Customer Reviews

AI Game Engine Programming (Game Development Series) (Charles River Media Game Development)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have worked in the game industry for over 10 years, and have also taught classes in game design and programming. This is the first book that I would recommend as intro/intermediate textbook for game AI. It covers all the popular game types (shooters, fighters, sports, and more) and covers all the popular AI methods (state machines, scripting, messaging, many others).

The book uses a very clean, not-too formal, not-too conversational writing style, which is easy to get into and yet remains professional sounding. The included code is clean, usable, and is very representative of real working game code. There's also tons of code snippets from actual released games to show the reader how the concepts have been done out in the wild.

The book also goes into the actual process of creating an AI system for a game project. Only by knowing the type of game you're going to make, the platform, the audience, and a slurry of other factors can you intelligently design a system that will provide your project with everything it needs to succeed.

All in all, a great piece of work from an industry vet.

Also, another review states that "the book fails because it's OpenGL based," which is hilarious in its ignorance and outright falsehood. The reviewer states that "all major gaming houses use DirectX" which is strange, cosidering that the vast majority of all video games are actually not PC based (which is the platform that mostly uses DirectX; Sony and Nintendo obviously are not using Microsoft's libraries, even the XBox uses a very specialized version of DirectX). Plus the fact that the author actually WORKS at Sony, and you can see that the reviewer doesn't really have any clue. The book is about Game AI, and the small bit of OpenGL code in the book is just allowing a quick, cross platform "renderer" for the AI demos. This is not a book on game graphics, and never says that it is.

I really dug this book. It was interesting from many different angles. The breakdown of the various game types into what kinds of AI was most useful was cool, I'd never seen that in an AI book before. In addition to all the working code, the book also had quite a few "samples" of code from real games, so that you could see some of the techniques in use. I really liked the section at the end of each coding chapter where the book talks about "Extensions" meaning ways to take each AI method a step or two further. I also liked the chapter on how to break down a game into a bunch of AI pieces, separating the AI into workable chunks.
Some of the figures were a little janky, but they did get the idea across. Definately doesn't detract from the book, it just seemed like some of the figures were much better then others.
I've been using the little test app included with the book (it's a small openGL version of asteroids) to play with some ideas of my own. Everything's worked very nice so far.
All in all, very good book. Lots of usable code and plenty of real game AI information.

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.

Up to now, I have discovered books that contained AI code samples but out of context for what I needed. The code was specific and merely a part of collections of examples. I finally found this book. It explains all the game genres in terms of AI capability and requirements albeit rather technical in some places that I appreciated as reference. I have not completed the book yet but the contents are allowing me to create my own AI Engine that includes all the types in the book. Just to gain experience and knowledge and add to my portfolio. I strongly recommend this book for both it's content and the CD contents. --Joe

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.

The book is trying to do too much but end up delivering little. There is also not enough code to illustrate the concepts. I would recommend Matt Buckland's AI books if you are actually looking for a practical guide to help you develop your own AI system. If you must buy, check it in the bookstore before you do.

This book is awful, i have read this as well as the earlier book by the same name from this author. This book is 75 percent completely useless filler, not to mention the code examples are overflowing with unimaginable bugs (functions definitions with no return types, basic logic and syntax errors and much worse), obviously they did not bother even trying to compile any of them and you will spend a significant amount of time fixing all these issues. This is not worth a purchase at any price greater than 3 dollars, you are better of searching google for information from various websites if you need a book any alternative is better.

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.

well as i skimmed through the book it was all good. i wish there was more examples. i haven't checked out the cd yet but other than that i still love the book. just one thing though. when i got mines it sort of had a big torn on the book so it looked like two different books flapping together. other than that the book was still in mint condition.

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.