Game AI Pro 2

Chapter 38

Psychologically Plausible Methods for Character Behavior Design

Phil Carlisle

38.1 Introduction

If you have ever worked with 3D game character artists, you’ll have heard them talk obsessively about silhouette and how a character reads. They do this because they understand that for video games especially, there is the issue of viewpoint. As players move around a world in 3D, they can change their viewpoint with respect to the character considerably, changing distance and angle. Artists want their work to be understood by players, so they try and maximize that understanding by taking care to make a “readable” character. A readable character is one that can be viewed from different directions and at different distances and still remain ...