Creating AI with Behavior States in Unreal Engine

Pluralsight

Course Summary

Perceptive AI behavior is a hallmark of a good gameplay experience. This course will show you how behavior states can be used by the game designer to create AI that reacts dynamically to player behavior in their environment. Software required: Unreal Engine 4.12

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Course Description

Enemy characters exhibiting believable reactions to the player and their environment in video games is the hallmark of a good play experience. How can this be achieved in a way that works in any gameplay space? In this course, Creating AI with Behavior States in Unreal Engine, you will learn how to use the power of Perception, Awareness, and Behavior States to create AI that add to fun game scenarios. You will learn how to create an awareness system that can be adjusted easily to tune the difficulty of enemy encounters. The common AAA development practice of defining predetermined search and patrol areas in-game will also be covered, as will the implementation of AI VO feedback systems and solid debugging techniques to easily read AI stats. An addition of a tactical camera system will even be shown to easily observe your AI in any situation regardless of the game situation. At the conclusion of the course, you will thoroughly understand this AAA approach to enemy encounters in combat and stealth games. Software required: Unreal Engine 4.12

Course Description

Enemy characters exhibiting believable reactions to the player and their environment in video games is the hallmark of a good play experience. How can this be achieved in a way that works in any gameplay space? In this course, Creating AI with Behavior States in Unreal Engine, you will learn how to use the power of Perception, Awareness, and Behavior States to create AI that add to fun game scenarios. You will learn how to create an awareness system that can be adjusted easily to tune the difficulty of enemy encounters. The common AAA development practice of defining predetermined search and patrol areas in-game will also be covered, as will the implementation of AI VO feedback systems and solid debugging techniques to easily read AI stats. An addition of a tactical camera system will even be shown to easily observe your AI in any situation regardless of the game situation. At the conclusion of the course, you will thoroughly understand this AAA approach to enemy encounters in combat and stealth games. Software required: Unreal Engine 4.12

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Course Syllabus

Course Overview
- 1m 21s

—Course Overview 1m 21s

Creating AI Perception and the Basics of AI States
- 1h 13m

—Designing an Enemy AI 7m 48s
—Adding Input Actions for Player Movement 6m 53s
—Implementing Player Movement Modes 9m 57s
—Adding a Tactical Camera Mode 9m 30s
—Swapping Between Tactical Cameras 8m 52s
—Adding Input Actions for the Tactical Camera 7m 55s
—Implementing Tactical Camera Zoom 9m 16s
—Toggling the Tactical Camera Between Characters 13m 19s

Creating AI Perception and Stimuli
- 24m 58s

—Adding the AI Perception Component and Registering Stimuli 8m 14s
—Making the Player Character Generate Stimuli 7m 37s
—Adding Audio to Contextualize Stimuli for the Player 9m 6s

Creating the State Machine and Awareness System
- 1h 42m

—Creating the State Machine Framework in Behavior Tree 9m 17s
—Gathering Stimuli Data with the Perception Updated Event 11m 34s
—Check for New Stimulus within the Perception Data 9m 6s
—Creating Looping Events for Adding Awareness 6m 39s
—Setting Awareness Variables and Adding Awareness by Sense 7m 38s
—Adding Awareness by Hearing Based on AI State 8m 6s
—Initializing the Awareness System and Blackboard Keys 5m 30s
—Setting the State Based on Awareness 8m 45s
—Transitioning the AI State and Tracking Escalation 9m 28s
—Creating Looping Event Checks for Awareness Cooldown 10m 43s
—Cooling Down Awareness with a Timer Function 7m 50s
—Setting up a Stat Debugger and Testing the Basic Awareness 7m 46s

Creating the Patrolling State and Patrol Paths
- 1h 2m

—Creating the Patrol Point Actor Class 7m 3s
—Creating the Patrol Path Actor Class 10m 26s
—Improving the Patrol Path Construction Script for Design 9m 34s
—Adding Patrolling State Branches to the Behavior Tree 5m 23s
—Implementing Patrol Movement in the Patrol Task 9m 37s
—Implementing Patrol Point Loops in the Patrol Task 5m 26s
—Creating the Patrol Facing Service 6m 19s
—Creating the Wait on Patrol Task and Testing State Behavior 8m 50s

Creating the Suspicious State
- 28m 34s

—Initializing the Suspicious Task 4m 35s
—Creating Reactive Behavior in the Suspicious Task 10m 34s
—Playing AIVO 8m 5s
—Testing the Suspicious State 5m 18s

Creating the Searching State
- 1h 8m

—Creating the Search Point Actor Class 11m 4s
—Using Search Point Actors in the Game Level 5m 36s
—The Searching State in the Behavior Tree 7m 50s
—Creating the Move to Stimulus Task 9m 13s
—Finding the Nearest Search Point to the Enemy AI 10m 28s
—Creating the Move to Search Point Task 7m 1s
—Simulating a Search Area Using Search Sub Points 9m 59s
—Implementing Cooldown and Testing the Searching State in Game 6m 56s

Adjusting the Hostile State and Playtesting the AI
- 17m 13s

—Adjusting the Hostile State 8m 26s
—Playtesting the AI 8m 47s