Book Image

Unity 2017 Game AI Programming - Third Edition - Third Edition

Book Image

Unity 2017 Game AI Programming - Third Edition - Third Edition

Overview of this book

Unity 2017 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. This third edition with Unity will help you break down Artificial Intelligence into simple concepts to give you 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. Further on you will learn to distinguish the state machine pattern and implement one of your own. This is 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'll learn how to use Unity's built-in NavMesh feature and implement your own A* pathfinding system. You will then learn how to implement simple flocks and crowd's dynamics, key AI concepts. Moving on, you will learn how to implement a behavior tree through a game-focused example. Lastly, you'll combine fuzzy logic concepts with state machines and apply all the concepts in the book to build a simple tank game.
Table of Contents (10 chapters)

The Basics of AI in Games

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a rich and complex topic. At first glance, it can seem intimidating. The uses for it are diverse, ranging from robotics to statistics and to (more relevantly for us) entertainment, more specifically, video games. Our goal in this book will be to demystify the subject by breaking down the usage of AI into relatable, applicable solutions, and to provide accessible examples that illustrate the concepts in ways that cut through the noise and go straight for the core ideas. This book will lead you head first into the world of AI, and will introduce you to the most important concepts to start you on your AI journey.

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 AI patterns in Unity.