Game Ai Uncovered: Vol 5

Game AI Uncovered: Volume Five continues the series with another collection of chapters from twenty‑three of the top game AI professionals and researchers from around the world. Each chapter includes wisdom, ideas, tips, and tricks that were used in the development of video games.

The techniques discussed in these pages cover the underlying development of a wide array of published titles, including Lords of the Fallen, Assassin’s Creed Nexus, Soccer Kids, Luna Abyss, Race Driver: Grid, Speedball, Dirt, Psychonauts 2, F1, and Ara: History Untold.

Contained within this volume are insights that cover a host of different areas within game AI, including long‑term planning, AI directors, smart objects, intelligent cover, NPC agitation, utility AI, dynamic enemy behaviour, level‑of‑detail AI, creating clean navigation data, driver assists, animal behaviours, boss behaviours, recast navigation, utility AI, vector fields, Monte Carlo tree search, and pathfinding. Beginners in the field of game AI, along with professional developers, will find a wealth of knowledge that will not only help in the development of their own games but will spark ideas for new approaches.

This volume includes chapters written by Eric Alzheimer, Dr. Vicky Bloom, Andy Brown, William Chambers, Laurent Couvidou, Philip Dunstan, Matt Eland, Dr. Dominik Gotojuch, David Guzman, Slavomir Krbyla, Carl Viktor Benjamin Lundström, Dr. Nic Melder, David Soler Bartomeu, Sarat Rallabandi, Bruno Rebaque, John Reynolds, Matthew Reynolds, Lisa Ridley, Paul Roberts, Mateo Saldivar, Rafal Tyl, Rebecca Vessal, and James Vickers.

Paul Roberts is a Senior Lecturer and Course Lead for BSc (Hons) Computer Games Programming at the University of Staffordshire. Prior to this he was Technical Director at his own independent game studio Grinning Cat. He has worked in a variety of Principal/Lead AI Programmer roles for a range of studios in the UK including Sumo Digital, Team17, Traveller’s Tales, Activision, and some smaller indie studios. Paul has a Master’s by Research in Computer Science (with Artificial Intelligence), which focused on pathfinding, the development of the DRS algorithm and ways to test the believability of generated paths. Paul set up the GameAI Discord channel that has brought together hundreds of game AI professionals, where approaches are shared and ideas are discussed. He has recently started the GameAIUncovered YouTube channel, which explains how different game AI concepts work, has written several books, some fiction, others academic, and is the editor for this Game AI Uncovered series.