Want to make a game engine with AI at the center of the engine. The most advance AI that I can get. Any suggestions with books to buy, etc... I'm a little bit of a beginner at AI only made a couple of 2d games with small AI with bot movement, and hit collision (which is mostly physics anyways) like to know what the best book is to buy, I've looked at the book reviews here on the site, but would like to know what the community over all prefers.

Well, define what type of game you want to build, and what you mean by "most advance AI". Every AI construct is a tool, and you should use the proper tool to solve each project.

If you're painting your house, chances are you won't use a jackhammer, even though jackhammers are pretty cool.

Anyway, I think Mat Buckland's Game AI by Example is pretty much the best beginner/intermediate book for game AI.

FPS AI game. that's what I have in mind.

Well, Mat's book is still a good recommendation.

Check out William Van der Sterren's website, in his link section he has a few interesting links to tactical AI articles.

Something else that you should check out is Far Cry's scripts. If you don't own the game, you can still download them with the "mod kits". Its a simple scripted framework using states, events and lists of goals to accomplish.

Hope this helps

Eric

Well, we recommend too, "Programming Game AI by Example", there is anothe call "Game AI engine programming"... I can't remember the author...

I the other hand... xEricx have right, in Game AI everything has their own application... however, pathfinding is a theme that we could try to develop something generic.

with smoke...
SmokingMan

Game AI Engine Programming is from Brian Schab (I´m nearly sure it´s spelled like that). I have Mat books and Brian book, and well, Brian book falls a little sort, the book uses too many pages talking about different genres AI, but not in a very interesting way.

I would recommend getting Mat books better. Greetings!

Vicente

I have a lot of books related to AI:

- AI Game Engine Programming
- AI Game Programing wisdom
- Artificial Intelegence for computer games
- Programming Game AI By example
and
- AI Game Development


My favourite one rigth now is also the Programming Game AI by Example.

Woohoo! I win the battle of the books! :)

Ian Millington's new book might raise the bar again though.

Mat Buckland's AI Techniques for Game Programming is another excellent book. It discusses the lesser used (but powerful) AI tools like Genetic Algorithms and Neural Networks. Their use in different kinds of games is illustrated through a number of examples and working code on a CD.
Good buy if you are really interested in AI.

I strongly advise against touching Genetic Algorithms and Neural Networks, as always, unless you know and understand the alternatives, in which case you will probably not want to use them anymore.

I own fup's "serious" book and AI Programming Wisdom, both good reads. Aside for the aforementioned books, I suggest reading Jeff Orkin's papers. Orkin was the main AI programmer for F.E.A.R. If you havent played the game, the AI is the best I've seen in that kind of shooter. His work on planners and knowledge representation is what I would consider "state of the art" in FPS AI. He published in several books too, but his papers are a must-read.