Game AI Uncovered: Volume One kicks off a brand-new series of books that focus on the development of artificial intelligence in video games. This volume brings together the collected wisdom, ideas, tricks, and cutting-edge techniques from 20 of the top game AI professionals and researchers from around the world.
The techniques discussed in these pages cover the underlying development of a wide array of published titles, including Hood: Outlaws and Legends, The Escapists 2, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Call of Duty: Strike Team, GTI+ Club, Split/Second, Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed, Luna Abyss, Medal of Honor Heroes I & II, Age of Empires IV, Watch Dogs, Battlefield 2042, Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, Dead Space, and more.
Contained within this volume are overviews and insight covering a host of different areas within game AI, including situational awareness, pathfinding, tethering, squad behaviours, coordination, auto-generating navigation link data, fluid movement, combining behaviour and animation systems, pedal control for cars, tactical positioning, level of detail, infinite axis utility systems, hierarchical state machines, bots for testing, reactive behaviour trees, and more.
Beginners to the area of game AI, along with professional developers, will find a wealth of knowledge that will not only help in the development of your own games but will also spark ideas for new approaches.
This volume includes chapters written by Andy Brown, Dr Allan Bruce, Richard Bull, Laurent Couvidou, Steven Dalton, Michele Ermacora, Jonas Gillberg, Dale Green, Johan Holthausen, Dr Aitor Santamaría Ibirika, Dr Nic Melder, Sarat Rallabandi, Bruno Rebaque, John Reynolds, Paul Roberts, David Rogers, Andrea Schiel, Huw Talliss, Dr Tommy Thompson, and David Wooldridge.
Preface
Acknowledgements
Editor
Contributors
Chapter 1 The Changing Landscape of AI for Game Development
Dr Tommy Thompson
Chapter 2 Implementing an AI Framework in Unreal for Medium- to Large-Scale Numbers of Disparate AI in Hood: Outlaws and Legends
Dr Allan Bruce
Chapter 3 Predicting When and Where to Intercept Players in Hood: Outlaws and Legends
Dr Allan Bruce
Chapter 4 Getting Caught Off Guard: Situational Awareness in The Escapists 2
David Rogers
Chapter 5 Stitching It Together: The Enemies of Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Huw Talliss
Chapter 6 Squad Behaviour Using a Task Stack Approach for Call of Duty: Strike Team
Richard Bull
Chapter 7 Reactive Behaviour Trees
Sarat Rallabandi and Paul Roberts
Chapter 8 Tailoring Racing AI to the Genre
Andy Brown
Chapter 9 Believable Routes: A Pathfinding Acceptability Metric
Paul Roberts
Chapter 10 AI Under Lockdown: Various Approaches to NPC Tethering
Laurent Couvidou
Chapter 11 Low-Cost, Mutable Path-Planning Spaces
Steven Dalton
Chapter 12 Auto-Generating Navigation Link Data
Dale Green
Chapter 13 Fluid Movement
Johan Holthausen
Chapter 14 Combining Behaviour and Animation Systems in Luna Abyss
John Reynolds
Chapter 15 How to Make Your AI Fireproof: 25 Years of AI Firefighting
Andrea Schiel
Chapter 16 Pedal Control for Cars: How to Maintain Speed, Change Speed, and Stop at a Point
Dr Nic Melder
Chapter 17 Bots for Testing
Jonas Gillberg
Chapter 18 Infinite Axis Utility System and Hierarchical State Machines
David Wooldridge
Chapter 19 Tactical Positioning through Environmental Analysis
Michele Ermacora
Chapter 20 Level of Detail: Saving Crucial CPU Time
Bruno Rebaque
Chapter 21 Agent Coordination: Designing a Generalised Coordination Layer
Dr Aitor Santamaría Ibirika
Index
Biography
Paul Roberts is a Lead AI programmer at Sumo Digital. He has a Master’s degree in Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence, where he focused on pathfinding and developed the DRS algorithm and ways to test the believability of generated paths. He has worked for a variety of studios in the UK from Team17, Traveller’s Tales, Activision, and some smaller indie studios. Paul also managed the Games Programming department at Staffordshire University for several years where he oversaw the development of new degree programs that saw a close collaboration with the games industry. Paul has written a number of books – some fiction, others academic – the latest of which is Artificial Intelligence in Games published by CRC Press in 2022.
