Academic Details

Core class for GD&D, Advanced Elective for NMID, may also be taken by Game Design minors.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites: Interactive Digital Media - 4080-330 or equivalent, 3rd year standing.

Main Focus

Learning movement-based artificial intelligence, centering primarily around steering behaviors like flocking and obstacle avoidance in both 2D and 3D environments.

Instructors

Steve Kurtz
Nancy Doubleday

Overview

This course primarily deals with steering behaviors in both 2D and 3D environments. Such behaviors include seeking a target, avoiding obstacles, path following and more.
The first half of the course uses ActionScript 3 while the second half takes the same concepts but instead uses the Unity environment.

Workload

Solo Midterm (Flash) and Final (Unity) projects, nearly-weekly homework. Moderate to Heavy workload, dependent on how ambitious you get with the projects.

How to Approach the Class

• Do the homeworks, and don't half-try to do them. Each homework relies on the previous, and if you do them correctly, your workload for your project gets cut in half if not more.
• Take the projects seriously. This is a class that's really easy to get something to show off that's simple but interesting, and can be a great way to show off coding and AI skills.
• Having an understanding of vectors can help, although they will be covered early on in the class.
• Understand Unity's component model, and its differences from the main-game-loop style of programming often used in Flash and C#/XNA.
  • Instead of the "Hero" class having detailed as to be able to cast a fireball and swing a sword, you might have "SwingSword" and "CastFireball" in addition to a "Hero" class.
  • Unity Tutorials

Example Work

• Project 1 - A* Pathfinding and following (and other steering behaviors) in a 2D environment\
• http://code-phoenix.com/work/programming/2d-dynamic-path-finding-following/]Project 2 - Using a 3D environment\