PUBLIC MARKS with tags gameai & www.gamasutra.com

The creators of the PathEngine SDK,a toolkit for implementing intelligent agent movement, based on a 'points of visibility' pathfinding solution implemented over arbitrary 3D ground meshes, have announced the release of V5.01. Key features are pathfinding through overlapping geometry, dynamic obstacle management, and content processing functionality.

Much of the work in game AI has focused on the ‘big' problems: path planning, squad planning, goal-directed behavior, etc. The result is characters that are capable of increasingly intelligent behavior. However, acting intelligently and acting aware and sentient is not the same thing. But if we are to create the kind of compelling and emotional characters upon which the next generation of computer games will be based, we must solve the latter problem, namely how to build characters that seem aware and sentient.