Artificial Intelligence

Computer AI is much talked about these days and you can find some nice tools here to mimic AI into your game. There has been little standardization yet as to what an AI engine might contain. But there are enough common AI problems in games, such as path finding, that seem to need writing over and over again.

OpenAI - Windows, Mac, *nix. OpenAI or the Open-source Artificial Intelligence library aims to be for AI what OpenGL is for graphics. That said, it is not so good for use in DirectX but integrates seamlessly and without trouble into OpenGL. The library has many features. Is written in Java.

FEAR - Windows, Mac, *nix. FEAR is an AI library whose status is unclear. There is, however a recent book by FEAR's lead developer which is based on FEAR. Author of the library do not think his library is ready for real-time or games application, it's under construction, but meanwhile have an education purpose and wish people can help him. Testing and use of the library does need Quake 2. (or you won't be able to test your code and the demos.). If you buy the book you get mores Bots sources and demo. Very good for education purpose on neural nets, FSM, Fuzzy logic.

OpenSteer - Windows, Mac, *nix; MIT License OpenSteer is a C++ library to help construct steering behaviors for autonomous characters in games and animation. In addition to the library, OpenSteer provides an OpenGL-based application called OpenSteerDemo which displays predefined demonstrations of steering behaviors. The user can quickly prototype, visualize, annotate and debug new steering behaviors by writing a plug-in for OpenSteerDemo.

A* Tactical Pathfinding - Windows. Free (needs copyright notice) Described in the "Game Programming Gems III book". A tactical path deviates from the shortest path to achieve increased concealment and cover from threats. The simple way to create tactical paths is adding a new cost to the A* cost function. These new costs reflect exposure to enemy observation and fire at each point in the terrain. (on the same page, from "AI Game Programming Wisdom" book, there's also the Path Lookup Tables explorer.)

PathLib - Windows; Free A C++ A* path finding, fast and robust, along with a windows demo, that allows path testing and map editing. ( supports Group path finding)

Garfixia AI Repository - This site contains an open-source library of AI techniques, written in C++. Excellent material - appears to be Open Domain - not production quality, but an invaluable starting point. FSM, fuzzy, learning trees, etc. Good Stuff!