Breathing Life into Your Games
In this part, the focus shifts to two essential pillars of modern game development—character animation and artificial intelligence (AI). Together, these systems bring game worlds to life, transforming static models and scripted behaviors into immersive, responsive, and intelligent experiences.
You’ll begin by exploring core animation techniques, including keyframe animation, skeletal hierarchies, and interpolation methods that create smooth, natural transitions between movements. The chapter also introduces inverse kinematics (IK), a real-time technique that allows characters to adapt their animations dynamically to the environment—essential for realism and player immersion.
From animation, you’ll move into the field of game AI, starting with foundational systems such as finite state machines (FSMs), behavior trees, and steering behaviors. These techniques provide the logic behind NPC decisions, movement, and interactions...