Book Image

Unity AI Game Programming - Second Edition

By : Raymundo Barrera, Aung Sithu Kyaw, Clifford Peters, Thet Naing Swe
Book Image

Unity AI Game Programming - Second Edition

By: Raymundo Barrera, Aung Sithu Kyaw, Clifford Peters, Thet Naing Swe

Overview of this book

<p>Unity 5 provides game and app developers with a variety of tools to implement artificial intelligence. Leveraging these tools via Unity’s API or built-in features allows limitless possibilities when it comes to creating your game’s worlds and characters. Whether you are developing traditional, serious, educational, or any other kind of game, understanding how to apply artificial intelligence can take the fun-factor to the next level!</p> <p>This book helps you break down artificial intelligence into simple concepts to give the reader a fundamental understanding of the topic to build upon. 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 5. Along the way, several tips and tricks are included to make the development of your own AI easier and more efficient.</p> <p>Starting from covering the basic essential concepts to form a base for the later chapters in the book, you will learn to distinguish the state machine pattern along with implementing your own. This will be followed by learning how to implement a basic sensory system for your AI agent and coupling it with a finite state machine (FSM). Next you will be taught how to use Unity’s built-in NavMesh feature and implement your own A* pathfinding system. Then you will learn how to implement simple flocks and crowd’s dynamics, the key AI concepts. Then moving on you will learn how a behavior tree works and its implementation. Next you will learn adding layer of realism by combining fuzzy logic concepts with state machines. Lastly, you learn applying all the concepts in the book by combining them in a simple tank game.</p>
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Unity AI Game Programming Second Edition
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 1. The Basics of AI in Games

Artificial Intelligence (AI), in general, is a vast, deep, and intimidating topic. The uses for it are diverse, ranging from robotics, to statistics, to (more relevantly to us) entertainment, and more specifically, video games. Our goal will be to demystify the subject by breaking down the use of AI into relatable, applicable solutions, and to provide accessible examples that illustrate the concepts in the ways that cut through the noise and go straight for the core ideas.

This chapter will give you a little background on AI in academics, traditional domains, and game-specific applications. Here are the topics we'll cover:

  • Exploring how the application and implementation of AI in games is different from other domains

  • Looking at the special requirements for AI in games

  • Looking at the basic AI patterns used in games

This chapter will serve as a reference for later chapters, where we'll implement the AI patterns in Unity.