Autodesk says the U.S. Army has licensed its Kynapse AI middleware for PC title America's Army 3, where it'll be used to do pathfinding and AI duties for the game's NPCs.
Autodesk Games Technology Group president Marc Stevens says, "These simulations require characters with realistic behavior patterns. We are very pleased that the U.S. Army has chosen Autodesk Kynapse to help meet this need."
Autodesk says Kynapse is designed to provide spacial awareness to NPCs so that they navigate realistically in 3D environments. It supports dynamic 3D pathfinding, 3D topology analysis, and team coordination.
It also features destructible environment evaluation, large-crowd pathfinding, and automatic data generation. Autodesk says over 80 AAA titles have used the middleware.
The U.S. Army's America's Army development team is also using Autodesk's SketchBook Pro for concepts and orthogonal images, plus 3ds Max and Maya for all their in-game models for the game.
Additionally, the team is using MotionBuilder for animation sequences, and has added multiple Mudbox seats to support developers in asset creation.
The Army will release the next America's Army game in 2009 as a way to introduce players to Army careers. It features various real-world training locations, elite units and is designed to teach teamwork and other Army values.