Friday, February 24th, 2012 Posted by Jim Thacker

xaitment releases xaitMap and xaitControl for Unity


xaitMap for Unity in action. Find tutorials for the pathfinding system and its sister games AI product, xaitControl, on developer xaitment’s YouTube channel.

xaitment has released new versions of its games AI tools xaitMap and xaitControl for Unity.

The software packages, which are already integrated with Gamebryo and Havok’s Vision engine, provide visual toolsets for creating pathfinding solutions and modelling game logic and character behaviours, respectively.

Judging by our not-very-scientific straw poll of game development forums, the news should go down well in the indie development community. When we searched for ‘Unity AI system’, this was the first thread we found.

The plugins join existing Unity AI systems such as Rival{Theory}’s Rain{one} and Unity staffer Emil Johansen’s own free Path and Behave tools.

xaitMap and xaitControl are available now, both priced at $499. Full details below.

PRESS RELEASE (Excerpts)
xaitment, the creators of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) software for video game and simulation developers, today announced that it has launched two affordable plug-ins for the Unity engine: xaitMap for Unity and xaitControl for Unity. The plug-ins, which are now available through xaitment’s web store, bring the full spectrum of xaitment’s AI functionality to the interface and development environment of the Unity engine, including NavMesh generation, pathfinding, collision avoidance, character movement, and graphical character behavioral modeling. While the plug-ins are priced at $499 each and include a 45-day free trial, xaitment is kicking off the launch with a limited-time, 2-for-1 offer: purchase xaitMap for Unity and receive xaitControl for free.

“There are a growing number of game studios, simulation developers and educational institutions that are working with the Unity engine,” said Mike Walsh, CEO of xaitment. “Until now, we‘ve only been able to address their needs with the full versions of our software. With the plug-ins, we now have two great products that give Unity engine users all of our AI tools, at a fraction of the cost.”

xaitMap for Unity brings the same flexible, intuitive AI functionality used by studios around the world to the menu structure and interface of Unity and Unity Pro. With xaitMap for Unity, users can:

  • Quickly create NavMeshes on any object in a scene
  • Dynamically set up and modify collision avoidance parameters on any component in a scene
  • Easily modify a character’s movement by assigning a MoveComponent to a game character
  • Easily start working with pathfinding using xaitment’s Starter Pack of Movement Behaviors
  • Create predefined paths by dragging and dropping waypoints on a NavMesh.

xaitControl for Unity comes with runtime libraries and a graphical Finite State Machine (FSM) editor that work perfectly with Unity’s scene editor and Mono Develop environments, and enable developers to quickly model advanced game logic and character behaviors. Core functionality includes:

  • Graphical Bot Behavior Modeling, which enables developers to quickly add states and transitions, even in a hierarchy, or create conditional, event-based and time-based transitions
  • A Real-Time Debugger, which gives developers full control over the instances of the Finite State Machine, such as setting breakpoints for states, transitions, conditions and commands
  • All xaitControl FSMs are handled like C# scripts, allowing developers to work the way they’re familiar within Unity
  • The plug-in will automatically make available all the FSMs, events, functions (including signature, etc.) within Unity for further development

“The key to our new approach was figuring out how to present all of the features we’ve included in an intuitive way for Unity users,” said Thorsten Maier, CTO of xaitment. “We’ve worked hard to ensure that they adapt to the Unity workflow and development environment in order to make them even easier to access and use.”

xaitMap / xaitControl for Unity are available immediately for download on xaitment’s web store. Both plug-ins come with community support, full documentation and a number of video tutorials. Premium support is also available upon request.

Visit the xaitment website

Download trial versions of xaitMap and xaitControl