2 Posts in one week, what must I be thinking, ?? anyway
I suppose I thought this couldn’t wait, after my last post about researching in-game AI and finding that wonderful site AIGameDev, something magical happened.
Usually most of the information on the site and all the recent post have always been about the theory for AI, which always started sparks in your mind of all the fantastic things you could do with it, path-finding, machine learning, concurrent behaviors. Visualizing all the snazzy reactions you could put in your game to make it more fun and challenging, but it was all just theory and down to you to implement. Granted there were a few examples but it did feel like being back in college sometimes, lots to learning which required a lot of thought to digest.
Now Alex J Chapandard (the site author) has released the source code to what he calls Game::AI++, which is basically a work in progress AI engine written in C++ AND FULLY COMMENTED, basically a code based tutorial for AI, here’s what he has to say for the release:
A few weeks ago, I promised to release the whole source code of Game::AI++
to subscribers of this newsletter on August 1st, so here it is!
I will certainly spend many more months working on this project, but the time
has come to let it face the world regardless of emotions — and watch it fall
flat on its face if necessary 🙂 Release often, release early.
What NOT to Expect
——————
* Production ready code… It’ll take a few more iterations to reach that.
* Code to start learning game AI. The goal is industrial-strength 🙂
* A visual 3D demo; I’m working on that separately. Stay tuned!
What to Expect
————–
* A solid framework but a user API that needs some feedback!
* Full C++ source with 1:1 ratio of lines of code to comments on average.
* Roughly ~100 automated tests, including a few mini-tutorials.
* A simple Overview document, a User Guide, and an API reference.
Don’t Miss These
—————-
* There are a few well commented demos in docs/examples/
* See the User Guide in docs/guide.html
* The important code is in Scheduler.* and Sequence.*
How to Help
———–
I’d appreciate comments on the following:
* What parts of the architecture don’t you understand?
* How can the current user-level API be improved?
* Did all the automated tests pass on your hardware?
If you’re interested in getting involved with programming, email me.
Download
——–
It’s available in .zip and .tgz formats. The code builds with VS
Express and Eclipse CDT.
http://aigamedev.com/downloads
Email me if you have any questions, comments or feedback!
Alex
Fantastic stuff and this is only his first release, the visual stuff sounds great as well.
Enjoy all!
Simon (darkside) Jackson
Engineer, industry executive, research enthusiast. Avid learner with diverse interests in coding, game development, Mixed Reality (AR/VR/XR) and reinforcement learning. 25+ years of experience working in multinational corporations and startups.
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