Zombie pathfinding (devblog)

[BVG 0]

When Dean was talking in the lastest blog post about the zombie path finding method you guys are currently using; with the short(er) distance path finding, i got an idea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdcVPKD803E

Would it not be an incredible immerse experience if the zombies because they are only tracking/ path finding you for a short (maybe very short) amount of time, to be able to bump into and fall over objects? If you jumped over a fence for instance, some zombies might make it over and others might not. Thus getting you really into the experience and providing more 'solutions'. I know you guys are still working on the pathfinding and animations so it might be worth looking into.

Also i know that it won't simply be the quality of for example the 'Left for dead' animation, physic system but even half of that would be awesome. The zombies don't have to be that agile but at least be able to get to you in ways you might not think they could. An other example would be 'seven days to die'; in that game they can get you even though the floor (breaking though it). Now i don't expect something like this 'seven days to die' but i really feel the need for more dynamics with the zombie following/ engaging the player.

:) - BVG

[mick17 93]

Well they would have to change a fundamental principal in his new AI approach. His new proposal included path finding straight to the nearest target and collision avoidance. They would have to get rid of collision avoidance if they wanted to include collisions. So I don't know how that would work into the new AI.

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

L4D has a system where zombies can climb and leap over things but i can tell you from experience, both code and animation wise it is not a trivial task at all.

[tommes 331]

They could allow an error margin for the avoidance.

[BVG 0]

Well they would have to change a fundamental principal in his new AI approach. His new proposal included path finding straight to the nearest target and collision avoidance. They would have to get rid of collision avoidance if they wanted to include collisions. So I don't know how that would work into the new AI.

 

Well yes, but they don't have to get rid of the colision avoidance altogether, they can make exceptions for certain objects (like a fence). So just like a door, the zombie ai has to check if the door is open or not to choose if that is a viable path or not. I know this requires code change but a quick and simple solution would be;

 

• Is the zombie chasing a player? Yes>
• Is the player suddenly further away; did the player in question just executed an hop command? Yes> 
• Is there a (special object : fence) in the way of the shortest route? Yes?
• Random function that chooses the outcome. (and or specify more conditions).

  Option A: Execute zombie fence fall animation.

  Option B: Execute zombie hop animation.

 

That's probably not going to be possible, do you know how difficult that would be to animate, or even have them react as ragdolls like Rockstar has in GTA4s euphoria physics?.

 

It can be possible; I am not saying that they should do it at the same level as gta4, i am just saying they should make the zombie interaction more diverse. If i were to make it as simple as possible you could have the 'hop' animation on the zombies that make it over the fence and a separate animation of a zombie falling over it. And let an ai script randomly choose an outcome of that group/ horde or individual zombie. That way you don't need an advanced ragdol ;)

So i don't know how easy or hard this would be to implement and if this would even work but i think its worth looking into at least   :beans: