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

Summary

In this chapter, we learned how to implement the A* pathfinding algorithm in Unity3D. First, we implemented our own A* pathfinding class, grid representation class, priority queue class, and node class. Finally, we used debug draw functionalities to visualize the grid and path information.

In later chapters, we will see that thanks to Unity3D's NavMesh and NavAgent features, it may not be necessary for you to implement a custom pathfinding algorithm on your own.

Nonetheless, understanding a basic pathfinding algorithm gives you a better foundation for getting to grips with many other advanced pathfinding techniques.

In the next chapter, we will extend the idea behind the A* algorithm to a more complex world representation: navigation meshes.