Artificial Intelligence for Games. Series in Interactive 3D Technology
Mark Levene · The Computer Journal · 2006
The rapid advances in computer technology have, on the one hand, freed up game computing resources traditionally tied up in graphics, and, on the other, put extra demands on the computer games industry as the expectation of users for more realistic and believable non-player characters (NPCs) has been steadily rising. This and the stiff competition within the computer games industry have resulted in larger integration of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques within game engines to the degree that many games are now marketed with AI being one of their main components. In the introduction, the author states that ‘Artificial intelligence is about making computers able to perform the thinking tasks that humans and animals are capable of’. He makes it clear that the book is about the engineering side of AI, i.e. the algorithms and heuristics that produce apparent intelligent behaviour in NPCs, rather than the philosophical and psychological sides of...