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[RELEASED] NEEDSIM Life simulation (updated to 1.2.1 and price reduced)

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by Fantasieleben, Nov 24, 2015.

  1. Fantasieleben

    Fantasieleben

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2015
    Posts:
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    big_rastered.png

    * * * The price has been permanantly reduced from originally USD 75,- to USD 50,- * * *
    (both prices excl. VAT or similar taxes)

    The NEEDSIM Life simulation makes it quick and easy to simulate daily life of humans, wildlife or even machines. Assign interactions to game objects, and NPCs will use them to satisfy their needs: You can make people watch TV when they are bored, or have animals drink from a lake when thirsty.

    See for yourself what you can do with the NEEDSIM Life simulation by playing the included example scenes: WebGL Demo

    Here is the link to the Asset Store: Buy NEEDSIM Life simulation

    Wondering how to set up NEEDSIM Life simulation in your game? Watch our video:



    Features include:
    • Creative freedom: You decide which needs to simulate with NEEDSIM Life simulation.
    • Design how often agents have to satisfy a need. You game is set in a hot vacation paradise? Make thirst decay fast, but comfort decay slowly!
    • Interactions can change multiple needs at different rates: Watching TV might satisfy the entertainment need, but give characters an appetite for snacks.
    • Objects have slots that agents can go to when interacting with them: Make a double bed out of a single bed by adding a slot.
    • Freely drag and drop slots around in the scene to decide where characters will have to be when running the interaction.
    • Add a slot to an agent and other agents can run interactions there, for example allowing a fox to eat a bunny.
    • Slot allocation: A smart system takes care of distributing available slots to agents.
    • One world, many species: Goblins have different needs than humans.
    • Chose whether agents focus on their goals or whether they focus on the utility provided by the available interactions.
    • Manage needs, species, interactions and databases in the editor extension released with the NEEDSIM Life simulation for Unity.
    • Ten example scenes with various scripts and assets.
    • Based on innovative research presented at the Foundations of Digital Games Conference and the Vienna Game AI Conference.
    screenshot_01.png

    screenshot_02.png

    screenshot_03.png

    screenshot_04.png

    Furthermore, if you are interested in the reseach behind this technology check out the paper discussing an earlier prototype of the tool.

    Cheers,
    Tilman
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2021
    ikazrima, theANMATOR2b and MD_Reptile like this.
  2. Fantasieleben

    Fantasieleben

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2015
    Posts:
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    The first patch has been submitted to Unity. It will probably be one to three weeks for the patch to go live. But to decide what to focus on in the next patches we are curious about your feedback, so I am posting the three new features.

    1. Documentation
    We added a documentation for version 1.0.1.

    2. Non-random start values

    Version 1.0.1. will allow you to use the UI to set non-random start values. This picture shows a very thirsty fox, who will start the game searching for options to satisfy thirst.

    hungryFox.png

    3. Editing need change rates and interaction change rates at runtime
    You can test changing rates at which needs decay in the WebGL demo. Change rates of needs usually should be negative values. Interactions have positive change rates that counteract the effect of the needs.

    20151127_LivingRoomScene.png

    Thank you for your interest!
    Cheers,
    Tilman

    (This post was edited in 2021 as some of the links that were posted will soon stop working)
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2021
  3. Fantasieleben

    Fantasieleben

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    Aug 17, 2015
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  4. guyal

    guyal

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    Feb 25, 2011
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    Does the asset include the core NEEDSIM source used to make Simulation.dll? I'm sure I'll want to make some modifications. Thanks.
     
  5. Fantasieleben

    Fantasieleben

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    Thank you for your interest. Whilst there are quite a number of scripts that can be edited the source you ask for is not included in the asset and currently only available as add-on after negotiating an individual agreement. If you need smaller features and modifications I can usually make them upon you requesting support. This way the NEEDSIM Life simulation will become better for everyone! The next update will include improvements requested by users. Many things I can think of can be done by building on top of Simulation.dll as well, so that if I update the .dll your modifications are less likely to break.
     
  6. guyal

    guyal

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    Feb 25, 2011
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    That's fair. I'm much less likely to buy an Asset Store package that doesn't come with source code bundled in the Asset Store version, for various reasons. However, I am heading in a certain direction with runtime behavior generation that NEEDSIM would help me get a bit of a jump on. I'll PM you to discuss. Thanks.
     
  7. Bengals007

    Bengals007

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    Sep 11, 2016
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    Hey, do you include full source code now? $75 for a quite simple GOAP AI without full code is quite high.
     
  8. Fantasieleben

    Fantasieleben

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2015
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    Thank you for your interest @Bengals007. Unfortunatley NEEDSIM does not come with a GOAP implementation. It is a new algorithm to to generalize need based AI and is based on research and a long development phase. Special care was given to make the system agent-implementation agnostic, so you can model the behavior of you agent with your BT, GOAP, FSM or Queue etc, but only examle code is given for behavior. If you want to know more about the product and how it can help you we can also talk on Skype, to get my Skype name pls send me a private message or an e-mail to tilman@fantasieleben.com
     
  9. Menatombo

    Menatombo

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2014
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    26
    I sent this to your email, but haven't heard back in a while...

    I just bought your Needsim yesterday. I am having a slight problem with it. I am using Unity 5.6.1f1 but that is not the problem. I am trying to add social to the tree and a node on the characters so it is like they are socializing. The problem is that every time they go to gain social from each other it crashes Unity. (My name under which I bought the asset is InF Designs.) I have been struggling with this for a few hours now.
    My question is how to make the user stop when someone arrives at their node so that it does not crash. Or how to make them both gain social if someone is attached to their node. I attempted to alter the bunny script, but I am not a very good programmer I'm afraid.
    If you could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it.
     
  10. Teila

    Teila

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    6,932
    Is this product still being supported? I have questions. :)
     
  11. Fantasieleben

    Fantasieleben

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    Hi Teila, I'd be happy to answer your questions. Cheers, Tilman
     
  12. patodonald

    patodonald

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    May 4, 2015
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    is it possible to make SIMs die, if it does not meet your needs?
     
  13. Fantasieleben

    Fantasieleben

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    Since version 1.2 NEEDSIM Life simulation comes with an example scene that shows how you can let an agent die if needs are not met. In case you own NEEDSIM Life simulation search for the script
    AgentDeath
    . Using this script you can specify deadly needs in the editor - so you could for example make 'hunger' a need that is deadly if not satisfied, and 'fun' a need that is not deadly.
     
  14. kami0311

    kami0311

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    Is a breeding system included?
     
  15. Fantasieleben

    Fantasieleben

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    Aug 17, 2015
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    Hi Kami,

    Thank you for your interesting question. Unfortunately no traits or heredity are simulated. Instead needs are simulated, so for example how hungry a character is. NEEDSIM also helps you to set up places where the character can then satisfy needs, for example a place to eat. Depending on how you implement a game with breeding mechanics all animals might be as hungry as all others, in which case using NEEDSIM would be trivial, because all animals would have the same rate of becoming more hungry over time. If you would want to create a game in which you can breed animals that get hungry more or less fast you could internally set up a variety of what is called 'species' in NEEDSIM, but in your case they would be different types of the same actual species, like hungry_cow as one species and diet_cow as another (NEEDSIM) 'species'. Then in your game code you would decide whether to spawn a child of two cows as a hungry_cow or a diet_cow. But you would have to write the logic for deciding which (NEEDSIM) 'species' a child is yourself, since there is no system for breeding in NEEDSIM.
     
  16. Fantasieleben

    Fantasieleben

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2015
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    The new update 1.2.1 is live. Most importantly the price has been reduced to USD 50,-, making this unique asset more affordable! Whilst this is a small patch it nevertheless comes with multiple improvements to documentation, code quality and API. If you want to play the example scenes before purchasing the product please play the WebGL demo.