Making your bot
To enter this competition, you will need to create a bot for Unreal Tournament 2004 that uses the GameBots2004 interface. You can develop your program using any language and using any IDE you choose, so long as the program uses the GameBots2004 interface, and runs under Windows XP and Vista. One simple-to-use IDE is Pogamut.
The 2011 competition will use the GameBots 2004 version that is distributed with Pogamut 3.0.11.
The Pogamut 3 installation can be downloaded from here, and includes a couple of simple bots. Some more advanced bots can be found at svn://artemis.ms.mff.cuni.cz/pogamut/trunk/examples.
Unreal Tournament 2004
Unreal Tournament 2004 (UT2004) is a first-person shooter that comes with its own scripting language, UnrealScript, which makes it very suitable for modding. We suggest that you will need to obtain a retail copy of UT2004. You can order one online (we suggest the Editor's Choice package) or it is available via Steam.
You can find more information on UT2004 at
GameBots 2004
GameBots2004 is a mod for UT2004 that allows bots in UT to be controlled by a separate program by sending commands and receiving information via sockets. There are a number of versions of GameBots in existence. Some work with earlier versions of Unreal Tournament. There are at least two versions that work with UT2004. The version to be used for this competition is part of the Pogamut 3 project. You can download it from the Pogamut 3 website.
Some of the history of GameBots can be found on Jessica Bayliss' Gamebots site at Rochester IT. Some of her improvements to the original Gamebots have been included in the Pogamut version that we are using for the competition. We would like to thank Jessica for very useful discussions and suggestions about the competition.
Pogamut
Pogamut 3 was used for BotPrize 2011.Pogamut 3 includes GameBots2004, as well as an IDE integrated with NetBeans supporting development in Java, Python or POSH. From the Pogamut 3 home page:
Multiple game engines provide open scripting languages, which allow users to create scripted AI. External control mechanisms can be connected to many of these games using the scripting languages, thereby providing a tool to control the in-game characters from the outside. Pogamut utilizes UnrealScript (UT2004 scripting language) in this way and also NetBeans Java platform to provide an out-of-the box development environment for AI of virtual characters inhabiting UT2004 worlds. The main objective was to simplify the "physical" part of agent creation. Most actions in the environment (even the complicated ones, like pathfinding and gathering information in agent's memory) can be performed by one or two commands. This enables user to concentrate his efforts on the interesting parts.
The Pogamut web site contains lots of information and documentation on UT2004, GameBots2004, the IDE, installation instructions, tutorials, sample bots, and so on.