Kenny77, I do not have the AI Game Programming wisdom book, so I can't tell you. You can find a lot of excellent ressources about state machine and steering behaviors by using google. We pointed you in the right direction, the rest is up to you!

rherm23: if you want to start your NPC AI, state machines are a good start. With them and a bit of creativity, you can create very believable (is somewhat predictable) NPCs.

AI Game Programming Wisdom is a great book, just make sure you are able to take theory and make it work in your code: it doesn't just walk you through step by step with code. Conceptually, though, the book is fascinating and touches on all aspects of AI.

Also, check out Craig W. Reynolds' website for some great AI articles.

I have used "Artificial intelligence: A modern approach" in a course I took and its an excellent beginning resource from a general AI standpoint. It's an academic study though so it gets a bit dry at times.

From what I've read from "AI programming Wisdom" its based more directly on practical topics and specific applications.


I suggest getting them both. The former will supply you with the background to fully understand the latter.

The AI Game Programming Wisdom series is great, but don't forget that the Game Programming Gems series still has articles on AI.

I've also found O'Reilly's AI For Game Developers helpful; That book's fuzzy logic examples were the best I found for getting started.

There's also AI Application Programming, which is a Charles River Media book but not targeted at game applications specifically. It has a layout similar to their game programming books and covers a wide range of topics.

[Edited by - The_Incubator on June 14, 2006 2:29:51 PM]

Quote: Original post by Kenny77
Will the book AI Game Programming wisdom teach me all or alot of what I need to know, because I don't like buying lots of books on the same subject only to learn a few new thins each time.

AI Game Programming Wisdom is a collection of many articles by different authors, so the style isn't entirely consistent throughout the book. While it is an excellent book IMO, I don't think it would suit your needs based on your posts in this thread because it requires some foundation knowledge and/or the willingness and ability to look things up for yourself when you find a gap between your knowledge and what it's trying to present.