 3 times.
He has 3 outputs/actions. 2 continuous (they can be anywhere from 0-1), and 1 discrete (0 or 1)
- Moving forward or backwards (continuous)
- Turning left or right (continuous)
- Jumping or not jumping (discrete)
- and then at the end, what face to have (discrete with 5 options)
He is rewarded for touching the goal and touching hidden triggers I placed on platforms. For example, in stage 7 every platform had a trigger that would give a small reward. He is slightly punished for touching walls, punished more for running out of time or touching the lava.
There were 30 copies running at the same time, but all the others had to complete each stage 10-50 times (depending on the stage). They all had some slight randomization (randomizing their starting position, orientation, goal position) in order to get a more applicable AI.
*===Rant===*
I first started this project sometime in march--I thought it would take like a month max--but hundreds of hours of work later, in the middle of December, I finally have the finished video (granted most of the time was spent procrastinating, hundreds of hours might be an overstatement). It took so many bugs, annoying problems, and crashes to get here, but this mediocre video is finally out. The worst part though is that when I started I really didn't want it to be like an AI warehouse video. I just wanted to make a video where an AI learns to do something, and I wanted it to have a similar style to portal. So, like portal, I put Sci in a chamber and had him move through different levels as he learns; like portal, I have a screen that displays information about the level; like portal, I used a more monotone color scheme with repetitive cube/tile textures to simulate panels; unlike portal, I wanted to make the main character something simple, a cube perhaps, but I wanted it to be a little more likeable (and humans generally like more round shapes over pointy shapes) so I made them a cube with rounded corners. All of these decisions, and I watch in horror as my work slowly morphs into a stone cold copy of someone else's (leading to me changing the title). Of course, there are many things that would most likely be different if I had never watched one of their videos, most notably, I think I would have done something completely different with the camera (also the thumbnail lol). Luckily, a good amount of stylistic decisions are still present that make it stand out, but it does hurt how similar it is. I'm thinking about leaning into it and making more videos in similar styles to other creators in this field.
It has been a bit since I uploaded. I've looked at some of their other videos, and the similarities continue. I thought they used jump cuts to go between different takes, but in their recent videos they just speed up the footage... with a number multiplier and an arrow... and a click sound effect when it activates... I don't even care anymore T_T
Aside from that, I'm thinking I could get a new video out (optimistically) before the end of the year, so stay tuned for that. The exception to that being if this video gets like a hundred views. Sorry, but at that point it's just not worth the effort :/
Also I wasn't sure how to end the video so I added that bit where Sci kind of escapes through a disposal pipe. It's a little silly, but what are you gonna do.
Inspired by Portal and the videos of AI warehouse, b2studios, Code Bullet, Dingus labs, Michael Reeves, DougDoug, Vedal987, AstroSam, Yosh, and many more not programming/AI content creators.
1/9/25 12:01pm
1000 subscribers!!!