ZombieTime
Entry posted by Josh ·
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AI is always a fun programming topic, and it's even more fun when you're mixing a physics-based character controller with dynamic navmesh pathfinding.
We planned on using navmesh pathfinding from the very start of the design of the new engine. Because it was integrated from the very beginning our implementation works really nicely. Pathfinding is completely automatic and dynamic. There are no commands you need to call to make it work. When part of the scene changes, the navigation data for that sector is automatically recalculated. If you haven't seen it already, you can check out some videos on the Leadwerks YouTube channel:
Character controllers are a special physics body used to control the movement of characters in the game. They are used for both players as a control method, and by enemies and NPCs. Sometimes they will be controlled by keyboard or touch input, and sometimes they are controlled by AI navigation. Consequently, the character controller class has to be able to handle both.
There are so many cool things I can do that it's fun and a little scary. Right now I am toying with the following API. The first two commands would just make the character constantly move to the position or follow the entity you specify, so there's only need to call them once, and the engine will handle the rest:
bool CharacterController::GoToPoint(const float& x, const float& y, const float& z) bool CharacterController::Follow(Entity* entity) void CharacterController::Stop()
And then you still have manual controls, which are analogous to "UpdateController" from LE2:
CharacterController::SetInput(const float& angle, const float& movement, const float& strafe...)
In the screenshot below, I control the rightmost character with the keyboard, while the others are programmed to follow me:
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