Senior Production Plans

For my last semester at Champlain College I will be working on a couple projects throughout the semester. One of the most important projects I will be working on is my Senior Production game, Cash Force.

My goal for this game is to rework the AI to incorporate flocking methods, used by vehicles, in Unreal. There are a couple things I have to keep in mind when creating the flocking. One of the aspects is the behavior. The behavior of the vehicles will be using a separation and cohesion. Another aspect is dealing with the steering in Unreal, which uses the controls: throttle, steering, and hand brake. I will be using the formula: steering force = desired velocity - current velocity as the AI's method of steering. Overall Daniel Shiffman's book, "The Nature of Code," does a great job showing how vehicle behaviors in AI should be portrayed. I plan on using his work as a source for the overall architecture of the AI.

One last thing that I will be including into the vehicle's AI is a sporadic driving steering for when they drive straight. As we know, no one drives perfectly straight. Everyone drives a little left and right to keep within their lane. I will be including this method within the AI and make it adjustable so they can go from safe driver to reckless driving all over the street. This will give the drivers a funnier feel for the player to encounter. If you're interested in learning more about Cash Force or my sources for my research check them out here: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Physics/Vehicles/VehicleUserGuide/index.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoKfQrlQ7rA https://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-6-autonomous-agents/#chapter06_section12 https://karllewisdesign.com/cash-force/