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

Exploring more examples of probability in games

In this section, we will explore some of the most common applications of probability and randomness in video games.

Character personalities

Probability and randomness are not only about dice. We can also use a probability distribution to specify an in-game character's specialties. For example, let's pretend we designed a game proposal for a population management game for the local government. We need to address and simulate issues such as taxation versus global talent attraction, and immigration versus social cohesion. We have three types of characters in our proposal – namely, workers, scientists, and professionals. Their efficiencies in performing their particular tasks are defined in the following table:

Figure 3.6 – The efficiency of every character in performing each task

Let's take a look at how we can implement this scenario. Let's say the player needs to build new...