Book Image

Unity Artificial Intelligence Programming - Fifth Edition

By : Dr. Davide Aversa
Book Image

Unity Artificial Intelligence Programming - Fifth Edition

By: Dr. Davide Aversa

Overview of this book

Developing artificial intelligence (AI) for game characters in Unity has never been easier. Unity provides game and app developers with a variety of tools to implement AI, from basic techniques to cutting-edge machine learning-powered agents. Leveraging these tools via Unity's API or built-in features allows limitless possibilities when it comes to creating game worlds and characters. The updated fifth edition of Unity Artificial Intelligence Programming starts by breaking down AI into simple concepts. Using a variety of examples, the book then takes those concepts and walks you through actual implementations designed to highlight key concepts and features related to game AI in Unity. As you progress, you’ll learn how to implement a finite state machine (FSM) to determine how your AI behaves, apply probability and randomness to make games less predictable, and implement a basic sensory system. Later, you’ll understand how to set up a game map with a navigation mesh, incorporate movement through techniques such as A* pathfinding, and provide characters with decision-making abilities using behavior trees. By the end of this Unity book, you’ll have the skills you need to bring together all the concepts and practical lessons you’ve learned to build an impressive vehicle battle game.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
1
Part 1:Basic AI
6
Part 2:Movement and Navigation
11
Part 3:Advanced AI

Developing the basic game structure

For this demo, we will write an AI for the free tutorial game TANKS!. You can download the base game from Unity Asset Store (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/essentials/tutorial-projects/tanks-tutorial-46209), or follow along with the version included in the Chapter 12 folder of this book's GitHub repository. The version included with this book has the advantage of already having been tested for Unity 2022.

In either case, the game is the same. When we start the game, we see a pleasant desert scenario, with rocks, structures, palm trees, and so on. Using the keyboard, we should be able to control the blue tank (the tank moves with W, A, S, and D and shoots with the Spacebar).

The following screenshot shows the basic structure of the game:

Figure 12.1 – Basic hierarchy of the game

The first time you start with an existing project, spend as much time as you can familiarizing yourself with the game structure...