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

Chapter 2: Finite State Machines

In this chapter, we'll learn how to implement a Finite State Machine (FSM) in a Unity3D game by studying the simple tank game-mechanic example that comes with this book.

In our game, the player controls a tank. The enemy tanks move around the scene, following four waypoints. Once the player's tank enters the vision range of the enemy tanks, they start chasing it; then, once they are close enough to attack, they'll start shooting at our player's tank.

To control the AI of our enemy tanks, we use an FSM. First, we'll use simple switch statements to implement our tank AI states. Then, we'll use a more complex and engineered FSM framework that will allow us greater flexibility in designing the character's FSM.

The topics we will be covering in this chapter are the following:

  • Implementing the player's tank
  • Implementing a bullet class
  • Setting up waypoints
  • Creating the abstract FSM class...