AI Techniques for Game Programming (Premier Press Game Development)
“AI Techniques for Game Programming” takes the difficult topics of genetic algorithms and neural networks and explains them in plain English. Gone are the tortuous mathematic equations and abstract examples to be found in other books. Each chapter takes readers through the theory a step at a time, explaining clearly how they can incorporate each technique into their own games. After a whirlwind tour of Windows programming, readers will learn how to use genetic algorithms for optimization, path-f
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ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University (2nd Edition)
Learn ActionScript 3.0 the fun way, by creating 16 great games: real, robust games – not just “web toys”! Highly-rated ActionScript tutorial, now with seven new 3D and card games! Code and techniques easily adaptable to training, advertising, and more For Flash artists learning ActionScript, Flash programmers seeking to create games, and upgraders from ActionScript 1.0/2.0. Includes a chapter on developing games in Flash for the iPhone! Gary Rosenzweig’s ActionScript 3.0 Game Pr
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Not just for games,
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so let me tell you what I was looking for: a non-academic AI book with practical examples for implementing genetic algorithms and neural nets. I don’t have a math degree (though I understand basic algebra and remember a bit of trig), and I learn best by doing hand’s on project, not by theorizing.
This book fits the bill perfectly. It is well written, humorous, clear and patient. The examples are interesting enough that you can see how they would be useful for solving other problems, not necessarily game related.
One caveat: if you don’t have a decent intro to basic Win32 API programming, get Charles Petzold’s Programming Win32 book and get busy. Yes, the first two chapters of AI Techniques are a Win32 refresher (which was good for me because I last wrote Win32 3 years ago…I now do Java only), but I’m pretty sure if you haven’t seen it before you’ll be lost.
BTW, just to give you an idea how clear the concepts were presented, I’ve recoded Chapters 3 and 5 as properly OOPed (MVC, etc) Java applications. Just MHO, but Java is a much better platform for this stuff. …
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|Buckland DE-jargonises the field of AI,
This book IS my Masters thesis. I built a multi layered combative system driven wholly by neural networks evolved using genetic algorithms. The learning of agents was unsupervised and they existed collaboratively and adversarily. If all of this made no sense, dont worry! Read this book and it will.
The book covers these techniques (except for multi layered architectures) to a level understood by anyone with a basic knowledge of C++. It totally demystifies NNs and GAs. Other books on these subjects actually put you off the entire concepts of AI by feeding you fear and confusion.
I have completed the book and have read it numerous times. It is going to be invaluable for my development of PHd stuff – his writing introduces areas for potential research.
Im would definately buy other books from this author. I hope he covers other areas of AI soon and puts ‘em into print.
Be jaysus, tis mighty I tell ya!!!
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|Great Stuff,
After reading (and enjoying) the author’s web tutorials some time ago I was looking forward to receiving this book – and it hasn’t disappointed.
The author has managed to squeeze in a pile of information about GAs and neural nets and yet managed to keep the math down to a minimum – which for a moron like me is especially good news! The source code is kept simple and is very easy to follow.
The example programs that accompany each chapter illustrate each technique very well, and more to the point have given me many ideas to try out with my own projects. The mouse gesture recognition example in particular is a great way of teaching backpropagation, something I had completely failed to understand until I read this book.
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|It’s Magic,
Here’s the deal,
I am not a programmer…not even a great flash designer.
My previous knowledge of ActionScript was stop(); and gotoAndStop();
Don’t know any other computer language.
I got this book and 2 weeks later I got my very own Flash game.
(two weeks of sitting with a yellow highlighter, and studying like I am back in collage).
I don’t mean a customized version of one of the book examples, but a completely new game.
Gary helps you understand the logic behind games and game play, and how to break it down to tasks even a novice can accomplish.
With a bit of help from the flash help menu, you can explore even deeper and very quickly accomplish some amazing things.
If you are a quick learner and are not afraid to jump into the text, this book is for you. (it gets overwhelming for about 5 minutes before it all clicks in and you can see clearly the path between your vision and the execution).
WARNING: if you have never programed before; It is extremely gratifying, and seems to be addictive.
Thanks you Gary, for this great book.
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|A great read for upgrading to AS 3, entertaining too.,
Lets face it. There are a lot of Actionscript game books out there. This one is good because 1) It is entertaining and readable & 2) It’s the first game book I have found that works for the new actionscript 3.0.
The code itself isn’t exactly as object oriented as I would like, but thats true of all the other game books out there too. It does have enough object oriented content to show some amazingly different, and simple methods for making game characters, detecting collisions, and managing objects that are possible with actionscript 3.0. I value this book as a ‘how to upgrade’ from 2.0 to 3.0.
The games themselves are pretty good and there is a nice variety of game styles to appeal to a wide audience. For a basic game programming book, it omits or glosses over a few important topics such as caching vector objects as bitmaps, pseudo 3-D and optimization in general.
All in all, I suggest this book if you are upgrading skills to actionscript 3.0 or want to write flash games. If you get this book, I also recommend Foundation Actionscript 3.0 Animation: Making Things Move! to round out your collection.
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|Excellent practical book for moving from AS2 to AS3,
I got interested in this book after discovering Gary Rosenzweig’s AS3 tutorials on his Flash Game University Website. I was impressed by his ability to explain things clearly and simply. As other reviews have already stated “AS3 Game Programming University” is an excellent and highly readable book for learning AS3. In practice I find it much more helpful than Colin Moock’s book “Essential ActionScript 3.0″, which is a little too academic for me (although I’m glad I have it!). I’m also finding that code snippets in Gary’s book are just as useful to me as those in Joey Lott’s “ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook” (which covers more topics). It’s helpful to me that Gary writes from a Flash authoring perspective rather than Flex. He doesn’t hesitate to include timeline based assets and code when it makes sense to do so, rather than use the Flex style of generating everything in code.
The actual games are surprisingly varied and complete, but not so complex that they become difficult to understand. The code that I downloaded from the website works well. It is written in a practical concise manner with proper use of classes and other object-oriented techniques as required by AS3. However, as other reviews have noted, this book is not for advanced programmers that prefer a pure object-oriented style.
I recommend this book if you are moving from AS2 to AS3, even if you are not interested in writing games. Gary does not claim it is suitable for beginners without any programming experience but it is more suitable than Moock’s “Essential ActionScript 3.0″ (which does make such a claim). However it is not for web designers that don’t want to learn programming and it is not for advanced programmers that appreciate Moock’s AS3 book.
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