Hiya Well, im not a total newbie to ai, I know what the A* algo is and such and Ive made basic AI for little games, but I have never tried to make realistic AI. Im already going to be using Lua for levels, particle effects, etc so im going to use it for AI as well. What all does ai intail other then pathfinding? Basic AI (not ai actually).. if(distance from player is less then x amount) direction = random if(distance from player is greater then x amount) wonder around aimlessly. if(near fire) walk away... etc. I quess this is in a way what game AI is, but of course a lot more advanced Ive heard that a lot of games such as return to castle wolfinstein would have completely rediculas ai if it wasn''t for scripting. Ok, well semi newbie, well heck, newbie please shed some light on this lost soul. lol.

let''s see other things in the world of AI excluding pathfinding is how the entities make their decisions in the world you have created.

There''s a bunch of AI theories that allow for the making of decisions for entities. it is always good in some peoples, including my, opinion to use fuzzzy logic on the decisions that the code makes in order to make it seem more realistic.

If you want a really difficult but fun ai (non-pathe finding) concept to play with, there''s brain emulation. Which uses simulated neuron impulses in a combination of updates and weights based on actions in order to actualy make the ai slowly learn during the game and act differently in situations by acting on and changing the wieghts within all of their neurons. It''s a fun concept to code, but a lengthy and difficult one to actualy make work really well (the best example of it is Black & White), I think they spent a good slice of time working on the AI(kudos to them). :-)

~Alexei Andreyevitch Kozlenok

Artificial Intelligence entails any decision that the agents in the game would make given a set of criteria.

Look at your game. Find your agents. Decide what they should do. Figure out how YOU would make your decisions. Code something that represents that thought process. Rinse and repeat.

Dave Mark - President and Lead Designer
Intrinsic Algorithm - "Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"