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 3: Randomness and Probability

In this chapter, we will look at how we can apply the concepts of probability and randomness to game AI. Because we will talk more about the use of randomness in game AI and less about Unity3D, we can apply the concepts of this chapter to any game development middleware or technology framework. We'll be using Mono C# in Unity3D for the demos, but we won't address much on the specific features of the Unity3D engine and the editor itself.

Game developers use probability to add a little uncertainty to the behaviors of AI characters and the wider game world. Randomness makes artificial intelligence look more realistic and natural, and it is the perfect "spice" for all those cases in which we do not need intentional predictability.

In this chapter, we will look at the following topics:

  • Introducing randomness in Unity
  • Learning the basics of probability
  • Exploring more examples of probability in games
  • Creating...