Game AI Uncovered Focus by Roberts, Paul;

Short description:

Contained within these pages are overviews and insights covering a host of different game character AI techniques, including defining the context within which a character exists and how to test for believability, utility AI, animation driven behaviour, simulating social norms, environmental cues, boss behaviour, and dumbing down AI.

Long description:

Paul Roberts’ Game AI Uncovered Focus: Character AI brings together twenty chapters from the first six volumes of the Game AI Uncovered series into a handy single volume that focuses on the many different aspects of character AI in game development.

The techniques covered in these pages cover the underlying development of a wide array of published titles, including City of Gangsters, The Survivalists, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, The Persistence, Alpha Beta Gunner, Luna Abyss, Assassin’s Creed Nexus, The Sims, Zoo Tycoon, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Alien Isolation.

Contained within these pages are overviews and insights covering a host of different game character AI techniques, including defining the context within which a character exists and how to test for believability, utility AI, animation‑driven behaviour, buddy AI, simulating social norms, simulating player behaviour, environmental cues, boss behaviour, and dumbing down AI.

Beginners to the area of game AI, along with professional developers, will find a wealth of knowledge that will not only help in the development of your own games but also spark ideas for new approaches.

This anthology includes chapters written by Dr Nuno Vicente Barreto, Dr Vicky Bloom, Richard Bull, Michele Condò, Sarah Cook, Steven Dalton, Dale Green, Johan Holthausen, Tobias Karlsson, Vincent Breton Kochanowski, Dr Fernando Penousal Machado, Alessia Nigretti, John Reynolds, Matthew Reynolds, Lisa Ridley, Paul Roberts, Dr Licínio Roque, Huw Talliss, Dr Tommy Thompson, David Wooldridge, and Dr Robert Zubek.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 Simulation of Social Norms in City of Gangsters
Chapter 2 Character Believability
Chapter 3 Monkey Business: NPC Player Imitation in Team17’s The Survivalists
Chapter 4 Not All AIs are Made the Same
Chapter 5 Stitching It Together The Enemies of Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Chapter 6 Creating Characters Using Components
Chapter 7 NPCs That Feel Alive: Achieving Variety and Complexity with Limited Resources
Chapter 8 Utility AI and Emergent Gameplay: Transforming Game Worlds
Chapter 9 Agitation System in Assassin’s Creed Nexus
Chapter 10 Systemic vs Scripted
Chapter 11 Animation‑Driven Behaviour
Chapter 12 Combining Behaviour and Animation Systems in Luna Abyss
Chapter 13 Creating Boss Behaviours in Luna Abyss
Chapter 14 Using Voxels for Environmental Cues
Chapter 15 N‑Gram for Any Direction Prediction in VR
Chapter 16 Character Utility Behaviour Graph
Chapter 17 The Creature Believability Scale
Chapter 18 Building a Buddy: Choosing the Right Brain
Chapter 19 Dumbing Down AI: The Art of Making Intelligence Stupid
Chapter 20 A Beginner’s Guide to AI Character Design