AI for Game Developers

Chapter 5. Potential Function-Based Movement

In this chapter we’re going to borrow some principles from physics and adapt them for use in game AI. Specifically, we’re going to use potential functions to control the behavior of our computer-controlled game units in certain situations. For example, we can use potential functions in games to create swarming units, simulate crowd movement, handle chasing and evading, and avoid obstacles. The specific potential function we focus on is called the Lenard-Jones potential function. We show you what this function looks like and how to apply it in games.

How Can You Use Potential Functions for Game AI?

Let’s revisit the chasing and evading problem we discussed at length in Chapter 2. If you recall, we considered a few different techniques for having a computer-controlled unit chase down or evade a player-controlled unit. Those techniques included the basic chase algorithm, in which the computer-controlled unit always moved directly toward the player, and an intercept algorithm. We can use potential functions to achieve behavior similar to what we can achieve using both of those techniques. The benefit to using potential functions here is that a single function handles both chasing and evading, and we don’t need all the other conditionals and control logic associated with the algorithms we presented earlier. Further, this same potential function also can handle obstacle avoidance for us. Although this is convenient, there is a price to be paid. ...