Summary
State trees in Unreal Engine are crucial in the AI framework as they help manage and organize the decision-making processes of AI agents efficiently. They offer a neat alternative to behavior trees depending on your design and development patterns.
In this chapter, we learned the basics of state trees, a hierarchical state machine framework implemented in Unreal Engine. Starting from its main concepts, such as how states are handled, we were introduced to the main elements involved – including tasks, transitions, and conditions. After that, we created our own actors, taking advantage of state trees.
In the next chapter, we will be working on a totally different topic: how to manage huge numbers of objects within your level, treating them as a collective group for processing or simulation purposes.
