Quote: Original post by auv_zh

Quote: Original post by fup
I guess they are the two ends of the spectrum. On average I would estimate that most games developed (across all platforms) have 1 or less dedicated AI programmer.

Is that because of lack of resources, poor AI for the buck, no need for AI at all or what?

thanks!
auv_zh

Unfortunately, it seems AI still isnt considered something important. Even if you have the most awesome AI product, you'll first need to convince product managers that AI is something worth spending time, processing power and money on.

Quote: Original post by Steadtler
Unfortunately, it seems AI still isnt considered something important. Even if you have the most awesome AI product, you'll first need to convince product managers that AI is something worth spending time, processing power and money on.

Our team just started working with Quest3D on demos to show the kind of effects it is possible to get by using cutting-edge AI algorithms. I'm trying to go for a so to say WYSIWYG approach to marketing: seeing is believing (and, hopefully, believing is purchasing!)


auv_zh

Quote: Original post by Steadtler
Unfortunately, it seems AI still isnt considered something important. Even if you have the most awesome AI product, you'll first need to convince product managers that AI is something worth spending time, processing power and money on.

That's becomming less true in nextGen titles. I've been seeing teams of 2 AI dudes regularly, and occasionally 2.5 or 3. AI is becomming one of the "seperating" features in games.

The real problem with middleware packages/services is that AI is always highly tied to the game's specific design. Yes, you see a lot of FPS middleware out there, but it never quite gets it right and in the end takes almost as much time to use as would writing it from scratch. At the end of the day, design wants really good control of the AI and wants the ability to make pretty big design changes with as little hassle as possible. Trying to make big changes in how you're using a middleware package can be a lot harded than making big changes in a system you wrote yourself.

-me