| AI Game Engine Programming (Game Development Series) |  | Author: Brian Schwab
Publisher: Charles River Media
List Price: $49.95
Buy New: $30.00
as of 9/8/2010 04:10 MST details
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Seller: Chrystal Tran
Rating:  11 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 594
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 1584503440
Dewey Decimal Number: 794.81526
UPC: 619587034409
EAN: 9781584503446
ASIN: 1584503440
Publication Date: September 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
AI Game Engine Programming provides game developers with the tools and wisdom necessary to create modern game AI engines. It takes programmers from theory to actual game development, with usable code frameworks designed to go beyond merely detailing how a technique might be used. In addition, it surveys the capabilities of the different techniques used. In addition, it surveys the capabilities of the different techniques used in some current AI engines, and covers common pitfalls, design considerations, and optimizations. If you're having difficulty determining which techniques to use, or looking for working code best suited to a particular game, you'll find the answers here. You'll also find a clean, usable interface for a variety of game AI techniques with an emphasis on primary decision-making paradigms. The book provides insightful coverage of a variety of subjects important to AI engine development, and ties them together masterfully to form an indispensable reference. Part I provides an overall look at game AI, covers the basic terminology used in the book, reviews underlying concepts of game AI, and dissects the parts of a game AI engine. Part II covers specific game genres (RPG, TRS, FTPS, Shooter, Sports, Racing, Strategy, Adventure, Fighting, Platform, and miscellaneous) and explains how they use different AU paradigms. It also covers the move common solutions to the problems posed by each genre. Some of the problems include, dealing with direct AI and human interactions, using scripting languages appropriately, and general intelligence/entertainment balancing. Part III provides the actual code implementations for the basic AI techniques such as finite state machines, fuzzy state machines, message board systems, scripted systems, and location-based information systems. And, Part IV covers the move advanced techniques, including genetic algorithms, neural networks, artificial life, planning algorithms, and decision trees. The book concludes with Part V, which looks at "real game AI development." The areas covered here focus on how distributed AI works as an overall paradigm that can help with the organization of any AI engine. There is also coverage of common AI development, debugging and tuning, and the future of AI. After reading this book you'll have traveled through most of the huge landscape of knowledge that a game AI programmer faces, and you'll be prepared to master it! Key Feature:
* Provides a detailed guide for programmers interested in creating an AI engine for and game genre
* Breaks down AI elements and solutions by genre, and provides concrete examples from popular games
* Includes code implementations for both basic and complex AI techniques
* Provides suggestions for how the AI systems discussed can be extended or optimized for space, speed, and other limitations
* Explains distributed AI as a paradigm that can help with the organization of almost any AI engine On the CD-ROM
The CD-ROM includes all of the source code compiled using Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, along with the compiled binaries; the GLUT wrapper for OpenGL library, and the Lua language library; useful bookmarks; and all the figures from the book. System Requirements: Pentium 3.1 GHz or better, GeoForce Go or 3 graphics card or better, Windows (ME, 2000, or XP). The demonstration programs are written in Microsoft Visual C++ under the Windows platform, but only rendering is platform specific. The rendering API used is the GLUT extension to Open GL.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
 Misses several key methods February 24, 2010
Alvaro Begue-aguado (Stony Brook, NY United States)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a book from which I am learning very little. There is a lot of fluff and very little real information.
Although it does cover all the main genres, the treatment is not very thorough. In particular, there are several popular methods and key ideas that are completely missing from the book. For instance, Behavior Trees and utility functions are not even mentioned.
The chapter on classic games devotes less than two pages to alpha-beta search, which means it's useless. The author doesn't seem to know about Monte Carlo methods applied to board games (something that has revolutionized computer go in the last 3 years and which could be applied to a large class of games).
On the other hand, Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms get their own chapters, even though it's hard to find any applications for them in Game AI.
In my opinion the book misses most of the things it should talk about, and this is particularly unforgivable in such a thick book.
 Good book for beginning AI programming June 10, 2009
Kristjan
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a good book if you are a relatively experienced programmer who is beginning game programming (like me) or if you are already somewhat experienced in basic game development and simply want to improve your AI knowledge. The book covers loads of different AI patterns for all sorts of different situations. Some of these I was familiar with such as Finite State Machines but there were plenty of others that I hadn't taken a look at before but which am now using a lot (thanks to this book) such as Fuzzy State Machines. I didn't really have any trouble with the graphics code being written in OpenGL which is my library of choice since I do a lot of work on non-Microsoft systems. If you are also in the process of learning OpenGL, for example because you want to write games software for mobile platforms such as the iPhone/iPod or Android, this is actually a nice bonus. Mind you the Apple products at least use OpenGL ES which differs slightly from OpenGL but this doesn't detract from the value of the sample OpenGL code provided here. I like the way the author demonstrates his teachings with quite comprehensive example projects unlike some other programming books I have read where the authors provided a lot less code. In the end there are few things that you learn from as well as reading raw sources. Quite a lot of the source code is written in C++ but then again I didn't buy the book for C++ lessons, I bought it for the design patterns it covers and these are easily implemented in other languages. The one criticism I have of this book is that after only a few months of use the binding is already splitting.
 Rambling and repetitive, merely an overview, basic February 22, 2009
Brian Livingston (Seattle, WA)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
For those of us seeking in depth coverage of implementation details concerning AI Game Engine programming, this is not the book. The section on game genres contained a LOT of repetive information rather than being layed out in a building block fashion. The concept of the genre section has debatable value as is and could have been more succintly assembled in an indexed table or a bulletpointed list and did not merit so many pages. I was looking for a book that contained in-depth treatment of modern AI Game Engine topics such as: Nav-meshes, GOAP and interruptable algorithms. The sections on genetic algorithms and neural networks are acedemic and throw-away. On the flip-side if you are completely new to the topic and don't mind reading the same material over and over there is a certain amount of value relayed via snippets of the author's experiences, albeit more relevant 10-15 years ago. Therefore the material in this book is mostly acedemic with a sprinkling of experience thrown in but the material has better treatment in the book: Artificial Intelligence for Games which is more expensive and fewer pages but a better value as an introductory text in my opinion.
All around great book on the subject September 7, 2005
Anthony (New York)
21 out of 24 found this review helpful
This book was quite revealing to me. It is basically split into two halves: the first part talks about specific game types and how developers have traditionally used AI systems for each, and the second part which covers the actual code implementations for these systems.
I loved the in depth game section. It was really interesting to find out exactly which techniques are used the the various games. He even includes many examples from real life games. It made thinking about creating these systems for myself seem much more doable.
As far as code goes, there's a ton of it. Both working game code for each type of AI system he's trying to explain, as well as code from real games or internet demos. I found his code clean and professionally written. I have already used code from three different chapters as a launching point for my own projects.
I saw a reference in another review for Programming AI by Example. I also own that book and I must say I liked this one better. Matt's book is good, don't get me wrong. But there's a whole chapter on math basics (which I didn't need), another chapter on steering behaviors (all of the information and code for which I can get directly from Craig Reynold's OpenSteer project online) and then specific chapters detailing Matt's own AI engine, which is called Raven (nothing really mind blowing, and I'd rather code my own to get the concepts solid).
Brian's book, on the other hand, was more of a toolbox of code that I can assemble into whatever shapes I need. Not too much code, and definately not too little. One of the reviewers noted that there's "not enough code to illustrate the concepts"? Sounds to me like somebody just wants the entire thing done for him. I looked at the other books that guy has reviewed, and he absolutely loved Andre LaMothe's "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus". Ha. That book is for total beginners, and was just a collection and republishing of some of his earlier, outdated books. He even says "I want to write like him".
I'm really looking forward to anything else Brian might write in the future. I have found so many useful nuggets of information from this book. Great job.
No real meat and potatoes, but many appetizers. August 22, 2005
Babayada (New Orleans, LA)
27 out of 35 found this review helpful
First, I would like to address the comment a reviewer made about the book being no good because it utilizes OpenGL.
This is a book on AI, the AI concepts and code can be implemented using any rendering API (or none at all) to visualize their activity. OpenGL and DirectX have as much to do with AI as car engine maintenance has to do with cooking a good lobster neuberg. The fact that the reviewer cannot make this distinction is sadly telling. Some people want all the work done for them. If you are that type, don't bother with programming.
Second, the reviewer who said that this book is too scattered is right. It tries to do too many things and ends up doing none of them extremely well. It does, however, have a few good code samples and can be used as an introductory book on the subject.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
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