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I’ve written before about Massive, the computer program that created the sprawling thousand-orc armies for the Lord of the Rings movies. As you may recall, the program worked by creating each orc as an independent agent, driven by a few simple goals: Kill enemies, while trying to stay alive and avoiding overly-congested areas of the battlefield. When you combine thousands of these agents together, they create a highly realistic sense of the army being “alive” — teeming with ripples of emergent behavior that could never be predicted or hand-coded.
But one behavior was particularly unexpected: Pacifism. Faced with a blood-soaked battlefield where hundreds of orcs were dying every second, the agents decided just to get the hell out — and started running away. As special effects head Richard Taylor told The Montreal Gazette:
“For the first two years, the biggest problem we had was soldiers fleeing the field of battle,” Taylor said.
“We could not make their computers stupid enough to not run away.”
So some extra computer tinkering was required to ensure that the trilogy’s climactic battle worked the way Jackson wanted.
Which is kind of poetic, when you think about it. The urge to avoid bloodshed and combat is so primal that even artificial intelligence constructs will stay away. And, as with real-life people, actually getting them to go to war means you have to subvert their natural instincts. In the computer, a few new lines of code will do it; in the real world, you need dark warnings about weapons of mass destruction. Call it “reality hacking.”
(Thanks to Fark for this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map
Should automobile software be open-sourced?
My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”
Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”
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January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a misery, then, because an evil?
A. Certainly.
M. Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to die, are both miserable?
A. So it appears to me.
M. Then all are miserable?
A. Every one.
January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM
One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009
)
January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM
BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.
January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM
“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)
January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM
I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.
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