Using Hierarchical State Machines with State Trees

Unreal Engine provides a powerful framework for creating complex AI behaviors through hierarchical state machines called state trees. By defining various states and transitions, developers can design sophisticated AI logic that adapts to dynamic environments. State trees offer a structured approach to managing AI behavior, allowing for efficient decision-making and seamless integration with other systems in Unreal Engine. What’s more, with state trees, you can build clever AI agents that respond to environmental stimuli and interact with the game world in a natural and realistic manner. The purpose of the chapter is to introduce you to the state tree framework in Unreal Engine and to its basic concepts.

In this chapter, we will have a quick introduction to the state tree system available in Unreal Engine and see how to implement state trees inside a project.

In this chapter, we will be covering the following topics:

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