Books on Ai

[Huntkillaz]

anyone here read this one:

"Core Techniques and Algorithms in Game Programming" by Daniel Sanchez-Crespo

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

No... not yet.

The only one I have so far is "Game AI programming wisdom" edited by Steve Rabin.

It was offered to me by an american who was running bot servers and the least I could say is that it has helped me a LOT when redoing my bot almost from scratch. I would advise every AI coder to get it, anyway.

[Huntkillaz]

hey pmb the reason i asked is coz this guy who read it was telling me about "cross breeding" algorithims

and i thought if it was possible then u guys could probably use it to make bot perosnalites for United bot

explains path finding algorithms for games, particularly A*. It also explains ways to make co-operating FSMs like the military units in half-life. Quite interesting: one will throw a grenade, another will provide cover fire while a 3rd unit will charge. If one dies, they will reassign/switch roles.

Another technique for creating good/more intelligent bots mentioned in the book is genetic algorithms. Eg.. for a racing sim, you can create several bots that have different characteristics (eg... speed on the straights, speed while cornering, response time, use of brakes, corner angle etc....). Then "cross breed" some of the better bots. Eg... put them in a virtual race, then cross breed the winner with the one that comes second, every so often cross breeding with a bot that came lower down (to keep the gene pool interesting). Keep doing this over and over and over and you will end up with a very useful variety of bots. Bots that have strengths and weaknesses just like humans.

It mentioned another application in level design. Eg in GTA3/Vice city. You make a few basic building characteristics (such as height, width, colour). Then cross breed them to generate random buildings based on your heuristic. You do this for each "neighbourhood", then on the edges/borders between neighbourhoods - you cross breed between the heuristics of each neighbourhood. Presto - large city generated that isn't boring

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[koraX]

Originally Posted by Pierre-Marie Baty

... I would advise every AI coder to get it, anyway.

If it wasn't so expensive