Research Interests

• Artificial intelligence
• Narrative generation for education, training, and entertainment
• Interactive storytelling for education, training, and entertainment
• Artificial intelligence for computer games and virtual worlds
• Intelligent cinematography
• Believable agents
• Mixed-initiative problem-solving
• Discourse generation

Curriculum Vitae (updated 10.18.2007)

Short Bio

Mark Riedl is a research scientist at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT). Mark received a bachelor’s degree and MS in Computer Science from North Carolina State University with a minor in Psychology. In 2004, he receive a Ph.D. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University for his work in artificial intelligence techniques for generating stories with recognizable plot structures and character fidelity. Mark joined the ICT in 2004, applying his work in narrative generation to create interactive narrative experiences for leadership training. In addition to his work on interactive narrative, Mark is also working on projects for intelligent, adaptive opponents in training simulations, automated scenario authoring, and intelligent virtual camera control for Machinima generation. Mark has numerous academic publications on narrative generation, interactive narrative, and other computer game AI related topics. In 2006, he received best paper awards at the 15^th Conference on Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation and the 3^rd International Conference on Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment.

In December 2007, Mark joins the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing as an Assistant Professor.

News

(updated 11.15.2007)

• I have accepted a position as Assistant Professor at the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing, starting December 2007.

• AAAI Fall Symposium on Intelligent Narrative Technologies, November 9-11, 2007.
  • Read about it at Grand Text Auto 

• 2nd Workshop on Narrative Learning Environments (NLE'07) , to be held in conjunction with the AIED'07, July 10, 2007.

Current Research Projects

• Automated Story Director:Generative Experience Management for Education, Training, and Entertainment
• Cambot: Virtual cinematography for machinima generation (with David Elson, Columbia University)
• Intelligent story authoring support (with Jonathan Rowe, NC State University)
• Analogical story domain mapping (with Carlos Leon, Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

Recent Publications

Mark O. Riedl, Andrew Stern, Don Dini, and Jason Alderman. Dynamic Experience Management in Virtual Worlds for Entertainment, Education, and Training. International Transactions on Systems Science and Applications, Special Issue on Agent Based Systems for Human Learning. To appear.

Mei Si, Stacy Marsella, and Mark O. Riedl. Interactive Drama Authoring with Plot and Character: An Intelligent System that Fosters Creativity. Proceedings of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Creative Intelligent Systems, Palo Alto, California, 2008.

Mark O. Riedl, Jonathan P. Rowe, and David K. Elson. Toward Intelligent Support of Authoring Machinima Media Content: Story and Visualization. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN), Playa del Carmen, Cancun Mexico, 2008.

Mark O. Riedl and Carlos Leon. Toward Vignette-Based Story Generation for Drama Management Systems. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN), Workshop on Integrating Technologies for Interactive Story, Playa del Carmen, Cancun Mexico, 2008.

David K. Elson and Mark O. Riedl. A Lightweight Intelligent Virtual Cinematography System for Machinima Production . Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment, Palo Alto, California, 2007.

Mark O. Riedl and Andrew Stern. Believable Agents and Intelligent Story Adaptation for Interactive Storytelling . Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment, Darmstadt, Germany, 2006.  Awarded best paper.

Mark O. Riedl and Andrew Stern. Failing Believably: Toward Drama Management with Autonomous Actors in Interactive Narratives . Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment, Darmstadt, Germany, 2006.

Mark O. Riedl, Andrew Stern, and Don Dini. Mixing Story and Simulation in Interactive Narrative. Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment, Marina del Rey, California, 2006.

Mark O. Riedl and Andrew Stern. Believable Agents and Intelligent Scenario Direction for Social and Cultural Leadership Training . Proceedings of the 15th Conference on Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation, Baltimore, Maryland, 2006.  Awarded best paper.

Mark O. Riedl and R. Michael Young. From Linear Story Generation to Branching Story Graphs. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 26(3), 2006. Featured article of Special Issue on Interactive Narrative. (A shorter version appears in Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment, Marina del Rey, California, 2005.)

Mark O. Riedl and R. Michael Young. Story Planning as Exploratory Creativity: Techniques for Expanding the Narrative Search Space. New Generation Computing , 24(3), 2006. (A shorter version appears in Proceedings of the 2005 IJCAI Workshop on Computational Creativity, Edinburgh, 2005.)

Selected Publications: 1999-2005

Mark O. Riedl. Towards Integrating AI Story Controllers and Game Engines: Reconciling World State Representations . Proceedings of the 2005 IJCAI Workshop on Reasoning, Representation, and Learning in Computer Games, Edinburgh, 2005.

Mark O. Riedl, H. Chad Lane, Randall Hill, and William Swartout. Automated Story Direction and Intelligent Tutoring: Towards a Unifying Architecture . Proceedings of the 2005 AIED Workshop on Narrative Learning Environments, Amsterdam, 2005.

R. Michael Young, Mark O. Riedl, Mark Branly, Arnav Jhala, R.J. Martin, and C.J. Saretto. An Architecture for Integrating Plan-Based Behavior Generation with Interactive Game Environments . Journal of Game Development, vol. 1, 2004.

Mark O. Riedl, C.J. Saretto, and R. Michael Young. Managing Interaction Between Users and Agents in a Multi-Agent Storytelling Environment . Proceedings of the 2nd International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi Agent Systems, Melbourne, Australia, 2003.

R. Michael Young and Mark O. Riedl. Towards an Architecture for Intelligent Control of Narrative in Interactive Virtual Worlds . Proceedings of the 2003 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, Miami, Florida, 2003.

Mark O. Riedl and R. Michael Young. An Objective Character Believability Evaluation Procedure for Multi-Agent Story Generation Systems. Proceedings of the 5th International Working Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, Kos, Greece, 2005.

Mark O. Riedl. Narrative Generation: Balancing Plot and Character . Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University, 2004.

Mark O. Riedl and R. Michael Young. An Intent-Driven Planner for Multi-Agent Story Generation . Proceedings of the 3rd International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi Agent Systems, New York, 2004.

Mark O. Riedl and R. Michael Young. Character-Focused Narrative Planning for Execution in Virtual Worlds. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Virtual Storytelling, Toulouse, France, 2003.

Michael van Lent, Mark O. Riedl, Paul Carpenter, Ryan McAlinden, and Paul Brobst. Increasing Replayability with Deliberative and Reactive Planning . Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment, Marina del Rey, California, 2005.

David B. Christian, Mark O. Riedl, R. Michael Young. Conversation Starters: Using Spatial Context to Initiate Dialogue in First Person Perspective Games. Proceedings of the 2002 AAAI Spring Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Entertainment, Palo Alto, California, 2002.

Robert St. Amant, Mark O. Riedl, Frank E. Ritter, and Andrew Reifers. Image Processing in Cognitive Models with SegMan . Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2005.

Mark O. Riedl and Robert St. Amant. Toward Automated Exploration of Interactive Systems. Proceedings of the 2002 Inernational Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, San Francisco, California, 2002.

Robert St. Amant and Mark O. Riedl. A Perception/Action Substrate for Cognitive Modeling in HCI . International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, vol. 55(1), 2001.

Robert St. Amant, Christopher G. Healey, Mark O. Riedl, Sarat Kocherlakota, David A. Pegram, and Mika Torhola. Intelligent Visualization in a Planning Simulation . Proceedings of the 2001 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2001.

Mark O. Riedl. A Computational Model and Classification Framework for Social Navigation . Proceedings of the 2001 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2001.