Artificial Intelligence for Games / Edition 2

by Ian Millington, John Funge

Overview

Creating robust artificial intelligence is one of the greatest challenges for game developers, yet the commercial success of a game is often dependent upon the quality of the AI. In this book, Ian Millington brings extensive professional experience to the problem of improving the quality of AI in games. He describes numerous examples from real games and explores the underlying ideas through detailed case studies. He goes further to introduce many techniques little used by developers today. The book's associated web site contains a library of C++ source code and demonstration programs, and a complete commercial source code library of AI algorithms and techniques.

"Artificial Intelligence for Games - 2nd edition" will be highly useful to academics teaching courses on game AI, in that it includes exercises with each chapter. It will also include new and expanded coverage of the following: AI-oriented gameplay; Behavior driven AI; Casual games (puzzle games).

Key Features

* The first comprehensive, professional tutorial and reference to implement true AI in games written by an engineer with extensive industry experience.
* Walks through the entire development process from beginning to end.
* Includes examples from over 100 real games, 10 in-depth case studies, and web site with sample code.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780123747310
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/20/2009
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	896
Product dimensions:	7.70(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Ian Millington is a partner of IPR Ventures, a consulting company developing next-generation AI technologies for entertainment, modeling, and simulation. Previously he founded Mindlathe Ltd, the largest specialist AI middleware company in computer games, working with on a huge range of game genres and technologies. He has a long background in AI, including PhD research in complexity theory and natural computing. He has published academic and professional papers and articles on topics ranging from paleontology to hypertext.

Table of Contents

AI and Games
Introduction
What Is AI?
Model of Game AI
Algorithms, Data Structures, and Representations
On the Website
Layout of the Book
Game AI
The Complexity Fallacy
The Kind of AI in Games
Speed and Memory
The AI Engine
Techniques
Movement
The Basics of Movement Algorithms
Kinematic Movement Algorithms
Steering Behaviors
Combining Steering Behaviors
Predicting Physics
Jumping
Coordinated Movement
Motor Control
Movement in the Third Dimension
Pathfinding
The Pathfinding Graph
Dijkstra
A*
World Representations
Improving on A*
Hierarchical Pathfinding
Other Ideas in Pathfinding
Continuous Time Pathfinding
Movement Planning
Decision Making
Overview of Decision Making
Decision Trees
State Machines
Behavior Trees
Fuzzy Logic
Markov Systems
Goal-Oriented Behavior
Rule-Based Systems
Blackboard Architectures
Scripting
Action Execution
Tactical and Strategic AI
Waypoint Tactics
Tactical Analyses
Tactical Pathfinding
Coordinated Action
Learning
Learning Basics
Parameter Modification
Action Prediction
Decision Learning
Naive Bayes Classifiers
Decision Tree Learning
Reinforcement Learning
Artificial Neural Networks
Board Games
Game Theory
Minimaxing
Transposition Tables and Memory
Memory-Enhanced Test Algorithms
Opening Books and Other Set Plays
Further Optimizations
Turn-Based Strategy Games

Supporting Technologies
Execution Management
Scheduling
Anytime Algorithms
Level of Detail
World Interfacing
Communication
Getting Knowledge Efficiently
Event Managers
Polling Stations
Sense Management
Tools and Content Creation
Knowledge for Pathfinding and Waypoint Tactics
Knowledge for Movement
Knowledge for Decision Making
The Toolchain
Designing Game AI
Designing Game AI
The Design
Shooters
Driving
Real-Time Strategy
Sports
Turn-Based Strategy Games
AI-Based Game Genres
Teaching Characters
Flocking and Herding Games
Appendix
Books, Periodicals, and Papers
Games

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Ian Millington's book is a comprehensive reference to the most widely used techniques in game AI today. Any game developer working on AI will learn something from this book, and game producers should make sure their AI programmers have a copy." -Dr. Ian Lane Davis, Mad Doc Software

Editorial Reviews

"Ian Millington's book is a comprehensive reference to the most widely used techniques in game AI today. Any game developer working on AI will learn something from this book, and game producers should make sure their AI programmers have a copy." -Dr. Ian Lane Davis, Mad Doc Software

From the Publisher