AI Researcher David Melhart, Phd

<modl.ai>

Restless Brain Heart of Gold Bottomless Belly Magic Hands Legs of Steel

projects

game(jam) projects

extreme yoga ultimaterole: game design, game dev & programming, graphic design

Extreme Yoga Ultimate is a tech demo for the popularisation of affective computing in game design and development.

The game is based on Tobii Eyetracking technology and was designed to give a quick presentable and hands-free preview into using physiological sensors for controlling games.

onirikonrole: graphic design

Onirikon is a puzzle game where you take control a Frenchman. Eating cheese will increase your weight, while drinking a healthy glass of wine will reduce your weight. To pass certain areas you'll need to be either thin or big. If you find the exit, you win.

A genetic algorithm evolves the levels to produce progressively harder levels. The fitness function optimizes for levels that require more A* search optimizations to find the shortest path. It guarantees that the random initial trajectory remains a valid solution through the course of optimization.

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the ship of babelrole: game design & graphic design

Build and repair the spaceship you are trapped on with other aliens. Your life depends on communicating with other aliens in the same ship, but you don't speak the same language so you need to make your own language with the symbols available and coordinate the work.

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flying frenzyrole: Team Lead, Project Management, Game Design, Graphic Design & JavaScript Development

Flying Frenzy is a short and simple infinite runner-like app made on the extremely tight deadline of 8 to 10 hours. The project was completed with an extreme lean development strategy, with the only commitment being smooth controls. The game went trhough quick iterations and the art was finalised only an hour or so before deadline.

Flying Frenzy won the friendly comptetition at the Multidisciplinary Game Research, Utrecht University Summer School at the Dutch Game Garden for its polish and dev strategy.

testrun

web and design support for other projects

Learn to Machine LearnWebdesign, Logo Design

The “Learn to Machine Learn” (LearnML) project is a three-year Strategic Partnership in the field of Education aiming to produce an innovative solution for the teaching and learning of crucial 21st century skills relating to digital literacy, computational thinking, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), so that Europe’s children and teenagers can develop into responsible citizens and insightful thinkers able to navigate the complex digital space and effectively contribute to its design.

The main coordinators of the project are Georgios N. Yannakakis and Antonios Liapis.

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The 15th Conference on the Foundations of Digital GamesWebdesign, Logo Design, Communication Chair

The International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) is an interdisciplinary conference on technology used to develop digital games, and the study of digital games and their design, where academics can present their work to a diverse audience, share new ideas, and find collaborations with different backgrounds.

The main organisers and general chairs of FDG2020 are Antonios Liapis and Georgios N. Yannakakis.

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IEEE Conference on GamesLogo Design

Logo design for the IEEE Conference on Games.

The 2019 IEEE CoG was held in London, United Kingdom.

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Preference Learning ToolboxWebdesign, Logo Design, App Design

The Preference Learning Toolbox (PLT) is an open source software application and package which supports the key data modelling phases incorporating various popular data pre-processing, feature selection and preference learning methods.

The Python version of PLT was designed and developped primarily by Elizabeth Camillieri. PLT was developed at the Institute of Digital Games at the University of Malta with the support of Maltco Lotteries.

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FDG 1st Workshop on Tabletop Games 2018 Webdesign

The goal of this workshop was to advance knowledge in tabletop games by bringing together researchers and fostering discussion about the current state of the field.

The workshop was ogranised by Antonios Liapis at FDG 2018, Malmo, Sweden.

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International summer school on AI and Games Webdesign & paper media

The International Summer School on AI and Games was dedicated to the uses of AI techniques in and for games. After introductory lectures that explained the background and key techniques in AI and games, the school introduced participants the uses of AI for playing games, for generating content for games, and for modeling players.

The summer school is organised by Georgios Yannakakis and Julian Togelius.

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AAMAS 2018 Tutorial: From Game Theory to AI in GamesWebdesign

Tutorial on how to use the principles of agent modeling and machine learning as overarching elements for connecting Game Theory to AI in digital games.

The tutorial was given by Georgios Chalkiadakis and Georgios Yannakakis.

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The Newborn WorldWebdesign

The Newborn World is a storytelling game, played in a social setting and facilitated by a single mobile device. In this game, three or more players influence the evolving history of the First City, the first attempt of men and women to form a society.

The game was designed by Antonios Liapis.

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IconoscopeWebdesign

Iconoscope is a game deployed on tablets and on the web which aims to foster the creativity of its players. The inspiration behind Iconoscope comes primarily from non-digital construction and guessing games. Iconoscope motivates players to creatively interpret concepts (described linguistically) as icons (depicted visually) which convey the same message.

Iconoscope was designed by IDG researchers under the C2Learn project, supported by the European Commission.

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publications

journals

Melhart D., Liapis A. & Yannakakis G. N. (2022). The Arousal Video Game AnnotatIoN (AGAIN) Dataset. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TAFFC.2022.3188851.

Melhart D. (2018). Towards a Comprehensive Model of Mediating Frustration in Videogames. Game Studies, 18(1). ISSN:1604-7982.

Melhart D., & Jiwandono H. P. (2018). The Infectious Aesthetic of Zombies: An Exploration of Zombie Narratives and Unit Operations of Zombies in Videogames. Acta Ludologica, 1(1). ISSN: 2585-8599.

conferences

Melhart D., Liapis A. & Yannakakis G. N. (2021). Towards General Models of Player Experience: A Study Within Genres/a> IEEE Conference on Games (CoG), 2021, doi: 10.1109/CoG52621.2021.9618902..

Melhart D., Liapis A. & Yannakakis G. N. (2019). PAGAN: Video Affect Annotation Made Easy. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII), Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Camilleri E., Yannakakis G. N. Melhart D. & Liapis A. (2019). PyPLT: Python Preference Learning Toolbox. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII), Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Melhart D., Azadvar A., Canossa A., Liapis A. & Yannakakis G. N. (2019). Your Gameplay Says it All: Modelling Motivation in Tom Clancy's The Division. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Games (IEEE CoG), London, United Kingdom.

Prager R. P., Troost L., Brüggenjürgen S., Melhart D., Yannakakis G. N., & Preuss M. (2019). An Experiment on Game Facet Combination. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Games (IEEE CoG), London, United Kingdom.

Melhart D., & Jiwandono H. P. (2017). The Infectious Aesthetic of Zombies - An Exploration of Zombie Narratives and Unit Operations of Zombie-Like Entities. In Abstract Proceedings of the Central and Eastern European Game Studies Conference, ISBN 978-80-8105-873-8. Trnava, Slovak Republic.

Melhart D. (2016). Frustration and Adaptation: Orientational Shifts in Motivation. Presented at 1st International Conference of DiGRA and FDG. Dundee, Scotland, UK.

workshop

Melhart D., Konstantios S., Giannakakis G., Yannakakis G. N. & Liapis A. (in press). A Study on Affect Model Validity: Nominal vs Ordinal Labels. Presented at 2018 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Stockholm, Sweden. Published in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, 86. ISSN: 1938-7228.

demo

Melhart D., Liapis A. & Yannakakis G. N. (2019). PAGAN: Platform for Audiovisual General-purpose ANnotation. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII), Cambridge, United Kingdom.

thesis

academic work

lecturing

Affective Player ModellingSpring Semester 2019

In Professor Georgios Yannakakis’ "Player Modeling: From Game Analytics to Affective Computing" course

  • Weekly supervision of MSc project work
  • Lecture on Emotion Elicitation & Sensing for Emotion Detection
  • Tutorial on Using Physiological Sensors
  • Tutorial on Facial Feature Extraction
  • Tutorial on Preference Learning using the pyPLT toolbox

Qualitative Game Research Methodology Fall Semester 2018

In Dr Daniel Vella’s "Methods for Games Research" course

Affective ComputingSpring Semester 2018

In Professor Georgios Yannakakis’ "Affective Computing" course

  • Weekly supervision of MSc project work
  • Lecture on Emotion Elicitation & Annotation
  • Lecture on Sensing for Emotion Detection
  • Tutorial on Using Physiological Sensors
  • Tutorial on Facial Feature Extraction

Qualitative Game Research Methodology Fall Semester 2017

In Dr Daniel Vella’s "Methods for Games Research" course

reviewing

Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conferencein progress since 2018

Hellenic Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Human-Habitat for Health @ AMC International Conference on Multimodal Interaction

IEEE Conference on Games

IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games

IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing

IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games

IEEE Transactions on Games

International Conference on Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction

International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

#gamesUR EU - Games User Research Conference

Press Start

resumé

education

Game Research - Philosophiae Doctor 2017-2021

Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta

Supervisors: Professor Georgios Yannakakis & Dr Antonios Liapis

Cognition & Communication - Master of Arts2013-2016

University of Copenhagen

Supervisor: Andreas Lindegaard Gregersen, PhD

Thesis title: “Frustration and Adaptation”

Communication & Media Theory - BA Supplementary Studies2012-2013

Corvinus University of Budapest

Political Science - Bachelor of Arts2008-2012

Pazmany Peter Catholic University

Supervisor: Professor Balázs Zoltán

Thesis title: “Legitimacy Crisis of the European Union”

courses

Computer Vision and Machine Intelligence2018

VISUM Summer School

Artificial Intelligence and Games2018

1st International Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Games

Multidisciplinary Game Research2016

Utrecht University Summer School

profession

AI Researcherin progress since 2019

modl.ai

Research Support Officer (Post-Doc)in progress since 2021

Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta

Research Support Officer (PhD Student)2017-2021

Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta

Game Designer & UX Specialistfirst half of 2017

benchmarked.games

Team Guide2015

Udacity

Director & Lead Designer2013-2015

WireMind Ltd.

organisational work

15th Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG)2020

Communication Chair

Games And Learning Alliance (GALA) Conference2019

Communication & Promotion Chair

IEEE Conference on Games2019

Member of the Program Committee for the Game Design, Analysis & Player Modelling, Demo, and Short Paper Tracks

2nd International Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Games

Webmaster, Online Organizer, and Publicity Chair

19th EPIA Conference on Artificial Intelligence - Artificial Intelligence for Games (AI4G) Track

Member of the Program Committee

Malta Global GameJam

Member of the Organising Committee, Art Direction, Web Management

1st Workshop on Tabletop Games @ FDG20182018

Web Design and Management

1st International Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Games

Web Design and Management, Social Media Management, Online & Local Organisation

Malta Global GameJam

Volunteer Social Media Management & Local Organisation

awards

IEEE Conference on Games - Short Video Competition2019

3rd Place
Team: David Melhart, Jasper Schellekens, Ahmad Azadvar, Alessandro Canossa, Antonios Liapis & Georgios N. Yannakakis

1st International Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Games - GameAI jam2018

Best by Popular Vote
Role: Graphic Designer
Team: Alberto Alvarez, Gaël Delalleau, Olivier Delalleau, David Melhart & Dominik Scherer

Multidisciplinary Game Research Summer School, Utrecht University - JavaScript Game Workshop2016

Best Game Design and Implementation
Role: Team Lead, Project Management, Game Design, Graphic Design, and JavaScript Development
Team: Carlos Abel Garcia, Haryo Pambuko Jiwandono, David Melhart & Jose Perez-parras Toledano

memberships

skills

Languages

Python, C#, Java, JavaScript, PHP, HTML + CSS

Adobe Suite

Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator

Game Engine

Unity 3D

ramblings

// Use this for initialization

void Start () {

// TODO: Write something

...

}

// Update is called once per frame

void Update () {

// TODO: Do a backflip on mousedown

...

}

contact