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ViZDoom: A Doom-Based AI Research Platform for Visual Reinforcement Learning (arxiv.org)
2 points by wmu on May 10, 2016 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: A Doom-based game environment lets bots learn to play from raw screen pixels in a first-person 3D world, unlike the flat 2D games usually used. Trained on a shooting task and a maze, bots played competently with human-like moves.

Abstract · ViZDoom: A Doom-based AI Research Platform for Visual Reinforcement Learning

The recent advances in deep neural networks have led to effective vision-based reinforcement learning methods that have been employed to obtain human-level controllers in Atari 2600 games from pixel data. Atari 2600 games, however, do not resemble real-world tasks since they involve non-realistic 2D environments and the third-person perspective. Here, we propose a novel test-bed platform for reinforcement learning research from raw visual information which employs the first-person perspective in a semi-realistic 3D world. The software, called ViZDoom, is based on the classical first-person shooter video game, Doom. It allows developing bots that play the game using the screen buffer. ViZDoom is lightweight, fast, and highly customizable via a convenient mechanism of user scenarios. In the experimental part, we test the environment by trying to learn bots for two scenarios: a basic move-and-shoot task and a more complex maze-navigation problem. Using convolutional deep neural networks with Q-learning and experience replay, for both scenarios, we were able to train competent bots, which exhibit human-like behaviors. The results confirm the utility of ViZDoom as an AI research platform and imply that visual reinforcement learning in 3D realistic first-person perspective environments is feasible.

Michał Kempka, Marek Wydmuch, Grzegorz Runc, Jakub Toczek, Wojciech Jaśkowski
arXiv:1605.02097 · cs.LG, cs.AI, cs.CV · submitted May 6, 2016 · updated Sep 20, 2016
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