Game AI Pro 1: Collected Wisdom of Game AI Professionals

Successful games merge art and technology in truly unique ways. Fused under tight production deadlines and strict performance requirements, shaped by demanding player expectations, games are among the most complex software projects created today. Game AI Pro: Collected Wisdom of Game AI Professionals covers both the art and the technology of game AI. Nothing covered is theory or guesswork. The book brings together the accumulated wisdom, cutting-edge ideas, and clever tricks and techniques of 54 of today s top game AI professionals. Some chapters present techniques that have been developed and passed down within the community for years while others discuss the most exciting new research and ideas from today s most innovative games. The book includes core algorithms that you ll need to succeed, such as behavior trees, utility theory, spatial representation, path planning, motion control, and tactical reasoning. It also describes tricks and techniques that will truly bring your game to life, including perception systems, social modeling, smart camera systems, player prediction, and even an AI sound designer. Throughout, the book discusses the optimizations and performance enhancements that enable your game to run while maintaining 60 frames per second." Front Cover 1 Contents 7 Preface 13 Web Materials 15 Acknowledgments 17 The Editors 19 The Contributors 21 Chapter 1: What Is Game AI? 33 Chapter 2: Informing Game AI through the Study of Neurology 41 Chapter 3: Advanced Randomness Techniques for Game AI : Gaussian Randomness, Filtered Randomness, and Perlin Noise 59 Chapter 4: Behavior Selection Algorithms : An Overview 77 Chapter 5: Structural Architecture—Common Tricks of the Trade 91 Chapter 6: The Behavior Tree Starter Kit 103 Chapter 7: Real-World Behavior Trees in Script 123 Chapter 8: Simulating Behavior Trees : A Behavior Tree/Planner Hybrid Approach 129 Chapter 9: An Introduction to Utility Theory 143 Chapter 10: Building Utility Decisions into Your Existing Behavior Tree 157 Chapter 11: Reactivity and Deliberation in Decision-Making Systems 167 Chapter 12: Exploring HTN Planners through Example 179 Chapter 13: Hierarchical Plan-Space Planning for Multi-unit Combat Maneuvers 199 Chapter 14: Phenomenal AI Level-of-Detail Control with the LOD Trader 215 Chapter 15: Runtime Compiled C++ for Rapid AI Development 231 Chapter 16: Plumbing the Forbidden Depths : Scripting and AI 249 Chapter 17: Pathfinding Architecture Optimizations 271 Chapter 18: Choosing a Search Space Representation 283 Chapter 19: Creating High-Order Navigation Meshes through Iterative Wavefront Edge Expansions 289 Chapter 20: Precomputed Pathfinding for Large and Detailed Worlds on MMO Servers 299 Chapter 21: Techniques for Formation Movement Using Steering Circles 319 Chapter 22: Collision Avoidance for Preplanned Locomotion 327 Chapter 23: Crowd Pathfinding and Steering Using Flow Field Tiles 337 Chapter 24: Efficient Crowd Simulation for Mobile Games 347 Chapter 25: Animation-Driven Locomotion with Locomotion Planning 355 Chapter 26: Tactical Position Selection : An Architecture and Query Language 367 Chapter 27: Tactical Pathfinding on a NavMesh 391 Chapter 28: Beyond the Kung-Fu Circle : A Flexible System for Managing NPC Attacks 399 Chapter 29: Hierarchical AI for Multiplayer Bots in Killzone 3 407 Chapter 30: Using Neural Networks to Control Agent Threat Response 421 Chapter 31: Crytek’s Target Tracks Perception System 433 Chapter 32: How to Catch a Ninja : NPC Awareness in a 2D Stealth Platformer 443 Chapter 33: Asking the Environment Smart Questions 453 Chapter 34: A Simple and Robust Knowledge Representation System 463 Chapter 35: A Simple and Practical Social Dynamics System 471 Chapter 36: Breathing Life into Your Background Characters 481 Chapter 37: Alibi Generation : Fooling All the Players All the Time 489 Chapter 38: An Architecture Overview for AI in Racing Games 501 Chapter 39: Representing and Driving a Race Track for AI Controlled Vehicles 511 Chapter 40: Racing Vehicle Control Systems using PID Controllers 521 Chapter 41: The Heat Vision System for Racing AI : A Novel Way to Determine Optimal Track Positioning 531 Chapter 42: A Rubber-Banding System for Gameplay and Race Management 537 Chapter 43: An Architecture for Character-Rich Social Simulation 545 Chapter 44: A Control-Based Architecture for Animal Behavior 561 Chapter 45: Introduction to GPGPU for AI 569 Chapter 46: Creating Dynamic Soundscapes Using an Artificial Sound Designer 579 Chapter 47: Tips and Tricks for a Robust Third-Person Camera System 587 Chapter 48: Implementing N-Grams for Player Prediction, Procedural Generation, and Stylized AI 597 Back Cover 611 Game AI Pro 2: Collected Wisdom of Game AI Professionals presents cutting-edge game artificial intelligence (AI) techniques primarily from game developers of shipped commercial games and, to a minor extent, from academia. Topics covered include AI architectures, steering and path finding, tactics/strategy, genre-specific techniques, gesture recognition, and learning techniques. The book acts as a toolbox of techniques that can be applied to many common and not-so-common situations-techniques have largely been proven in shipped commercial games. The book is written in a technical style that is