ml-agents/docs/Migrating.md

Migrating

Migrating from master to develop

Important changes

• CustomResetParameters are now removed.
• reset() on the Low-Level Python API no longer takes a train_mode argument. To modify the performance/speed of the engine, you must use an EngineConfigurationChannel
• reset() on the Low-Level Python API no longer takes a config argument. UnityEnvironment no longer has a reset_parameters field. To modify float properties in the environment, you must use a FloatPropertiesChannel. For more information, refer to the Low Level Python API documentation
• The Academy no longer has a Training Configuration nor Inference Configuration field in the inspector. To modify the configuration from the Low-Level Python API, use an EngineConfigurationChannel. To modify it during training, use the new command line arguments --width, --height, --quality-level, --time-scale and --target-frame-rate in mlagents-learn.
• The Academy no longer has a Default Reset Parameters field in the inspector. The Academy class no longer has a ResetParameters. To access shared float properties with Python, use the new FloatProperties field on the Academy.

Steps to Migrate

• If you had a custom Training Configuration in the Academy inspector, you will need to pass your custom configuration at every training run using the new command line arguments --width, --height, --quality-level, --time-scale and --target-frame-rate.
• If you were using --slow in mlagents-learn, you will need to pass your old Inference Configuration of the Academy inspector with the new command line arguments --width, --height, --quality-level, --time-scale and --target-frame-rate instead.

Migrating from ML-Agents toolkit v0.11.0 to v0.12.0

Important Changes

• Text actions and observations, and custom action and observation protos have been removed.
• RayPerception3D and RayPerception2D are marked deprecated, and will be removed in a future release. They can be replaced by RayPerceptionSensorComponent3D and RayPerceptionSensorComponent2D.
• The Use Heuristic checkbox in Behavior Parameters has been replaced with a Behavior Type dropdown menu. This has the following options:
  • Default corresponds to the previous unchecked behavior, meaning that Agents will train if they connect to a python trainer, otherwise they will performance inference.
  • Heuristic Only means the Agent will always use the Heuristic() method. This corresponds to having "Use Heuristic" selected in 0.11.0.
  • Inference Only means the Agent will always perform inference.

Steps to Migrate

• We fixed a bug in RayPerception3d.Perceive() that was causing the endOffset to be used incorrectly. However this may produce different behavior from previous versions if you use a non-zero startOffset. To reproduce the old behavior, you should increase the the value of endOffset by startOffset. You can verify your raycasts are performing as expected in scene view using the debug rays.
• If you use RayPerception3D, replace it with RayPerceptionSensorComponent3D (and similarly for 2D). The settings, such as ray angles and detectable tags, are configured on the component now. RayPerception3D would contribute (# of rays) * (# of tags + 2) to the State Size in Behavior Parameters, but this is no longer necessary, so you should reduce the State Size by this amount. Making this change will require retraining your model, since the observations that RayPerceptionSensorComponent3D produces are different from the old behavior.
• If you see messages such as The type or namespace 'Barracuda' could not be found or The type or namespace 'Google' could not be found, you will need to install the Barracuda preview package.

Migrating from ML-Agents toolkit v0.10 to v0.11.0

Important Changes

• The definition of the gRPC service has changed.
• The online BC training feature has been removed.
• The BroadcastHub has been deprecated. If there is a training Python process, all LearningBrains in the scene will automatically be trained. If there is no Python process, inference will be used.
• The Brain ScriptableObjects have been deprecated. The Brain Parameters are now on the Agent and are referred to as Behavior Parameters. Make sure the Behavior Parameters is attached to the Agent GameObject.
• To use a heuristic behavior, implement the Heuristic() method in the Agent class and check the use heuristic checkbox in the Behavior Parameters.
• Several changes were made to the setup for visual observations (i.e. using Cameras or RenderTextures):
  • Camera resolutions are no longer stored in the Brain Parameters.
  • AgentParameters no longer stores lists of Cameras and RenderTextures
  • To add visual observations to an Agent, you must now attach a CameraSensorComponent or RenderTextureComponent to the agent. The corresponding Camera or RenderTexture can be added to these in the editor, and the resolution and color/grayscale is configured on the component itself.

Steps to Migrate

• In order to be able to train, make sure both your ML-Agents Python package and UnitySDK code come from the v0.11 release. Training will not work, for example, if you update the ML-Agents Python package, and only update the API Version in UnitySDK.
• If your Agents used visual observations, you must add a CameraSensorComponent corresponding to each old Camera in the Agent's camera list (and similarly for RenderTextures).
• Since Brain ScriptableObjects have been removed, you will need to delete all the Brain ScriptableObjects from your Assets folder. Then, add a Behavior Parameters component to each Agent GameObject. You will then need to complete the fields on the new Behavior Parameters component with the BrainParameters of the old Brain.

Migrating from ML-Agents toolkit v0.9 to v0.10

Important Changes

• We have updated the C# code in our repository to be in line with Unity Coding Conventions. This has changed the name of some public facing classes and enums.
• The example environments have been updated. If you were using these environments to benchmark your training, please note that the resulting rewards may be slightly different in v0.10.

Steps to Migrate

• UnitySDK/Assets/ML-Agents/Scripts/Communicator.cs and its class Communicator have been renamed to UnitySDK/Assets/ML-Agents/Scripts/ICommunicator.cs and ICommunicator respectively.
• The SpaceType Enums discrete, and continuous have been renamed to Discrete and Continuous.
• We have removed the Done call as well as the capacity to set Max Steps on the Academy. Therefore an AcademyReset will never be triggered from C# (only from Python). If you want to reset the simulation after a fixed number of steps, or when an event in the simulation occurs, we recommend looking at our multi-agent example environments (such as BananaCollector). In our examples, groups of Agents can be reset through an "Area" that can reset groups of Agents.
• The import for mlagents.envs.UnityEnvironment was removed. If you are using the Python API, change from mlagents.envs import UnityEnvironment to from mlagents.envs.environment import UnityEnvironment.

Migrating from ML-Agents toolkit v0.8 to v0.9

Important Changes

• We have changed the way reward signals (including Curiosity) are defined in the trainer_config.yaml.
• When using multiple environments, every "step" is recorded in TensorBoard.
• The steps in the command line console corresponds to a single step of a single environment. Previously, each step corresponded to one step for all environments (i.e., num_envs steps).

Steps to Migrate

• If you were overriding any of these following parameters in your config file, remove them from the top-level config and follow the steps below:
  • gamma: Define a new extrinsic reward signal and set it's gamma to your new gamma.
  • use_curiosity, curiosity_strength, curiosity_enc_size: Define a curiosity reward signal and set its strength to curiosity_strength, and encoding_size to curiosity_enc_size. Give it the same gamma as your extrinsic signal to mimic previous behavior. See Reward Signals for more information on defining reward signals.
• TensorBoards generated when running multiple environments in v0.8 are not comparable to those generated in v0.9 in terms of step count. Multiply your v0.8 step count by num_envs for an approximate comparison. You may need to change max_steps in your config as appropriate as well.

Migrating from ML-Agents toolkit v0.7 to v0.8

Important Changes

• We have split the Python packages into two separate packages ml-agents and ml-agents-envs.
• --worker-id option of learn.py has been removed, use --base-port instead if you'd like to run multiple instances of learn.py.

Steps to Migrate

• If you are installing via PyPI, there is no change.
• If you intend to make modifications to ml-agents or ml-agents-envs please check the Installing for Development in the Installation documentation.

Migrating from ML-Agents toolkit v0.6 to v0.7

Important Changes

• We no longer support TFS and are now using the Unity Inference Engine

Steps to Migrate

• Make sure to remove the ENABLE_TENSORFLOW flag in your Unity Project settings

Migrating from ML-Agents toolkit v0.5 to v0.6

Important Changes

• Brains are now Scriptable Objects instead of MonoBehaviors.

• You can no longer modify the type of a Brain. If you want to switch between PlayerBrain and LearningBrain for multiple agents, you will need to assign a new Brain to each agent separately. Note: You can pass the same Brain to multiple agents in a scene by leveraging Unity's prefab system or look for all the agents in a scene using the search bar of the Hierarchy window with the word Agent.

• We replaced the Internal and External Brain with Learning Brain. When you need to train a model, you need to drag it into the Broadcast Hub inside the Academy and check the Control checkbox.

• We removed the Broadcast checkbox of the Brain, to use the broadcast functionality, you need to drag the Brain into the Broadcast Hub.

• When training multiple Brains at the same time, each model is now stored into a separate model file rather than in the same file under different graph scopes.

• The Learning Brain graph scope, placeholder names, output names and custom placeholders can no longer be modified.

Steps to Migrate

• To update a scene from v0.5 to v0.6, you must:
  • Remove the Brain GameObjects in the scene. (Delete all of the Brain GameObjects under Academy in the scene.)
  • Create new Brain Scriptable Objects using Assets -> Create -> ML-Agents for each type of the Brain you plan to use, and put the created files under a folder called Brains within your project.
  • Edit their Brain Parameters to be the same as the parameters used in the Brain GameObjects.
  • Agents have a Brain field in the Inspector, you need to drag the appropriate Brain ScriptableObject in it.
  • The Academy has a Broadcast Hub field in the inspector, which is list of brains used in the scene. To train or control your Brain from the mlagents-learn Python script, you need to drag the relevant LearningBrain ScriptableObjects used in your scene into entries into this list.

Migrating from ML-Agents toolkit v0.4 to v0.5

Important

• The Unity project unity-environment has been renamed UnitySDK.
• The python folder has been renamed to ml-agents. It now contains two packages, mlagents.env and mlagents.trainers. mlagents.env can be used to interact directly with a Unity environment, while mlagents.trainers contains the classes for training agents.
• The supported Unity version has changed from 2017.1 or later to 2017.4 or later. 2017.4 is an LTS (Long Term Support) version that helps us maintain good quality and support. Earlier versions of Unity might still work, but you may encounter an error listed here.

Unity API

• Discrete Actions now use branches. You can now specify concurrent discrete actions. You will need to update the Brain Parameters in the Brain Inspector in all your environments that use discrete actions. Refer to the discrete action documentation for more information.

Python API

• In order to run a training session, you can now use the command mlagents-learn instead of python3 learn.py after installing the mlagents packages. This change is documented here. For example, if we previously ran

  python3 learn.py 3DBall --train
  

  from the python subdirectory (which is changed to ml-agents subdirectory in v0.5), we now run

  mlagents-learn config/trainer_config.yaml --env=3DBall --train
  

  from the root directory where we installed the ML-Agents Toolkit.

• It is now required to specify the path to the yaml trainer configuration file when running mlagents-learn. For an example trainer configuration file, see trainer_config.yaml. An example of passing a trainer configuration to mlagents-learn is shown above.

• The environment name is now passed through the --env option.

• Curriculum learning has been changed. Refer to the curriculum learning documentation for detailed information. In summary:

  • Curriculum files for the same environment must now be placed into a folder. Each curriculum file should be named after the Brain whose curriculum it specifies.
  • min_lesson_length now specifies the minimum number of episodes in a lesson and affects reward thresholding.
  • It is no longer necessary to specify the Max Steps of the Academy to use curriculum learning.

Migrating from ML-Agents toolkit v0.3 to v0.4

Unity API

• using MLAgents; needs to be added in all of the C# scripts that use ML-Agents.

Python API

• We've changed some of the Python packages dependencies in requirement.txt file. Make sure to run pip3 install -e . within your ml-agents/python folder to update your Python packages.

Migrating from ML-Agents toolkit v0.2 to v0.3

There are a large number of new features and improvements in the ML-Agents toolkit v0.3 which change both the training process and Unity API in ways which will cause incompatibilities with environments made using older versions. This page is designed to highlight those changes for users familiar with v0.1 or v0.2 in order to ensure a smooth transition.

Important

• The ML-Agents toolkit is no longer compatible with Python 2.

Python Training

• The training script ppo.py and PPO.ipynb Python notebook have been replaced with a single learn.py script as the launching point for training with ML-Agents. For more information on using learn.py, see here.
• Hyperparameters for training Brains are now stored in the trainer_config.yaml file. For more information on using this file, see here.

Unity API

• Modifications to an Agent's rewards must now be done using either AddReward() or SetReward().
• Setting an Agent to done now requires the use of the Done() method.
• CollectStates() has been replaced by CollectObservations(), which now no longer returns a list of floats.
• To collect observations, call AddVectorObs() within CollectObservations(). Note that you can call AddVectorObs() with floats, integers, lists and arrays of floats, Vector3 and Quaternions.
• AgentStep() has been replaced by AgentAction().
• WaitTime() has been removed.
• The Frame Skip field of the Academy is replaced by the Agent's Decision Frequency field, enabling the Agent to make decisions at different frequencies.
• The names of the inputs in the Internal Brain have been changed. You must replace state with vector_observation and observation with visual_observation. In addition, you must remove the epsilon placeholder.

Semantics

In order to more closely align with the terminology used in the Reinforcement Learning field, and to be more descriptive, we have changed the names of some of the concepts used in ML-Agents. The changes are highlighted in the table below.

Old - v0.2 and earlier	New - v0.3 and later
State	Vector Observation
Observation	Visual Observation
Action	Vector Action
N/A	Text Observation
N/A	Text Action