The Best Games Engines for AI (2019) | AI 101

[@AIandGames]

Game Engines: 02:02 - GameMaker Studio 03:42 - Unreal Engine 07:04 - Unity 10:35 - CryEngine 12:41 - Source 14:38 - Godot Special thanks to StickNik for finding these. I often get asked 'what is the best game engine for me to use?' from students and indie developers when they have some new project in mind. It's always a difficult question to answer, but I'm hoping this episode will help address it. Naturally this will become out of date pretty quickly (my guess? in less than a year), so I'm gearing up to deliver a 2020 edition of this episode same time next year. In the meantime, if you have additional hints and tips for fellow game devs stick'em down in the comments!

[@KaiserAfini]

Could you please cover the AI design of Thief Gold ? It alongside the sound design help players make informed decisions without creating more UI. Its simple but wonderfully immersive.

[@DonRaynor]

nothing on Lumberyard? Shame.

[@joeco9513]

Hey guys really appreciate your content. Also, I was just wondering what you think of Amazon Lumberyard, if someone is just trying to get started.

[@UziIdiot]

The thing about Unity and Unreal is that they have such a massive amount of user made tools and systems that there's probably a solution to a problem already made

[@JohnVanderbeck]

Yeah and while I understand comparing just the raw engines, the fact is that once you expand to 3rd party content both can do pretty much anything. And while you don't have source in Unity, everything is extremely expandable without it so you can, and many have, build custom AI systems that plug into the native ones just like in Unreal. In fact expanding to the 3rd party marketplace I'd argue Unity has far more both comprehensive and in depth AI planning and navigation tools than any other engine.

[@jillcrungus]

On Source If you DO end up licensing the engine, you get access to Left 4 Dead's NextBot AI system which is in many ways more advanced that Source's normal AI systems. It uses a navmesh rather than Source's normal AI nodegraph, supports things such as behaviour layers where several behaviours can be running at once indepedently, and has a system where an AI can essentially control a player entity like a puppet for multiplayer bots (such as those in TF2). The system is lacking development in some areas though and since it's not public you have no documentation at all besides that in the code.

[@tidesmain]

imagine licensing that pile of trash in 2019

[@tidesmain]

haha

[@jillcrungus]

@@tidesmain Despite being dated it's still an alright engine to work with most of the time and if you license it there's nothing stopping you from updating it to more modern standards if you want (hell, there's nothing really stopping you from adding cool stuff without engine access, it just makes it easier).

[@ulteriormotif]

You said "push all the buttons" but I decided to give the "dislike" button a skip. Great video.

[@AIandGames]

Well provided you only push the dislike then immediately smash the like button then I think we're good. 🤘

[@diadetediotedio6918]

8:00, this is how the Unity architeture actually work (with packages), so, you can include the NavMeshComponents as an official part of the engine itself.

[@MegapiemanPHD]

There are so many versions of the Source engine it can be very weird to work with. Base HL2 uses nodes to tell the AI where to to while more updated versions like TF2 and CS:GO use easy to generate as well as easy to edit nav-meshes. Out of all the 3D engines though, Source is great for quickly making in engine level geometry while others like Unreal can be a bit more obtuse with that kinda thing.

[@DarthBiomech]

My experience with Unreal engine would be much more comfortable if it had the kinds of tools for BSP modeling as Hammer Editor.

[@MrJeka1111]

UE4 got HTN planer plugin in it, could be turned on in experemental options

[@youngknight5589]

This is late but I do feel a video involving what game engines are missing when it comes to AI is kind of needed

[@StickNik]

7:58 - Unity doesn't necessarily have dedicated tools for finite state machines and behaviour trees, but it is more than doable in Unity. You can easily make FSMs by re-purposing the animation system medium.com/the-unity-developers-handbook/dont-re-invent-finite-state-machines-how-to-repurpose-unity-s-animator-7c6c421e5785 and the asset store has countless paid or free plugins you could use for stuff like AI, which Unity promotes themselves kzbin.info/www/bejne/ipDSl2eVn7eigKM It's worth at least mentioning the size of Unreal's marketplace and Unity's asset store even if your focus is on purely AI, as they are big draws to those engines and can have a significant part to play in AI solutions where either's in-built solutions don't cut it, or there is potentially more suitable alternatives that can be used. Maybe you could even make a video looking at the most popular or effective AI plugins for these engines, or find any that fill in the gaps of what engines are missing in the follow-up video. Would like to see that follow-up video regardless :) EDIT: Removed timestamps since they are now in the pinned comment

[@AIandGames]

Good point re: asset store. I was focussed purely on what's available out of the box, but there is a lot of asset packages out there that are very useful. Also, thanks for finding the timestamps, I have copied them to my pinned comment for everyone. Talking about good plugins/assets is a good idea for a follow-up episode. I've written that down!

[@StickNik]

@@AIandGames Cool! Glad I could help :)

[@morbid1.]

imagine fantastic Doom '16 mods if id tech was available for public non commercial use :/

[@AIandGames]

I really want a mash-up of DOOM and Untitled Goose Game.

[@distantsea]

I wonder what Id is talking about with down the line mod support. Cautious optimist

[@nerd_nato564]

@@AIandGames Untitled DOOM Game

[@liraco_mx]

Not sure if I misunderstood the comment on state machines in Unity but I remember working with those before the 2019 versions. Unless it's a specific type of thing you want to do with them that you can't currently do with Unity.

[@KhaosEmeraldx]

This is a really interesting video, I appreciate the info. I struggle a bit with deciding which engine to use for projects and this helps somewhat in figuring stuff out. I will say this, I do like the unreal natively includes so many tools for AI as well as others, I've tried to love unity and I like c#, but the having to manually add tools to each project makes management a bit more fiddly for a hobbyist

[@Roulden]

Yes, I want to see the video you mentioned. Please keep making more!

[@_vallee_5190]

Since when have engines only been available to the AAA industry that has never been true, sure it sure to be hard to get an 3rd party engine in 2000s but plenty of indie studios still existed and used the engines, and while yes solo developers making games that ended up in stores where utterly rare, some truly amazing Art Games and Flash Games thrived making millions of dollars often with only one developer.

[@igors.3778]

Coolest 3D engines were paid-only, and coolest of coolest, including Unreal Engine, were very expensive, until Unity with it's free-to-play model came

[@ahmednaboot2155]

About Unity, it's so strong for Finite State machine using the animator and add behaviour scripts very easily

[@mdo]

Unity used to have the best AI framework i ever used: RAIN AI. Solid behaviour tree designer, built in sensors, etc. I miss it so much.

[@youngknight5589]

What happened to it

[@bringtmirleben8357]

I just want to point out that while crude, unity does have tooling for FSM for AI. Its the animation controller. you write states in C# as if they are behaviors by deriving from StateMachineBehaviour rather then monoBehaviour. you can then visually construct your state machine in the animator controller, like you would with animations.

[@Badguy292]

I will say, for how much people talk about the AI of F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon) by Monolith Productions, on the LithTech Engine, version Jupiter EX (googled it quickly) I was hoping I could hear something about that, but I assume there isn't a public version of that engine or anything you can get cheap at least.

[@AIandGames]

You can - with some effort - find the FEAR SDK which gives you an inside look into the GOAP system used for that game. Stick around, we'll be visiting that in another video soon.

[@Badguy292]

@@AIandGames Ohh, I didn't think it had one... That's what I get for not looking past the "Tools" section on Steam. I've gone from Source SDK to Killing Floor Editor straight over to Unreal Engine 4.

[@VB-92]

An AI that can learn how to play the game, or it's role in the game sounds like the most interesting and the most difficult.Since there are already videos showing that AI can learn to exploit the game engine and glitches to win and poor balance could lead to the AI simply outplaying the human over and over. Still, it also sounds like the most fun to play against, if done right.

[@marinenukem]

Despite my hatred for Epic Games and Fortnite, I think I might give Unreal Engine a try. It looks like it has some good features, and it uses the coding language I'm best at. I think I'll download it and mess around with it overtime to see what I can make. Thanks for the helpful videos!

[@ijazameen7703]

I like Fortnite because Fortnite makes money and epic give free content for developers.

[@pringles_mcgee]

On the topic of machine learning: would it at all be possible to train the AI brain on the AI behaviors of other games? Like Halo, for example, has by far my favorite combat AI in any game I've played. Watching them all move around and work together, as they cycle through their list of behaviors to approach the changing circumstances of a battlefield just makes me drool with happiness. It'd be fucking cool to train a game's AI off other game's AI behaviors.

[@jcmaxwell3610]

yes, i'd love to see a list of missing features!

[@TheCoatlCommando]

YESSSSS, I'd love to see what features are missing from game engines as well as more on what's currently on development!!!

[@redeye7500]

Great vid 👍don't know anything about making games I would like to learn though. The vid I have on my channel, is making it tough to make? Just when I step into the circle to face the boss.

[@Black_Claw175]

Have you ever heard of BYOND? It's an online programmable gaming software that teaches you the basics of Computer programming and has a built-in programmable software to build your own video game.

[@nerd_nato564]

Oh god it's BYOND. Haven't heard that name in a while. Doesn't it suck when it comes to doing anything but teaching programming?

[@Black_Claw175]

@@nerd_nato564 no, they've done some optimizing for it in the past few years.

[@jojolafrite90]

But CryEngine has real time reflections based on ray tracing and voxels, now. It should explode the concurrence.

[@igors.3778]

How about Panda3D?

[@CrypticHowl]

Can you do Planet Zoo? :)

[@asparagusstaging430]

I only watched half this video but from here I can say the title should be changed to "Which Game Engines Have The Most Pathfinding Tools Out of The Box." But that would be too long, I guess.

[@tadhgivors]

1:33 oh no...

[@javierpachonalvarez5757]

AI technologies missing in game engines

[@ryansta]

Unity, Cocaine's a hell of a drug.

[@GWebcob]

I watch it for the accent

[@MrRetroDev]

I refuse to believe Titanfall and Apex were built in the Source engine, no way. Must have been *_heavily_* modified.

[@AIandGames]

Yes it is *very heavily* modified. Much like the Infinity Ward's IW engine (see Call of Duty) is built on a heavily modified version of id Tech 3. Those guys really know their stuff.

[@mfaizsyahmi]

Source engine is in turn just _heavily_ modified GoldSrc (Half-Life) engine, which in turn is just _heavily_ modified Quake engine

[@simbobcrafts4843]

Do pixel art games have AI?

[@DarthBiomech]

_Any_ game with non-player entities have an AI.

[@DonRaynor]

Star Engine Branch of Lumberyard....

[@robertnees9781]

Using the term "AI" for items like path finding, behavior trees, decision trees, etc... is a real stretch, there is no machine learning of any type in any of those tools.

[@Xeotroid]

Semantics. It's what it's always been called in games. It's not an artificial intelligence in that it tries to learn but rather attempts at a convincing enough facade to make players feel like there is an actual intelligence there.

[@marcosroberto3576]

AFAIK the term "AI" is not inherently tied to machine learning. The term can be used to any piece of code that can adapt it's execution and goals based on the analysis of it's resources and surroundings.

[@robertnees9781]

@@marcosroberto3576 You are correct, it is not truly tied to "ML". The "definition" and its applied usage has really changed since the 50's. Most descriptive usage pattens (from IBM/Google/Intel/Nvidia/Research U's/etc..) today revolve around how machines can imitate human intelligence, Items like manually defined decision/behavior trees/ path finding/etc. are not seen as AI in academia or commercial usage as you can never manually code all human-style responses, but the "automation" of those trees via modeling, training and then applied inference at runtime (as just one example) is contained under that AI definition. IMHO, when you have to define the entire pattern manually (visually or in low level code) and call it AI, you entered into the realm of marketing buzz words and it means nothing. Again just my opinion.

[@johngoatie]

@@robertnees9781 This is about games, where Non-Player Characters with behaviour are called "Artificial Intelligence". Video games were using this term before deep linear regressions came in vogue.

[@robertnees9781]

@@johngoatie "This is about games..." Absolutly understand that, there are "AI"-based training and inference gaming engines and toolsets currently in use and I made my original comment based upon this vid being made in late '19 and titled that way it is... again "my opinion".

[@spacecowboy1438]

I love The Outer Worlds. We need more games like that. There now thats out of the way, I am so FREAKING *tired* of the Unreal Engine. It feels like a cookie cutter game anytime it gets used to me. For me Outer Worlds loses some points for that.

[@NeverduskX]

Unreal is used by tons of unique games, from A Hat in Time to Risk of Rain 2. Most of them are by no means cookie cutter.

[@spacecowboy1438]

@@NeverduskX thats my point, great games have come from such a similar engine (one I personally am not fond of) and yet it makes AAA games look like dog poo.

[@Jester497]

@@spacecowboy1438 How does the engine make AAA games look like dog poo? It's the dev's/publisher's fault if their game sucks, not the engine's.

[@spacecowboy1438]

@@Jester497 exactly, what I'm saying is that even with the Unreal Engine, (good engine but we've all seen it in other games) Obsidian was able to make a distinct and uniqe experience by building on a solid foundation. As opposed to Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, which is probably useing (or was able to if they didn't) the same engine as Wildlands. But Wildlands is technically a more sound game, looking at it from a consumer's view point, or just in terms of A.I. inovation.

[@zeroone8548]

Unity won

[@DimitriosDenton]

Unity lacks the dedicated tools for most advanced AI work... but sure, Unity won if that's what you want to hear.

[@zeroone8548]

Wait till unity releases 2020.1 version , preview available on 2019.3 unity dots system is pretty cool too. Unity is rapidly developing and they spend a lot of time on Ai tools

[@zeroone8548]

@@DimitriosDenton u should keep updated on things

[@Jester497]

@@zeroone8548 Yeah and as with all big Unity updates it'll be in a disastrous state and will either be fixed in 1-2 years or be completely abandoned in the future.

[@zeroone8548]

@@Jester497 that's what growth looks like. And nothing is perfect.