UpdateLog.txt

Mario AI benchmark update log.

Version 0.2 DATE: 2010-11-08 (November)

32. 
31. Interface update: int[] getEvaluationInfoAsInts(); substituted float[] getEvaluationInfoAsFloatss();
30. LICENSE.txt now in trunk
29. New Feature: Seamless integration of AmiCo library. Example of Python->Java,
    Java->Python agents in src/amico directory. Mac OS X 10.5.8 and above, Linux
    are supported out of the box. For windows -- still some shamanic actions required. To be updated soon.

Version 0.1.9 DATE: 2010-10-14 (October)

28. Change: Option -lc moved to -lca (level cannons).
27. New Feature: Hot key R to start/stop recording.
26. Issue: Mario can jump in to the ground. fixed, r601.
25. Improvement: Unit tests added for recorder and replayer. 
24. Improvement: Option -l <fileName> with parameter loads .lvl file instead of creating the level. Option -s <fileName> with
parameter saves generated level to the fileName.
23. Change: License update. (license switch to "New BSD License", this allows anyone use our code even in commercial use,
yet you have to mention the original authors and the web-site)
22. Improvement: Recordings, Replays feature added. java Main -rec fileName to record or -rec on -- recording will be saved
to file with a current timestamp(yyyy-MM-dd_HH-mm-ss). java Replay -rep fileName to replay the recording.
21. Change: Environment.getEnemiesFloatPos() returns relative to mario coordinates. Centered on Mario.
20. Bug fix: Environment.getEnemiesFloatPos() was not returning any information after encoding change.
    (thanks to Isaiah Hines for posting and issue)
19. Improvement: While in Visual mode press "Z" to double the size of the Mario Visual Component. 'Zoom in' is with smooth
    graphics scaling. Press Z key to enable/disable doubled screen size.
18. Improvement: (Visualization) Game State representation compressed.
17. Improvement: Encoding update. Facilitates learning algorithms to learn the differences in terrain and enemies.

Version 0.1.8 DATE: 2010-09-18 (September)

16. Creatures and static Level components use separated Random generator. This update Allows to create specific levels
    without creatures and then totally the same level including creatures.
15. Creatures generation update, New creatures selection mode(creatures counters and mask), consult unittests folder for
    more examples.
14. Unit tests, JUnit + TestNG. 73 unit tests give you pretty good insight about how the benchmark does work, how can
    you use it and gives some hints about internals that was hard to get quickly. To launch them all at together in IntelliJ
    IDEA just run (Ctrl+Shift+F10) ch.idsia.unittests package. Please, report by posting and issue if any of them failed!
13. Gravity options. "-mgr <float>" or setMarioGravity(float) influences the Mario gravity, "-cgr <float>"
    setCreaturesGravity(float) -- the creatures' ones. These options will be used to create some new tasks for Learning
    track; the agent will be compared to handle various physics of the Mario Environment.
12. Optional Receptive Field Size. Default: 19x19 as before.
11. Documentation updated (http://marioai.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/doc)
10. Evaluation info outputs more exhaustive information about Agent performance after the end of the episode
9. Number of collisions with creatures is available through the evaluation information
8. For countable level elements output looks like: 32 of 128 (25% collected)
7. Mario reason of death feature added; stored in memo of EvaluationInfo
6. Dead-ends deepness depend on -ld option (the difficulty of the level)
5. Mario Fly cheat added. Hotkey "f". CmdLineOption "-f <on|off>". This will also have a task in Learning track coupled
with . This is true Super Mario now (see video )
4. -ll (level length issue) fix: now '-ll 256' means Actually that lengh of the level available for Mario will be 256,
the programmers' holiday is exactly the 256th day of the year.
3. New "Mario Trace" feature. How to use it. While learning, for instance, you'd like to see where your agent is stuck
    and to determine the problematic pieces of the level. It is easy to accumulate traces from several runs and
    visualize them in a separate window. (Suggest you visualizer and contribute to Mario AI project! E-mail us about
    your desire to contribute. This can be a simple optional extension for the current MarioVisualComponent or separate
    window or part of the GameViewer, which is now can be launched with "-gv on" option). To enable trace option, just
    tell "-trace on" to the CmdLineOptions class or java ch.idsia.scenarios.Main -trace on. After the episode is over,
    you'll see the self-explaining output to std and the record to a .txt file in root directory. Trace records amount
    of steps Mario spent in certain cell of the level.
2. Length of the gap parameterization changed. Gaps are longer on higher difficulties, but with narrow hills to remain
    sometimes passable.
1. Gaps with hills if length of the gap > 8 cells;
0. Mario initial position is optional and can be set by a task or from outside. This helps while learning: some
    interesting piece of the level can be in the middle and you'd like your agent to start from some certain position.
    Mario Initial X, Y ("-mix <int>" and "-miy <int>") will help to do so. Default position is 32, 32 in "physical" scale.