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

Introducing randomness in Unity

Game designers and developers use randomness in game AI to make a game and its characters more realistic by altering the outcomes of characters' decisions.

Let's take an example of a typical soccer game. One of the rules of a soccer game is to award a direct free kick to a team if one opposing team player commits a foul while trying to retake control of the ball. However, instead of giving a free kick whenever that foul happens, the game developer can apply a probability to reward only 98% of all the fouls with a direct free kick.

After all, in reality, referees make mistakes sometimes. As a result of this simple change, the player usually gets a direct free kick as expected. Still, when that remaining two percent happens, the game provides more emotional feedback to both teams (assuming that you are playing against another human, one player will be happy while the other will complain with the virtual referee).

Of course, randomness...