Book Image

Hands-On Artificial Intelligence with Unreal Engine

By : Francesco Sapio
5 (1)
Book Image

Hands-On Artificial Intelligence with Unreal Engine

5 (1)
By: Francesco Sapio

Overview of this book

Learning how to apply artificial intelligence ( AI ) is crucial and can take the fun factor to the next level, whether you're developing a traditional, educational, or any other kind of game. If you want to use AI to extend the life of your games and make them challenging and more interesting, this book is for you. The book starts by breaking down AI into simple concepts to get a fundamental understanding of it. Using a variety of examples, you will work through actual implementations designed to highlight key concepts and features related to game AI in UE4. You will learn to work through the built-in AI framework in order to build believable characters for every game genre (including RPG, Strategic, Platform, FPS, Simulation, Arcade, and Educational). You will learn to configure the Navigation, Environmental Querying, and Perception systems for your AI agents and couple these with Behavior Trees, all accompanied with practical examples. You will also explore how the engine handles dynamic crowds. In the concluding chapters, you will learn how to profile, visualize, and debug your AI systems to correct the AI logic and increase performance. By the end of the book, your AI knowledge of the built-in AI system in Unreal will be deep and comprehensive, allowing you to build powerful AI agents within your projects.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: The Unreal Framework
9
Section 2: Designing and Implementing Behavior Trees
13
Section 3: Debugging Methods
14
Debugging Methods for AI - Logging

The Expected Behavior

The first step in Designing a Behavior Tree is to pin down the Expected Behavior we would like to see in our character. This seems like a simple phase, but trying to take all the cases into consideration isn't trivial. However, it will avoid many headaches later on.

While writing down the Expected Behavior, try to be as specific as possible. If something is unclear, try to rephrase it. The sentences that you use should be short and always add information. Don't be scared if you have sentences starting with "In this case…" or "If…", because it will just mean that you are taking all the different possibilities into consideration. Once you have written it, read it out loud, maybe to a friend, and ask him/her if he/she clearly understands its meaning.

This is my attempt of describing the behavior we are going to implement...