Free to use release of Kythera AI gives independent developers instant access to AAA-quality toolset

Kythera AI Gem, part of Linux Foundation’s O3DE project, makes the most comprehensive AI free to use with the new open-source engine.

EDINBURGH, Scotland, July 27th, 2021 – Kythera AI, known for its advanced, comprehensive AI middleware for video games, has begun publicly distributing its AI middleware as a Gem with the Linux Foundation’s new Open3D game engine (O3DE).

Previously only available to commercial clients, Kythera AI will now distribute their toolset as a binary Gem packaged with O3DE, becoming the first middleware provider to make its advanced AI solution available to any developer at any level - free for non-commercial use, with royalty and upfront licensing available for commercial products over a certain threshold.

Kythera AI consists of a broad range of AI tools that have been produced hand in glove with veteran developers. Tools include an intuitive behaviour tree system and solutions for navigation of the ground and sky, which aims to solve the more time-consuming challenges for developers. Independent studios, who might previously have been limited by budget and resources, will now be able to develop games with AI as complex and engaging as that in AAA titles.

"We’re big fans of Kythera AI and their toolset, including behaviour trees, navigation, and automatic level markup,” remarked Lloyd Tullues, CTO of Silicon-Valley-backed game studio Carbonated Inc, who, like Kythera AI, are founder members of the Open 3D Foundation. “Knowing that Kythera will be available with O3DE from the start is super exciting: developers from all over the world will now be able to leverage the same tools we’ve relied upon to create absolutely amazing experiences for their players."

More recent additions to Kythera AI’s commercial feature set will also be added to the Gem shortly, including automatic markup of navigation links and cover rails, as well as the 2D and 3D formations systems used in the best-selling title Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem.

“We are thrilled to have access to the full power of the Kythera AI Gem for the development of Deadhaus Sonata,” said Denis Dyack of Apocalypse Studios. “It’s great news for the foundation that O3DE will have the edge on any other game engine when it comes to AI. Intelligent formation features, realistic and reactive enemies are key to creating a successful title, and Kythera AI makes this possible.”

This comes as a big development in the Scottish gaming and tech sector, with a Scottish company playing a major role in an international collaboration of high-profile tech organisations. “We are delighted to see a case study showcased in Scotland’s AI Strategy involved directly in founding a potentially revolutionary group in the field of game design and simulation” stated Gillian Docherty OBE, Chair of the Scottish AI Alliance. “We’re proud to see a Scottish company with the growth potential of Kythera AI showing leadership in their sector on the global stage. This recent announcement of Kythera’s position as the default AI for the new Open 3D Engine will no doubt hasten the wider adoption across both gaming and other sectors.”

Matthew Jack, CEO of Kythera AI, was glad of the opportunity to open up the toolset to the community, believing that it could push the boundaries of the games industry: “It was an exciting moment when we chose to join the O3DE Foundation as founder members and to supply the AI solution for the project. We have spent a long time developing a comprehensive toolset for game designers and AI developers to work with, and the idea of so many creatives getting access to those tools, regardless of their background, is an amazing thought. We can’t wait to see what incredible games come out of the community as a result of this access.”

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Press Site: https://kythera.ai/press

A video demonstrating our feature set for the Open 3D Engine including never before seen footage of the engine in action https://youtu.be/KRYnxHgn210

Media Contact

Joy Thurston

Kythera AI

joyt@kythera.ai

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About Kythera AI

Established in 2013, Kythera AI is the provider of the most comprehensive AI toolkit to the video game industry, focused on meeting the broad set of feature requirements of games development teams. Kythera AI has worked on games in partnership with a wide range of companies from indie to AAA, including Carbonated Inc, Apocalypse Studios, THQ Nordic and Wolcen Studio.

AI tools in the Kythera AI Gem include: dynamic navigation meshes for ground navigation; octrees for flight navigation; rapid pathfinding; highly configurable 3D movement splines; an advanced behaviour authoring system with automatic analysis of level geometry to find cover points and navigation links; intelligent battle formations; and a specialised spatial query language soon to follow. No other AI middleware, or native AI for existing engines, combines all these features in a single product.

Kythera AI is asynchronous, multi-threaded, data-orientated and highly scalable, built with a componentized architecture allowing extensibility and flexibility, making it suitable for all types of game. Kythera has been used commercially in shooters, ARPGs, and flight sims among other genres.

For more information, please visit: https://www.kythera.ai/

About the Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation has more than 1,000 corporate members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

About Scottish AI Alliance & Scottish AI Strategy

The Scottish AI Alliance is an open-to-all stakeholder group with representation from across society. It is aimed at providing a focus for dialogue, collaboration and action for AI in Scotland, allowing businesses, economists, trade unions, as well as UK and international partners to come together and help to shape the future of Scottish AI. The Alliance is geared towards executing Scotland’s AI Strategy which will make sure that work is carried out efficiently across the AI ecosystem to deliver the strategy, aligning our efforts with those of other key initiatives such as Scotland’s Digital Strategy. For more information please visit: https://www.scotlandaistrategy.com/

Kythera AI launches free release giving developers instant access to AAA-quality toolset