So I have finally got around to creating some screen shots that show the AI working in a test arena. The 100 black spheres (etherics) are swarming and targeting the player in green. The blue NPC is just currently wandering with no particular purpose, but that will change very shortly.
All the behaviours are controlled by behaviour trees and will now get the behaviours filled in. All the structures and decision making for the BTs have already been created for the AI controlled entities, but most are empty.
The shown textures are not representative of the final game,
but are there to provide some simple context.
The black spherical objects represent the 100 etherics (look of them is not what they will look like eventually) swarming and targeting the player (in green). Shot 1 shows a broken swarm, Shot 2 shows the rejoining of the swarm and then the last 2 show the etherics moving towards the target (player in green). Once we get something more representative, I will upload some video.
Collison avoidance is used by ray tracing to discover collisions that then get added to a AI entity queue so they get processed as and when time allows. Currently this is every tick but can be setup to do otherwise to preserve precious CPU cycles.
The plan now, as I said above, is to fill in all the behaviours for the AI.
Current thinking for the AI direction is:
- Investigate evolutionary BT creation for NPCs
- Update 2D AStar path planning and create a 3D version for the etherics
- See how neuro evolution can be included, if practical
- Hunting behaviour
- Fighting AI by threat analysis
- Others TBC!
Any questions, just ask, more than happy to share my thoughts, experiences etc.
Cheers
Matt
