Practical Game Ai Programming

Jump into the world of Game AI development About This Book Move beyond using libraries to create smart game AI, and create your own AI projects from scratch Implement the latest algorithms for AI development and in-game interaction Customize your existing game AI and make it better and more efficient to improve your overall game performance Who This Book Is For This book is for game developers with a basic knowledge of game development techniques and some basic programming techniques in C# or C++. What You Will Learn Get to know the basics of how to create different AI for different type of games Know what to do when something interferes with the AI choices and how the AI should behave if that happens Plan the interaction between the AI character and the environment using Smart Zones or Triggering Events Use animations correctly, blending one animation into another and rather than stopping one animation and starting another Calculate the best options for the AI to move using Pruning Strategies, Wall Distances, Map Preprocess Implementation, and Forced Neighbours Create Theta algorithms to the AI to find short and realistic looking paths Add many characters into the same scene and make them behave like a realistic crowd In Detail The book starts with the basics examples of AI for different game genres and directly jumps into defining the probabilities and possibilities of the AI character to determine character movement. Next, you'll learn how AI characters should behave within the environment created. Moving on, you'll explore how to work with animations. You'll also plan and create pruning strategies, and create Theta algorithms to find short and realistic looking game paths. Next, you'll learn how the AI should behave when there is a lot of characters in the same scene. You'll explore which methods and algorithms, such as possibility maps, Forward Chaining Plan, Rete Algorithm, Pruning Strategies, Wall Distances, and Map Preprocess Implementation should be used on different occasions. You'll discover how to overcome some limitations, and how to deliver a better experience to the player. By the end of the book, you think differently about AI. Style and approach The book has a step-by-step tutorial style approach. The algorithms are explained by implementing them in #.

Create game AI and implement cutting edge AI algorithms from scratchAbout This Book* Move beyond using libraries for creating smart game AIs, create your own AI projects from scratch.* Implement latest algorithms for AI development and in-game interaction* Customize your existing game AIs and make them better and efficient and improve your overall game performance.Who This Book Is ForThe ideal target audience of this book will be game developers with a basic knowledge of game development techniques. They should know some basic programming techniques in wither C# or C++.What you will learn* Explore the vast game genres that exist* Get to know the basics of how to create different AI for different type of games* Discover the probabilities and possibilities of the AI character to determine moves taking in consideration the state of the player* Know what to do when something interferes with the AI choices and how the AI will behave if that happens* Plan the interaction between the AI character and the environment using Smart Zones or Triggering Events* Use animations correctly, blending one animation into another and rather than stopping one animation and starting another* Calculate the best options for the AI to move using Pruning Strategies, Wall Distances, Map Preprocess Implementation, and Forced NeighboursIn DetailA smart and diverse game AI is considered to be one of the main pillars of a successful game. This book will help you to get inside game AI programming, implement latest cutting edge algorithms with C#, and finally help you create effective and interesting AI for your game projects.The book starts with the basics examples of AI for different game genres and directly jumps into defining the probabilities and possibilities of the AI character to do determine character movement. Next, you'll learn how AI character should behave within the environment created.Moving on, you'll explore how to work with the animations. You'll also plan and create pruning strategies, and create Theta Algorithms to find short and realistic looking game paths. Next, you'll learn how the AI should behave when having a lot of characters in the same scene.You'll explore what methods and algorithms, such as possibility maps, Forward Chaining Plan, Rete Algorithm, Pruning Strategies, Wall Distances, and Map Preprocess Implementation should be used on different occasions, how to overcome some limitations, and how to deliver a better experience to the player. By the end of the book, you would be able to think differently about AI.

This book describes in detail many of the AI techniques used in modern computer games, explicity shows how to implement these practical techniques within the framework of several game developers with a practical foundation to game AI.

Written for the novice AI programmer, this text introduces the reader to techniques such as finite state machines, fuzzy logic, neural networks and many others in an easy-to-understand language, supported with code samples throughout the text.

Game AI Pro2: Collected Wisdom of Game AI Professionals presents cutting-edge tips, tricks, and techniques for artificial intelligence (AI) in games, drawn from developers of shipped commercial games as well as some of the best-known academics in the field. It contains knowledge, advice, hard-earned wisdom, and insights gathered from across the community of developers and researchers who have devoted themselves to game AI. In this book, 47 expert developers and researchers have come together to bring you their newest advances in game AI, along with twists on proven techniques that have shipped in some of the most successful commercial games of the last few years. The book provides a toolbox of proven techniques that can be applied to many common and not-so-common situations. It is written to be accessible to a broad range of readers. Beginners will find good general coverage of game AI techniques and a number of comprehensive overviews, while intermediate to expert professional game developers will find focused, deeply technical chapters on specific topics of interest to them. Covers a wide range of AI in games, with topics applicable to almost any game Touches on most, if not all, of the topics necessary to get started in game AI Provides real-life case studies of game AI in published commercial games Gives in-depth, technical solutions from some of the industry’s best-known games Includes downloadable demos and/or source code, available at http://www.gameaipro.com

Creating robust artificial intelligence is one of the greatest challenges for game developers, yet the commercial success of a game is often dependent upon the quality of the AI. In this book, Ian Millington brings extensive professional experience to the problem of improving the quality of AI in games. He describes numerous examples from real games and explores the underlying ideas through detailed case studies. He goes further to introduce many techniques little used by developers today. The book's associated web site contains a library of C++ source code and demonstration programs, and a complete commercial source code library of AI algorithms and techniques. "Artificial Intelligence for Games - 2nd edition" will be highly useful to academics teaching courses on game AI, in that it includes exercises with each chapter. It will also include new and expanded coverage of the following: AI-oriented gameplay; Behavior driven AI; Casual games (puzzle games). Key Features * The first comprehensive, professional tutorial and reference to implement true AI in games written by an engineer with extensive industry experience. * Walks through the entire development process from beginning to end. * Includes examples from over 100 real games, 10 in-depth case studies, and web site with sample code.

Create responsive and intelligent game AI using Blueprints in Unreal Engine 4 About This Book Understand and apply your Game AI better through various projects such as adding randomness and probability, and introducing movement Configure and debug Game AI logic using multiple methodologies Bridge the gap between your knowledge and Game AI in Unreal Engine 4 Who This Book Is For This book is for programmers and artists who want to expand their knowledge of Game AI in relation to Unreal Engine 4. You are recommended to have some experience of exploring Unreal Engine 4 prior to this book because we jump straight into Game AI. What You Will Learn Understand the fundamental components of Game AI within Unreal Engine 4 Skillfully introduce Game AI within Unreal Engine 4 Configure, customize, and assign Navigation and AI components to your pawn Create, debug, and analyze Game AI behavior Design responsive Game AI using the Behavior Tree methodology Create smart objects designed to interact with AI Utilize advanced AI features within your project to maximize the user experience In Detail Unreal Engine is a powerful game development engine that provides rich functionalities to create 2D and 3D games. Developers have the opportunity to build cross-platform mobile and desktop games from scratch. This book will show you how to apply artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to your Unreal project using blueprints as your scripting language. You will start with an introduction to AI, and learn how it is applied to gaming. Then you'll jump right in and create a simple AI bot and apply basic behaviors to allow it to move randomly. As you progress, you'll find out how to implement randomness and probability traits. Using NavMesh, you will impart navigation components such as character movement, MoveTo nodes, settings, and world objects, and implement Behavior Trees. At the end of the book, you will troubleshoot any issues that might crop up while building the game. Style and approach This easy-to-follow project-based guide throws you directly into the excitement of Game AI in an approachable and comprehensive manner.

Game developers will use this book to gain a basic knowledge of programming artificial intelligence using Unity and C#. You will not be bored learning the theory underpinning AI. Instead, you will learn by experience and practice, and complete an engaging project in each chapter. AI is the one of the most popular subjects in gaming today, ranging from controlling the behavior of non-player characters to procedural generated levels. This book starts with an introduction to AI and its use in games. Basic moving behaviors and pathfinding are covered, and then you move through more complex concepts of pathfinding and decision making. What You Will Learn Understand the fundamentals of AI Create gameplay-based AI to address navigation and decision-making problems Put into practice graph theory and behavior models Address pathfinding problems Use the A* algorithm, the deus ex machina of pathfinding algorithms Create a mini stealth game Who This Book Is For Developers and programming enthusiasts with a basic knowledge of Unity and C# who want to understand and master the foundations of artificial intelligence in games