gameplay-ai

[pine steeple]

also consider capping to say 100 balls

and spawning new ball everytime one dies

i can run 200 monsters in our game, at 60fps with 8 players on listen server

with those above techniques

[lyric flint]

I see, I'm trying this right now, but i guess if i want to simulate a horde of enemies I need a completely different method.
I mean you have instancing for static meshes, but i don't think there is anything comparable with actual pawns, right?

[pine steeple]

its not going to be your render thread

so having instanced meshes wont benefit that much

make sure they dont block navmesh also

[lyric flint]

I've seen a video from epic were they used a bunch of different techniques to simulate thousands of enemies and using niagara was one of the things they used.
Is this just for the visuals or could it even help to "fake" AI with these particles, i mean they just have to follow and die (in my case)

[pine steeple]

i mean you could use niagara

this is fine for dumb things

[lyric flint]

I will try your suggestions first and see the results and try niagara after that (really unexperienced with it though)

[pine steeple]

this is what i mean by its the movement of the actor in the world

eating your game time

[lyric flint]

So I used all your suggestions and I get similar results (200 Enemies at ~60 fps), i guess it worked! 🙂

[night thicket]

Wondering if anyone could answer my question. Does child blueprints share ticks of the parent bp?

[misty wharf]

as in, a child actor component, or you mean when you inherit a BP from another?

[night thicket]

Inherit

[misty wharf]

in that case if your child has a Tick event, it overrides the parent's tick, same with other events and functions as well if they exist in the parent

You can right click the event or function node and choose "insert call to parent" or whatever the option was called, which gives you a node that allows you to trigger the parent tick

[night thicket]

Hmm. Ok I had multiple ai on screen and for some reason they take turns to attack.

[misty wharf]

if they are all individual actors then they all have their own ticks and such even if they are based on the same blueprint

[night thicket]

Thanks for your answer

[misty wharf]

np

[lyric flint]

Hey, am using predict projectile path by trace channel and for some reason when it hits an AI with AIperception it stops detecting the player

Any ideas?

[tame badge]

@pallid mica

i dont want to stop movement

i want it to stop following the targeted location and change the location

[pallid mica]

And calling MoveAI again with a new location doesn't do that?

[tame badge]

nope

it first completes what it was doing

(in my case)

for example i have a deer which roams around

i have set such that if player is too clost to deer it will run

but at first the deer completes its roaming then run'

[pallid mica]

Hm

Are there other Move AI nodes that one can use?

[tame badge]

yeah there is

[pallid mica]

Might be some more complex ones that allow that

AI is not my best area :D

[tame badge]

oh i see

[tame badge]

so can anyone help?

Can anyone tell me how can i cancel an ai move to when it has already locked in on an actor
what i am doing is i want the ai to follow the player on a certain distance
so when the player comes too near to the ai it starts following it
but when following if the player goes too far the ai doenst stop
i think its because the ai already locked his location to the location of the player
can i somhow cancel it midways?

for example i have a deer which roams around
i have set such that if player is too clost to deer it will run
but at first the deer completes its roaming then run'

[stiff gale]

How would u know if the ai npc are within the player render distance and also not behind the player? I would like to disable ai brain and animbp based on that.

[celest python]

How do you detect if your AI is not in "8" players view?

WasRecentlyRendered() runs authority only so I assume you are doing a math based on distance?

[ebon zenith]

You can tag player with extra visual sense source where it basically do LOS check. So if AI can't sense anything from this tag/sensory it's not spotted.(cause LOS goes both way.)

[ebon zenith]

Are you using behavior tree? Cause if you just try to wire up your own AI events, some of the action like the AI move to nodes can't be interrupted. (Notice the clock icon on top right of node, also the node doesn't accept extra interrupt execution input)

[modern owl]

easiest way to move a fish from point a to point b without a navigation system? I'd like a way to do it with a timeline and lerp vectors, but I want to be able to control how fast they go with a movement speed parameter

[tame badge]

no im using the normal player controller

[golden glade]

how can i get the rotation of the navlink point an AI

[stiff gale]

How do you make AI rotate using animations when finding random location?

[misty wharf]

Rotate how?

To pretend it's looking around?

[stiff gale]

I have my AI roaming from location to location. I've 1d BS that goes from idle to -> walk -> run

[golden glade]

I want it to rotate towards its destination

so if its at the bottom it will face the top destination and vice versa

[misty wharf]

iirc there's a rotation speed setting or something like this on the character movement comp which you can use to artificially slow it down, you could probably do something in anim bps to make it play some kind of animation... but I'm not really super familiar with that part of the equation :)

[stiff gale]

Currently I'm doing that. But I wanted to use animations.

Maybe I coudl create a task FaceDirection then play anim.

[misty wharf]

There's probably some way you can find out what the target rotation is vs current rotation, so you can animate it in the anim bp while those don't match

[thorny cloud]

https://streamable.com/quhaqt

Alrighty, so I have a bit of a dilemma. So a few days ago I've been taking a dive into trying out level streaming, something I've been wanting to implement into my game since the beginning of development. A few days ago, I finally reached the point in development where I could start implementing it, and for the most part, it's been working out very well! Except for one thing. Navmesh's and AI seems to be very very finicky when it comes to level streaming. Sometimes it'll work, and sometimes it won't. In most cases, the enemy AI will just flat out not work at all.

I've tried a whole bunch of things, putting the Navmesh in the persistent level so that it's always loaded. It seemed to worked at first, but eventually that method stopped working. I tried putting the Navmesh in the same level chunk as my enemies, so that both are loaded in at the same time. Still nothing. I tried putting the enemies and the Navmesh in two separate level layers, loading the Navmesh first, and then the enemy. Nothing. I'm not really sure what else I'm suppose to do here.

[delicate hazel]

Not a big help, but I had no issues with level streaming and NavMesh in 4.23 or 4.24 (don't remember), so there might be another cause of your AI issues

[thorny cloud]

https://streamable.com/zmlvim

I'm using 4.26 on my end. I'm pretty sure the actual AI itself is fine, and that it is something about the level streaming that's confusing it. I can sometimes fix it by loading up the standalone level and building the navigation. Then immediately afterwards, loading up the Level Streaming world with the testing area already being visible at the start. It doesn't always fix it, but it's been the most consistent solution.

But....as soon as I disable the visibility of the level, in order to edit a different level, the AI breaks. And that's a massive problem, since the entire point of me wanting to use this Level Stream system is to link levels together into one seamless world, with almost no need for loading screens. (Outside of a few exceptions of course.)

In my head, this issue actually does make a lot of sense, since it's trying to build AI pathing for a level that isn't currently there, and that may be confusing it. I just don't have even the slightest idea of how to fix it, aside from building the navigation while literally every single level of my game is visible/loaded in at once, which I don't really wanna do for obvious reasons.

[wise iris]

So this is certainly an interesting navmesh generation result...

[verbal violet]

I got recommendation in #legacy-physics to ask in this channel please don't remove
Hi people, I have problem with ragdolls. I already set preset to ragdoll block only WorldStatic to allow my ai enemies to pass through ragdolls (because they stay on scene). However that works but this one ai character has some strange corrections during Move To task in BT, when comes on dead bodies. USeControllerYaw in Pawn is disabled and UseControllerDesiredRotation is enabled (in CharacterMovement)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10lHknflRzHwkcbtL4QHVrp5bSwU_K1xr/view

[misty wharf]

Are you using avoidance?

If it's using avoidance then you probably need to unregister the dead pawn from the avoidance system so it won't do that

[ebon zenith]

Did you put the AI in the streaming level? Have you consider spawn them in with a pool of prespawn AI(but not possessed)

[thorny cloud]

Like the actual AI object? Not the character?

I've never heard of the other method with prespawning, so I dunno how to do that.

[ebon zenith]

Cause spawning AI controllers and pawns have some overhead if you have plenty AI loading/destroyed

So in your case where you go through levels, does the AI belong to that level being destroyed as well?

By pre-spawn a pool of AI pawns and AI controllers, it lets you move the pawn where you wanted and then possessed before starting the AI.

Of course you can hide that during transition if you have like only 3-5 AI max

[verbal violet]

@misty wharf yes, posible tnx

yes that was problem i forget on avoidance :), tnx again

[hearty niche]

any advice on enemies finding a good spot to stand in to shoot the player. There are 2 factors in this case I think. One, is an enemy in front of them, two is distance from player.

Also, is a cover system necessary for a game that empasises stealth?

[glossy spire]

@hearty niche You might want to look into EQS

You'll probably want a visibility check, distance check, and dot product check

[hearty niche]

also would cover system be needed in a stealth oriented fps?It feels like a real pain in the ass to program.

Like I intend to make damage received higher to discourage head on encounters.

[glossy spire]

I wouldn't say its needed, imo. Usually cover systems are for third person shooting games.

Instead I think you should focus on a more sophisticated detection / investigation system

[hearty niche]

Fair enough so I should be looking at spotting, search and callouts then I guess. Thanks that actually helps a lot.

[thorny cloud]

The enemies (And by extension, their AI.) are apart of the same level being destroyed, yes. The Navmesh is in the first layer for the level being loaded, so it's one of the very first things being loaded in when the level is streamed. And then enemies and NPCs are on the final layer of the level, so they're the very last things that are loaded in.

[modern owl]

best way to move a AI without a navmesh? I have a fish that I want to go from point a to point b and i don't need a a* setup or anything like that. Just "move to this vector" The only thing i do need is to be able to do it with a speed variable so different fish go different speeds. Any ideas? I was thinking a timeline, but I don't know how to make it go at different speeds.

[ebon zenith]

A siMple way to check is by turning on the AI debug drawing

' ← use this key

If it doesn't draw a representation of a view piechart etc, it's not possessed by a valid AI controller.

(this is assuming you are using behavior tree, if you didn't use BT, you probably need to do a print via on possess event.)

Most broken AI should check first they are possessed, and then check other things later.

[storm zephyr]

hello, i'm having a weird problem where i have a sequence with a move to, then it executes Task A and then it executes Task B. In Task A i override OnTaskFinished to cleanup a state variable before executing Task B. Most of the time everything works fine, except sometimes it goes into Task B without running OnTaskFinished for Task A which puts the AI in an inconsistent state. Is there any known reason where the BT flow can go into the next task without calling OnTaskFinished on the current task?

[ebon zenith]

One thing I learn very early on in UE4 blueprint is you do not assume two different things running in sequence you assume that will be just fine. As in your case, majority of time.

And that some times it doesn't work can lead to very dramatic changes later down the road when you try to fix it.

Basically, I would suggest that you put all the things you want to do with OnTaskFinished only deal with inconsequential stuff. Cause you can't guarantee the event call is issued the same frame as your task.

You can do a simple test, by adjusting max fps and other scalability settings so you can achieve say 24-240fps

And then test if your AI still holds up.

My guess is at higher frame rate your AI will fail and run into issues you have more.

[ebon zenith]

You can put those clean up into a macro or something so they are guaranteed to run together with you task.

[storm zephyr]

i just thought it was sequential, once a task finished it triggers OnTaskFinished and then it moves on to the next

[ebon zenith]

Never assume that treat all the red event nodes as if they can be run at the same time and can run at different frames.

Even if you directly call Event B from Event A

There are special cases like BeginPlay only run once at the beginning before anything else.

In your case, my understanding probably be that main task events have a higher priority than the onTaskFinished if they are scheduled to next frame.

Don't ask me how Epic do that cause I don't know the source code that well.

But that's how they deal with AIs so they can run a lot of AI before you hit bottleneck.(since they don't have to finish all the logics in 1 frame, they just run enough to update and then do something else to try reach the target.)

[misty wharf]

It's not really that unpredictable

Async/latent execution pins are usually (probably always?) separate and labeled

so nodes which look synchronous are synchronous... they may trigger an asynchronous action, such as the Run EQS Query node, but it's usually somewhat obvious in that you can't get any useful result out of that node unless you listen to the event from the returned value

(or you need to use the labeled latent pins)

[ebon zenith]

How do you know for sure? I am saying because BP events like I mentioned above doesn't even guarantee atomic execution even if you chain them together. If say event A fires pretty often and then Event B use Event A's result. I've run into data race issues like this enough time that I never trust the execution orders even if event B only getting called by Event A.

The execution is in order they are chained, but the data access aren't.

[steady elm]

how do i check if the MoveToLocation on an AIController was successful or if it failed because they got stuck and all that jazz

[misty wharf]

I've never had that problem. It sounds like you have latent logic mixed in where you don't realize if you have issues with that... also if you really have events which run and produce results you need to use in another events, it sounds like you probably should be using functions and having them return values :)

[misty wharf]

There's a move to node with pins for the results, use that one if you need to know that kind of information

[steady elm]

i figured it out, but i was wondering what is the best way to make a character slow down on a slope (and i'm using c++)

also thxies :>

[misty wharf]

I think you should be able to get the angle of the surface it's standing on and then based on that reduce speed perhaps. Not sure if that's the best way but it's at least an idea I guess

[steady elm]

what would i find that in, the AiController class ?

[misty wharf]

it'd probably be either in character movement controller or in the character itself

the CMC definitely does some logic on what actor it's currently based on (meaning on top of)

[ebon zenith]

Which is what happen to @storm zephyr example. His task C relies on Task B's clean up event do the job.

[misty wharf]

Pretty sure he had that in C++ though?

[ebon zenith]

Thus I suggest not doing it in 2 events.

C++ or not doesn't change the fact that events can be fired from different frames or have those data race issues no?

But I am not familiar with UE4 code base enough to say for sure.

[misty wharf]

Well in BT's yes, but if the tasks are set up correctly they will run all of their lifecycle functions before the next one runs

it's possible he didn't have it correctly set up to handle asynchronous task execution, or some other situation like that

[ebon zenith]

So basically you mean he have logical errors that only happen randomly and Not from execution/data race?

[misty wharf]

I haven't really done BT stuff in C++ tbh so I'm not super familiar with how it functions, but at least in BP's it works very predictably

Yeah, they don't just randomly go in a different order without some reason

[ebon zenith]

No I didn't mean they aren't execute without orders. Maybe I phrase then poorly.

They are execute with the order you specified. But just that the Task B can run again while previous clean up is running or finished.

Thus, Task C getting wrong results assuming another Task B won't be triggered before the onTaskFinished is done.

[misty wharf]

I don't think it should do that

I just looked it up in the code out of curiosity

the only time OnTaskFinished is called is when the behavior tree finishes executing the task

[ebon zenith]

It happens a lot for input related BP issues during early days.

[misty wharf]

so it will always run before the next task is started

[ebon zenith]

I even wrote a wiki article for new comers.

That's where I am not sure/certain.

Cause BT execution the entire package I don't know the framework well enough to say yes or no.

But I just avoid depending my execution from event firing orders at all. Like never when I do things in BP

[misty wharf]

The only situation where it might not get called is if the task finishes execution with EBTNodeResult::InProgress

but I think that means it won't execute the following task

so it shouldn't really be an issue even in that case

it would break a lot of stuff if the tasks wouldn't have a predictable execution model, because even in my game I have tons of AI logic which depends on the previous task having set some blackboard state lol

[ebon zenith]

Yeah, which make it really strange isn't it. If a task failed, it should never really try to run task C

If it success, then onTaskFinished should run before it runs Task C

[misty wharf]

Yeah

There seems to be some limitations with OnTaskFinished on non-instanced BT tasks, such that it should be treated as a const function in those cases

so possibly doing something you're not supposed to do, like not treating it as a const in that scenario, could cause issues I think

[ebon zenith]

Could it even be possible that Task C fired when onTaskFinished is still working?

(thus data race)

[misty wharf]

I don't know if that's possible unless you're firing off tasks in different threads

I'm fairly sure the BT runs in the game thread

[ebon zenith]

Yeah, someone mentioned that before.

Quote a video even.

Cause I just assume everything runs in different thread.

And got corrected.

[misty wharf]

Threading is annoying so I never assume anything is in a separate thread unless it explicitly states that it is lol

[ebon zenith]

Is it stated in documents?

[misty wharf]

I think it's quite safe to assume everything you do in UE runs in the game thread

[ebon zenith]

(like this function is run in a different thread, don't rely on the result etc?)

[misty wharf]

The only situation where I've seen it to not run in the game thread was when I did something with the RHI apis

[ebon zenith]

I guess that's why input related events cause a big issues. Cause the input polling/firing seems to be from independent thread.

I've helped quite a couple input firing issues in the past.

Most is data race.

[misty wharf]

It's plausible it'd be in a separate thread from which the state is synchronized into the game thread

[ebon zenith]

Say press A and set boolean to true/false.

And then press B that rely on the flag to do one thing or another.

So many people fails with this type of things.

[misty wharf]

I don't think that should still be a problem, unless the timing was extremely close

or the framerate was extremely poor :D

as long as there's enough delay between the keypresses that they both run in their own frames, they should still execute in the same order as they were pressed

I'd assume the order is undefined if they are both pressed simultaneously within the same frame

[obtuse spoke]

I think I solved my own issue, saw that some code was deprecated so I got rid of it and it appears to work.

[storm zephyr]

@misty wharf that is what happens to me, the TickComponent finishes InProgress. Any idea why?

[misty wharf]

I mean if it's a BT task you created it's because the code you wrote returns that status, no?

[storm zephyr]

yes but i only call FinishLatentTask when it's not InProgress, so it shouldn't finish the task move on to the next:

void UBTTask_FaceDirection::TickTask(UBehaviorTreeComponent& OwnerComp, uint8* NodeMemory, float DeltaSeconds)
{
    const EBTNodeResult::Type Result = PerformFaceDirection();

    if (Result != EBTNodeResult::InProgress)
    {
        FinishLatentTask(OwnerComp, Result);
    }
}

i keep forgetting the code char in discord xD

[hidden bloom]

(it's 3 `s, btw)

[storm zephyr]

thanks xD

so in TickTask i keep running a interpto rotation to face the blackboard direction

[misty wharf]

Yeah I'm not really familiar with how BT tasks function in C++, but I suspect the problem is somewhere within this if they start executing out of order

I checked and the OnTaskFinished functions definitely only gets called when the behavior tree finishes executing a task, and this happens before the next task gets started

[storm zephyr]

that means that there is another way to go to the next task without finishing the previous

because the first task never actually finishes

it's like it's being overriden

[misty wharf]

Yeah I think it's probably not an intended mechanism, but rather as a result of it doing something unintentional it triggers the next task to start

[storm zephyr]

maybe a performance setting?

[misty wharf]

I don't think so, it doesn't care how long your task takes

I have bt tasks that never finish unless a certain condition is met

[storm zephyr]

but you use bp tasks right?

[misty wharf]

yeah, it shouldn't be any different in that sense though as they inherit from the C++ classes

[storm zephyr]

yeah i know, but i don't think you can access the tick event in bp

[misty wharf]

Might be yeah, but nothing stops you from say starting a timeline in there :D

iirc anyway

I don't think the behavior tree has time slicing

since it would have to be built into how the task works

and since it runs in the game thread and not as a separate thread, it can't really abort an already running tick either

[storm zephyr]

i'm running out of ideas on how to make this reliable, so i guess i have to duck tape it and clear the state on the next task, which kinda sucks

[misty wharf]

I'd suggest trying to find more info on how latent BT tasks should be written in C++, and verify that your task follows the correct way to do it to a T

Sorry I can't really offer any more solid ideas on this, but I'm pretty sure that if they randomly just started the next task like this, it would break a lot of behavior trees and expectations in how that system works

[storm zephyr]

thanks for your help, i'll let you know if i find the reason 😛

[misty wharf]

good luck :)

[storm zephyr]

@misty wharf now sometimes the task ends twice xD

[misty wharf]

jeez lol

[storm zephyr]

@misty wharf bCreateNodeInstance = true seemed to fix it (need to do more testing to confirm)

even though i don't use Memory for anything

[pulsar cosmos]

question. what advantage do i get by using the behaviour tree in ue4 over setting up manual Ai tasks in the controller and blueprint? the latter is also easier to set up in general without relying on tick function.

[misty wharf]

You're supposed to treat OnTaskFinished as const if you're not using instanced nodes, that might be the problem

[storm zephyr]

@misty wharf hope so 😛

[verbal violet]

Is it possibile to change this, area class, in runtime, and how? I need that for some kind of door when it opened there should be NavArea_Default, closed NavArea_Null?

[pine steeple]

ofc

[verbal violet]

I succeded to change it, on some very strange way, set Area Class in bp as NavArea_Null, then on begin play i save this 0 index element from Links, then on some my event (door opened) remove 0 element from Links and add new, created from saved on BeginPlay, in that case Area Class is None and that is ok but GetRandomReachabalePointInRadius still return points only inside room, like door still closed adn on NavLink still set NavArea_Null

so i need some refresh or update for nav system or nav link, i tried to set it to be dirty but nothing works

@pine steeple sorry, you wrote ofc for my question above?

[pine steeple]

yeah was meant to finish but got distracted 😄

you need to grab the link id from the array

[verbal violet]

you mean index?

nothing is exposed and can't do it is simple thing but annoying

i tried on this way and got desired result but navigation still "see" this nav link as it has NavArea_Null for Area Class

@pine steeple

[pine steeple]

ah bp only :/

in C++ we can do this, but in BP looks like there is no easy way

[verbal violet]

no i'm not only bp, i just tried there because things usually simpler in bp, and component is added in bp

if you have some cpp snipet pls share

because i tried to add in cpp as component and there is no NavLinkComponent so i dont know how to start what is calss of NavLinkComponent

@pine steeple

FNavigationLink?

[pine steeple]

there is no navlink component but we implemented the navlinks into our door/zipline/vault actor bases classes

just basically copy past of anavlinkproxy

paste*

[verbal violet]

agrh yes i did my vaulting on same way

so can't simpler ?

ok thanks man, I will try on that way ....but tomorrow 🙂 , there is more job to do than I meant on start @pine steeple

[pine steeple]

infact we did one better and made a custom component

depends how many things need a navlink

[verbal violet]

what is base class for custom component, i get ANavLinkProxy for vaulting

[stiff gale]

How to know which way AI is turning? Let's say AI roams by finding a random location. I find the location and turn my AI prior moving to the found location. Let's say I want to use that in my BS.

[lyric flint]

can someone help me im trying to make an ai that will follow me if i get into the sphere collision but my bullet is actualy pawn but i need the sphere to be pawn cause my character is pawn pls help

[verbal violet]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0hB-GAEMuk&t=1925s&ab_channel=Filmstorm

this is solution but for player...I used that, adapted for my AI, should have two BS, one for start and one for move (1D),
should provide input for BS, speed and direction. speed is normalized because in tutorial use speeds from 0 - 1 (axis input), direction is angle between your desired turn point and your current rotation (actor/capsule forward vector)

I don't remmeber is there how to caclulate direction but I did on this way, InitialRotation is cached capsula rotation in moment when ai decided to start with turn, and this on pic is in Tick

start turn, in my system fired from custom task in BT

@stiff gale

[stiff gale]

Thanks I will give a try

[stiff gale]

I wrote a service in c++ but not showing up when I try to create a blueprint from it. Also i added some logs in the service c++ file but they don't show up. https://gyazo.com/3becd90283be045638c43c8579cd313b

[stiff gale]

Anybody?

[misty wharf]

Your question is kind of unclear. What do you mean it doesn't show up? In your screenshot there is clearly a service?

[stiff gale]

I added some logs. It won't execute

[misty wharf]

Tick or what?

If tick doesn't execute, the problem is likely that the node doesn't remain active for 0.4 seconds. There is a separate bool flag which needs to be set for it to tick at least once on activation

[pine steeple]

you have nothing going on below it

face actor will be instant

or near enough

[stiff gale]

So pretty much face actor task turns the player then my service suppose to play anim montage

I was going to do that in my BlendSpace. But I couldn't get the direction to work with my BlendSpace

[stiff gale]

got it working thanks anyway

[meager bobcat]

ive got some obstacles that I want my AI to attack if its in their path

is there a way to code that?

like path to a player, and if there's an obstacle in the way, then hit it?

[misty wharf]

There's probably multiple ways to do it depending on how you want it handled

One way would be to have the obstacles not affect navigation, and have your AI's detect when they bump into them

[flint trail]

Got health and damage added to NPC last night.. Now thinking about pain state. My tree splits into 2 based on target sensed (sensed/not sensed) and then each subtree is split into several states.

Should I just add pain state and add pain task, which I can then add to both sensed/not sensed subtrees ?

[misty wharf]

Seems reasonable to me

In my game I have the pain state just as its own branch, since it doesn't depend on the state of the npc otherwise, but if you needed it to behave differently depending on which branch of the logic it's currently in, then you certainly can handle the pain state individually in those too

(or if for some other reason it's easier to implement like that)

[flint trail]

I though about it, but then it interferes with sensed/non-sensed split I have (I am not sure how I add 3rd option to that selector, other than check for whether it's sensed or not sensed AND in pain)

[paper herald]

Anyone know if a Search Context can be used as a "filter" within EQS? I have a context that prunes some actors from the resulting actor set but for some reason EQS isn't ignoring those actors for the other tests.

[real ivy]

hey gang, I'm running into an issue running multiple EQS Queries in the Behavior Tree

I have an Idle Task, the task uses a 'patrol EQS Query'

when in combat, I have another task that uses a 'melee' EQS Query'

however, when I run the game and I debug it, it never seems to run the melee EQS Query when in combat. It keeps with the Patrol EQS Query

am I supposed to do something in the behavior tree to clear out the previous query?

to make sure, I removed the patrol EQS Query from the behavior tree and then it used the melee EQS Query just fine, so it's not that the melee EQS query is broken

[misty wharf]

are you using the Run EQS Query node or how is this implemented?

[real ivy]

yes. I am using the Run EQS Query node (the default one)

[misty wharf]

ah sorry, the task?

[real ivy]

yes

[misty wharf]

okay yeah just realized that the BP node for it has the same name :D

anyway that sounds a bit odd

[misty wharf]

Have you tried setting a breakpoint on it to ensure that it's actually being ran?

[real ivy]

yes. it is being run

in fact, I can see it in debug, but the IDLE query has priority over it and the melee one is grey'd out

[misty wharf]

What are you referring to by debug?

[misty wharf]

Ah

[real ivy]

I use the " key and then type 4 number key

[misty wharf]

It seems to me that for some reason it's also running this one, the queries don't have any kind of priority mechanism

If you set a breakpoint on the patrol BT task, does it run when the attack one should run? or immediately after it?

[real ivy]

it runs the idle query once and then never again.

i'm watching the points in the debug and they never update.

[misty wharf]

Does it actually run the Move To after the melee query task?

[real ivy]

yes

I did a print statement on the query to verify it was getting a legit number

and it fires off the print statement

(i'm spitting out a vector for the melee character to go to)

[misty wharf]

well that doesn't really mean the move to runs

you'd need to set a breakpoint on it, or pause the execution and then step backwards to see if it went into the move to node or no

because to me it sounds like what's happening is that something is failing and exiting your tree branch, and as a result it ends up at the patrol part of your BT

[real ivy]

ok

so I figured it out.

it's working, but the debug only shows one query

so I guess the queries are being used appropriately

[misty wharf]

Heh

[real ivy]

but the debug only shows the first one

[misty wharf]

I think you may have to press * to cycle through them

[real ivy]

I wish it would show the currently used EQS

[misty wharf]

You can also use the Visual Logger to get a more time-precise log of when they run

[real ivy]

cool thanks zomg.

[flint trail]

does anyone know of a good and up to date physical animation tutorial ? I need to make NPC twitch slightly when hit by projectiles or hitscan weapons.

[night thicket]

@flint trail lots on the marketplace.

Anyone here ever try to make a replica of the Alien Isolation AI?

[flint trail]

a tutorial on the Marketplace!? 😆

[night thicket]

Oops. Lol. I guess I must've skipped the tutorial part.

I'd look into "Mr mannequin" add-on if your a blender user. Should have some tutorials on YouTube.

Also it's free.

[flint trail]

I use Akeytsu to animate characters (Blender for everything else)

[night thicket]

How well is it for rigging?

[flint trail]

it's ... amazing

Try it, they offer free trial

it doesn't have constraints, but what it offers is super easy and enjoyable way of rigging and animation of the characters.

[night thicket]

Thanks for the info. I'll check it out.

[rocky bison]

does anyone know how I could go about making my AI select a random EQS location without a custom generator?

or is it necessary?

I could think of either using a custom generator, or running the query in a blueprint

but I was thinking maybe there's an easier way?

[glossy spire]

Its not too hard to make a query, even with their janky tool

You can probably do most of what you'll need with their built in filters

Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by custom generator

[rocky bison]

ah, it's fine

I'll figure it out

[stiff gale]

So I have basic roaming AI which can take damage if I hit them and flee when I am nearby. How can I make them flee when I do damage?

[misty wharf]

@rocky bison EQS can give you a random location from its result set. If that doesn't do what you need, just run the query in a blueprint using the Run EQS Query node, get its results, and pick a random value from the results.

[glossy spire]

@stiff gale You could set a flag on the actor or blackboard when they take damage, then reset it after a few seconds. Then just check that flag on a decorator

You could use EQS to get a location to flee to

[stiff gale]

So I'm passing an enum value in BehavivorTree using a decorator.
EBotBehaviorType BT = (EBotBehaviorType)Ctrl->GetBlackboard()->GetValueAsEnum(BBKeys::BehaviorType);

But it won't work. https://gyazo.com/28a94c685811631173ea83c4e544148b

I still get Passive instead FLee

[olive crown]

Can you change the EQS context of a query at runtime? Say I want the context to be the target the ai is currently aiming at, which is stored as a pointer in a blackboard or something. Would it be possible to have that context always reflect the current target?

I guess my question can be summarized as, does the logic inside the query context run every time the EQS query runs or just once on begin play? (And for anyone curious I will be trying this later in the day when I have time)

[hearty niche]

you could have your target stored in the controller and have that as a custom context returning this value from the querier preferably via a blueprint interface and yes EQS logic runs every time on call.

[olive crown]

Thanks for the suggestion, and info. Appreciate it.

[olive crown]

Anyone know if there is a way to make the perception component do multiple traces to the target? It "looks" at the target's center. So if the player stands behind a low wall, obfuscating the center of the player character then the AI can no longer see you despite your torso and head sticking out.

Im not seeing any easy way of fixing it when looking at the exposed properties on the AI perception component

https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/229043/ai-perception-only-can-detect-middle-of-player.html seems like this is the way to go

[pine steeple]

you need to implement the interface on the stimuli, and override the function IAISightTargetInterface and virtual bool CanBeSeenFrom(const FVector& ObserverLocation, FVector& OutSeenLocation, int32& NumberOfLoSChecksPerformed, float& OutSightStrength, const AActor* IgnoreActor) const override;

@olive crown

ah nvm

you saw that link 😄

[olive crown]

Haha thanks, still

[pine steeple]

we override this on the players

so they can be detected better

[olive crown]

Just gotta figure out what all the params mean and how the function is actually used. CanBeSeenFrom is called when an actor with the perception component looks at you I take it? Or something along those lines.

Edit: Finding some info, so I'll figure it out in due time.

[pine steeple]

it is called ON the actor who the AI wants to see

[olive crown]

Yeah, I got that part going now.

[pine steeple]

you just need to return the Location it can be seen from

and number of traces, and strength of the sight (normally just 1)

number of traces is purely for timeslicing/tracking

crucial is you return true if seen, and the location that it was seen at

return false if not seen

crude example is NumberOfLoSChecksPerformed = 1; OutSeenLocation = GetActorLocation(); OutSightStrength = 1.f; return true;

for example

[olive crown]

Ah thanks. Looking around and finding others' code on how they are doing it. So I'm going through their code to understand it.

Thanks for the example too.

[pine steeple]

no traces, here, always true

if its inside the sight radius

(we use this for certain actors)

[olive crown]

That is basically the default implementation, no?

[pine steeple]

no

default implementation does a line trace

[olive crown]

Ah right, of course

[pine steeple]

more extensive example

    FRotator EyeRot;
    GetActorEyesViewPoint(EyeLoc, EyeRot);
    FHitResult HitResult;
    const bool bHit = GetWorld()->LineTraceSingleByChannel(HitResult, EyeLoc, ObserverLocation
        , ECC_Visibility
        , FCollisionQueryParams(SCENE_QUERY_STAT(AILineOfSight), true, IgnoreActor));
    
    ++NumberOfLoSChecksPerformed;
    
    auto HitResultActorIsOwnedByTargetActor = [&HitResult, this]()
    {
        AActor* HitResultActor = HitResult.Actor.Get();
        return (HitResultActor ? HitResultActor->IsOwnedBy(this) : false);
    };
    
    if (bHit == false || HitResultActorIsOwnedByTargetActor())
    {
        Listener.RegisterStimulus(TargetActor, FAIStimulus(*this, 1.f, TargetLocation, Listener.CachedLocation));
        SightQuery->bLastResult = true;
        SightQuery->LastSeenLocation = TargetLocation;
    }
    // communicate failure only if we've seen give actor before
    else if (SightQuery->bLastResult == true)
    {
        Listener.RegisterStimulus(TargetActor, FAIStimulus(*this, 0.f, TargetLocation, Listener.CachedLocation, FAIStimulus::SensingFailed));
        SightQuery->bLastResult = false;
        SightQuery->LastSeenLocation = FAISystem::InvalidLocation;
    }
    
    if (SightQuery->bLastResult == false)
    {
        SIGHT_LOG_LOCATION(ListenerPtr->GetOwner(), TargetLocation, 25.f, FColor::Red, TEXT(""));
    }```

this is not full code

but you get an idea

[olive crown]

Perfect, thanks. I'll go through that as well. But you basically can use the ObserverLocation to trace against the actor that is running the function's mesh etc as well. To internally calculate what is seen.

[pine steeple]

right ObserverLocation is your AI location for example

IgnoreActor will be your AI's pawn

you then return true or false depending on if they are seen

and set OutSeenLocation, OutSightStrength and NumberOfLosChecksPerformed if you returned true.

[olive crown]

Think I got the hang of it now. Appreciate the help!

[pine steeple]

remember IgnoreActor is your AI pawn, so when you do traces, make sure you ignore it

[olive crown]

Just gonna go through your code and the others as well to get a deeper understanding.

Will do!

[pine steeple]

you might want to do a reverse trace

from the player to the AI, etc

[olive crown]

Yeah was thinking of whether to do from actor being seen to observer or the other way around

[pine steeple]

either way, depends what complexity you need

i normally do traces from 6 locations

head, arms, chest, pelvis

we don't bother with legs

5*

[olive crown]

Thought of something like that too. Thanks again for the help.

[granite robin]

So I need to have a simple NPC/background characters to flesh out a city/level environment - (nothing crazy, just simple walking) I downloaded a pack that has it setup already but I wanted to outline what I wanted to do to check if I have the right approach

just as prelim

1 - Simple enough for me to add splines to the level and modify the basic BP to randomize which skeletal mesh is used, and I would just call these Roamers

2 - But I want to make an area that a crowd gathers around close by which stops the navigation - (easy enough to cast to any AI controller crossing that boundary and setting state to loiter)

So the idea is to make a BP_Crowd that does two things - 1 - Spawns a random (and editable) number of NPC's positioned towards a "look at point" , randomizes their materials (I have 6 basic meshes but I made about 8 different skin/color TGA's for each material (and the materials themselves obviously) so I can randomize them and even reselect it it picks the same material) - this will also give them an animation sequence for loitering, things like taking a picture on cellphone or gazing far off in the distance

Finally this BP_Crowd stops any "roamers" dead in their tracks and assigns them one of the "look at animations"

hopefully this outlines what I want to do clearly enough

[stiff gale]

After my AI is dead, the Ai still rotates as it lying down. It disabled its brain logic. IDK what's wrong?

[night thicket]

Disable it's controller or unpossessed it.

[stiff gale]

I've done it https://gyazo.com/e5532388e4744760a039fb0c1d4f34de

[olive crown]

Is there a way to move where the ai's sight originates from? It is a bit inconvenient and appears to be arbitrarily set at an approximate "head" height. Would have been nice if you could tweak its position.

it seems to originate from somewhere to the left of manny's neck in this case

[misty wharf]

there should be an eye level property on Character iirc

or eye height or whatever it was called

[olive crown]

Ah that is something at least, would have been nice if you could define the X and Y positions of the "eye" too.

[misty wharf]

I think there might be, see how the eye height value is being used, that should probably lead you to where that can be adjusted more

[olive crown]

Good idea, I'll do some digging

Since as far as I know this system is inherently flawed since what if the character's head moves in some way, then, then the vision cone does not move with it.

[misty wharf]

Yeah, I think it works fine for most games tbh but there could be edge cases depending on how you've animated your character where it might look weird

[olive crown]

Exactly, I do a trace from the actor being seen to the observer and it sometimes misses the mesh because the origin of the sight is not attached to the head joint. I guess I should trace against the capsule or something.

[atomic badge]

You could try this
https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/966318/attach-pawn-sensing-to-head.html

[olive crown]

Gonna take a look, thanks!

[olive crown]

This did the trick, thank you very much. Made a custom socket and it is attached to that now and moves with the head as it should. Also don't worry about his inability to hold a gun, poor guy is still learning. 😛

[night thicket]

Can anyone here breakdown the logic of the AI in alien isolation? I watched a few videos of it on YouTube but doesn't really break it down.

[olive crown]

That would be quite a massive breakdown I think. Maybe there are some GDC talks on the topic?

[opal bolt]

BT Run EQS Query has an option for making the query dynamic by Blackboard key. This sounds great, but I did not get use ot of it. On Blackboard keys theres no EQS Query type, I also tried some objects of Envirnment Query, but seems not correct. How do I add a EQS Query do Blackboard so i can choose that EQS blackboard key here ?

[night thicket]

Lol. Ya I know. I'm just trying figure out how does it search a corridor. It knows which area the player is in but how does it go along searching for the player. I need your opinion, do you feel like it's giving a random location to go too when it's near? Or more of a calculated location?

Hmm. Just found a page that is a alien isolation mod that allows you to change the behaviour tree and view it of the Alien. Here a link if anyone interested. https://github.com/MattFiler/OpenCAGE

[olive crown]

Cool find! My guess is that they use something similar to unreal 4's EQS system. Using that you can set up all kinds of searching behavior and look for potential points that the player is close to etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY1jnFvHgbE take a look at this if you haven't already. Especially the EQS section.

[night thicket]

Actually I haven't. That seems perfect for what I want to do.

[olive crown]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii9jMKsb-vs&list=PL4G2bSPE_8un8IplTvVrqPRt7Ey8-3obR this playlist has a lot of stealth game AI stuff as well

Only watched a video or two from it but seems pretty good

[night thicket]

Also I got a question, I made AI using blueprints, which walk smoothly on a spline and its head tracks things, actors blueprints, when walking by. Would this be easy to implement into behavior tree? I'm a noob when it comes to BT.

[olive crown]

You mean the AI walks along a spline and detects other actors?

if so, you should use the AI perception system, the playlist I linked covers it. As well as the video made by Epic.

Should be enough to get you started

[night thicket]

Sorry what I meant was is it easy to implement my custom "move to" in BT? Id test it but not at home.

[olive crown]

Depends on what you want to do but yes it shouldnt be a problem. You make your own custom blueprint task that runs in the behavior tree.

[night thicket]

Thanks for your help and info.

[stiff gale]

So I've an AI controller and I've some code in it. I also want to create a detourCrowd AI controller. How can I share the same code?

[glossy otter]

I'm having an issue with a navmesh, so I have made a door that will stay closed and will open when an actor goes near it, I have made sure the door opening is big enough for the AI to walk through. When the door is open I disable collision on the door components but the navmesh doesn't seem to be updating

Here is my collision code which is called when the door is enabled using the enable boolean variable

and here is the door

[queen venture]

hey all. Is there a way to have player controlled pawns run behavior trees?

I know it seems counter intuitive, but with the non-AI version of the task nodes I was wondering if its possible

[cold trout]

what does MinQueriesPerTimeSliceCheck do? in AISense_sight

default value is 40

is this the rate at which AIs consider whether actors are inside/outside SightRange or PeripheralVision

[ebon zenith]

I assume that you want to implement some sort of helper function, say a cortana? Also curious is your idea involve multiplayer at all?

Cause AI controllers aren't replicated. Also, I think the debug drawing might only look for ai controller run BT

(note, my info maybe way out dated since last time I touch AI is 4.16-17)

[stiff gale]

Is it ok performance wise to use DetourCrowdAiController instead of just the AIController? I know that it's mostly the same and first one helps AI navigate better when they are crowded

[opal bolt]

BT Run EQS Query has an option for making the query dynamic by Blackboard key. This sounds great, but I did not get use ot of it. On Blackboard keys theres no EQS Query type, I also tried some objects of Envirnment Query, but seems not correct. How do I add a EQS Query do Blackboard so i can choose that EQS blackboard key here?

[rocky bison]

could you go into more detail on the first point? I still can't figure out how to do that, and would love to learn a different way than running it in the BP

[misty wharf]

you can see the option in the screenshot above

"Run Mode: Single random Item from best 5%"

there's some other options for it as well

[rocky bison]

ahh

that makes sense

I'll have a look

alright, got it

thanks!

[misty wharf]

yw

[static crater]

Hi, so i'm working on my custom A* Pathfinding algoritm. Till now i made use of a grid of nodes (100cm each), but this seems way to expensive in memory. (a 8k map would mean 67 mil nodes)

So i thought about using quadtree, somehow

anyone could give me some advise?

[night thicket]

I did this a while back. I think I just made a static mesh and instanced the shit out of it. Using a line trace to detect the ones next to it.

[real arrow]

so I know this convo happened a long time ago, but just to clarify, OnBecomeRelavent() is essentially the same as the blueprint "Event Receive Activation" node right?

also I think you made a cpp ai tutorial at some point but I couldn't find it

[idle hazel]

hey guys, so im quite new to AI and im trying to get quite a few melee AI to work. its not going great xD lots of clipping and stacking and circling my player and getting him stuck 😛
i think what i need is a combat director ? something to select a few enemies, let them know they can attack. and kinda control that combat flow. is this the correct train of thought and is there a good place to find resources ? i couldnt find much, perhaps my search terms are wrong though. not 100% sure what im looking for.

[night thicket]

Here's a really old video that I found very helpful when I first started. https://youtu.be/Uhv8ezl4uZo

[pulsar geyser]

Does anyone know why SetControllerRotation() isn’t working for me on my AI Controlled Character? Please can someone help me out, thank you :))

[terse panther]

what are you trying to do?

[pulsar geyser]

im trying to set the rotation of my character

[terse panther]

can you share the code ?
i just try to do this but didn't get any result

i just checked that control rotation will not rotate the player ... it will just rotate player view angle

[night thicket]

Just set actor rotation.

[terse panther]

yeah or you can also change it focal point... that will also work

[stiff gale]

Any idea why my MoveTo is invalid. Anyway to debug the EQS which is setting HidingSpot

[terse panther]

use EQS testing pawn to check the points ... also debug it in play mode....i think move to is not getting location

[stiff gale]

Yes EQS suppose to set the location. WHere in the EQS test pawn you set which player to check?

https://gyazo.com/dc04ead0711e9f1a1b45cf268484a26e

[terse panther]

its looking fine

[stiff gale]

Trying to see how the location value looks like

[terse panther]

debug it in play mode

also check whether the nav mesh is active .... because sometimes in my case it automatically get disabled

[stiff gale]

See the dinstance to QC_FindEnemy. It won't run. https://gyazo.com/25f7416c7b1a2bcbf3a5ac67523f2395

[terse panther]

can you tell me what are you trying to do?
because i just hate eqs because in most cases it wont give results as expected , so i just create my own logic for that

[night thicket]

Also not a fan of EQS or even behavior tree. But EQS has its merits though it does seem costly. Is EQS actually costly? Performance wise.

[misty wharf]

It depends on what tests you're running

It also has timeslicing so slower queries won't tank your framerate so much

[night thicket]

Would it be cheaper to just make bunch of vectors, "points", and do the same test as EQS?

And when I mean make a bunch of vectors, I mean in a custom shape needed. Instead of the ones they provide.

[cursive stag]

Is there a good way to have AI navigate large open worlds that arent entirely nav-meshed? Im using envokers to generate my mesh and cant think of a good way to get them to travel to areas outside of the generated nav-mesh

[night thicket]

You could create splines and make it follow along those path, but anything character movement related won't work.

[cursive stag]

Im sorry, so would the player during runtime be drawing these or would I set up "roads" for the ai to follow

[night thicket]

But it's a set path and won't be able to avoid any obstacle.

You'll have to draw them yourself.

You could make it dynamically as well, just need to know what you want.

And by that I mean how to calculate it

[cursive stag]

I was thinking of a system that would use ray traces to find clear paths with suitable terrain. Is this what you are thinking?

[night thicket]

Ya pretty much.

[cursive stag]

Sounds like a fun challenge. Ill give it a shot. Thank you!

[night thicket]

Lol, have fun.

[stiff gale]

If I want to set speed for the attack, roam and flee behaviors. Should I create a service, decor, or task?

[little hull]

What is best way to optimize nav agents? I have semi large map "World of Warcraft" style and i have couple small villages with roaming npc's then I have enemies roaming. Should I make volumes when player enter certain zone it activates all ai's (on overlap->activate all actors of class)?

[lyric flint]

can someone help me make how to make ai will chase us when we shoot him thanks

[atomic badge]

You can look into the AIPerception component. It has a sense called damage you can add

[lyric flint]

how do i make it work tho i tried it but i have fking idea

[atomic badge]

This video might be helpful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8rz7aZyDMs

[lyric flint]

yeah i follow this one but i dont use the tree thing

[atomic badge]

You should be able to do it without a behavior tree though. But its a lot harder to keep track of as your AI gets more advanced

[lyric flint]

hmmm is there like other way to make this ?

[atomic badge]

You might be able to have it trigger on this giving the location of the actor or actor that hit it and have the AI go to that location. Should do the same if its set up right

[olive crown]

Has anyone tried using utility ai in unreal 4 instead of the default behavior tree method? There are plugins for it, even a free one. Though I cant attest to the quality of it. BTs are getting in increasingly annoying to work with. And using something like GOAP or Utility AI would have been nice.

[storm zephyr]

hello can you tell me if NavigationSystem->FindPathToLocationSynchronously(this, GetActorLocation(), TargetLocation, AIController); uses the default navigation query filter that you set in the AIController?

[wary ivy]

the code probably tells you the best

[storm zephyr]

i tried going inside it but i just got lost xD

[wary ivy]

I'm not sure if you can just pass the controller instance as a UNavigationQueryFilter parameter to the function

it doesn't seem to be an interface of any sorts

[granite robin]

How do i make an AI follow a spline path?

[misty wharf]

Depends on if you want to lock it to the spline or just follow along it with regular movement

[misty wharf]

The last parameter to the function call is the filter class, UNavigationPath* UNavigationSystemV1::FindPathToLocationSynchronously(UObject* WorldContextObject, const FVector& PathStart, const FVector& PathEnd, AActor* PathfindingContext, TSubclassOf<UNavigationQueryFilter> FilterClass)

[storm zephyr]

yes i know

[misty wharf]

Yeah, so if you pass the default filter as that parameter then it would use it

[storm zephyr]

i was using that with AiController->GetDefaultNavigationQueryFilter()

i was asking to know if i can get rid of that

if he's already using it

if you don't supply one

and leave the parameter with nullptr

[misty wharf]

If you look at the code for the function there's no logic in there that would attempt to cast anything into AIController

[storm zephyr]

i'll leave it then to be safe

[misty wharf]

It's usually a good idea to be explicit with parameters anyway so it's clear what's happening :)

[storm zephyr]

thanks 🙂

[static crater]

How big was your tests? i dont follow it really

Why would using mesh take less memory?

[granite robin]

I'd like to try both to set how it looks

[misty wharf]

well if you wanna lock it to the spline, you'd just move the actor on tick or something and get the spline position and such and move it there... for moving along the spline, you'd just keep incrementing some value that gets the next spline position, and keep adjusting the movement target

[granite robin]

Any good examples of this - my use case is just general pedestrians, so staying on a sidewalk - would you just recommend making a nav mesh with some target points, and weighting the street highly so they don't go on it?

[misty wharf]

That sounds like the way I'd do it at least

[granite robin]

Is it less/more performant to do multiple nav meshes and just use exclusion volumes? is there any hit to have one over the other?

in this case, I'm going to draw one big one but I only really want them to walk in the sidewalks so I should just draw a few there then I won't need to have so many exclusion volumes?

[misty wharf]

I'd imagine it mostly affects the navmesh generation time which is in editor anyway, and some amount of memory needed to store it at runtime... I don't think the navigation itself would be any slower, since you'd specify which navdata is used and it'd only calculate on that one navmesh

I'm actually working on a game which probably eventually will have some pedestrians and such walking around so I'll need to look into this some more at some point as well :P

[granite robin]

well if you need help jogging your own memory, I'm sure I"ll have questions soon

like : what should I look into for finding out what is not drawing the nav mesh there?

[misty wharf]

If it's not generating there's probably something that is in the way, it looks like you have some kind of a trigger volume or something in there?

[granite robin]

so I have to put a nav linker there basically

[misty wharf]

it's possible that the hitbox of the streetlamp also causes it to not have as much space, which causes it to not be able to generate the mesh because of the settings

one easy way to test what's causing it is just move anything out of the way and see if it generates correctly :P

[granite robin]

That's what I tried doing, let me try another object here

Why is she sliding across that gap like that?

so how can I adjust for that,

That or how do I set navigation stuff on a BP? do I need to set it on the static meshes themself?

[night thicket]

I don't remember but I think it was 500x500. It's low cost because it's instance static mesh. Means it only needs to do one draw call per frame for all of it. There may be better solutions but this very simple to do and barely takes any resources at all.

[granite robin]

Having a nightmare with the nav mesh generation and accurately being draw - anyone recommend good nav gen settings?

ah - fucking trees I knew it

Here is my problem - I have BP spline actors messing up the nav mesh - how do I fix that, when they are procedurally generated - it probably involves modifying the construction script but I'd need to know more

[misty wharf]

Splines shouldn't affect navigation unless you're giving them colliders

You can disable can ever affect navigation from them if so

[granite robin]

Yeah it was that "draw collision below" that needed to be set on

once I did that for those power lines and the trees it drew better

[granite robin]

Is this a nav mesh issue or collision on that mesh? 93.75

@misty wharf

[misty wharf]

if you mean them floating slightly I think it's a collision issue on the mesh

[granite robin]

but it's rigged to the epic skeleton I thought

I mean looks good

[night thicket]

In the blueprint the mesh needs to be align with the bottom of the collision capsule.

[granite robin]

You mean this? @night thicket

that's the BP I'm using and at runtime it swaps out the manniquan mesh to another one that uses the same skeletal mesh

I notice these are different from the epic one, epics are this -

[night thicket]

Ya that. Probably have to find out the z value of the other one first and set it's location according.

[granite robin]

wonder why they changed it to this :

should I change that or the z axis?

[night thicket]

Hmm. Does the engine put the mesh in the middle of the capsule?

[granite robin]

theirs -

[night thicket]

Not on my PC. But I would just change the z

[granite robin]

epic -

[night thicket]

Z of the mesh. Not the capsule.

And get it align to the bottom perfectly as possible.

[granite robin]

well it's more like this on the epic one too

[night thicket]

But because you switch out mesh, youll might get the wrong results.

Should change the mesh to the one you want and place it. Than return the mesh to whatever.

[granite robin]

ah of course

this is rough - there are 6 different meshes i am just randomly swapping them out

so I'm going to either need to modify the script that spawns them to add a relative offset to the mesh of the BP?

[ebon zenith]

I know it might sound like an hassle, but do you think anything else gonna step on charts head?

Cause if not, you could preoffset your skeleton mesh so they all use the same offset

(note, I don't know if this would break the animation or not, I assume that skin weight is imported as well not generate/bind on the fly to the standard skeleton)

[granite robin]

I'm adjusting it after the fact on the mesh BP, adding relative offset like this

where capsule is root

[ebon zenith]

You are switching to different char with different height, so you would also need some retargeting as well later.

[granite robin]

my problem too is the idle animation seems to sit higher than the walk one

This is the tricky part @ebon zenith - it's like I have to choose between which time it should be positioned correctly - walking or idling -

[ebon zenith]

You shouldn't have to. Remember to check your animation so they are done properly. If the animation is correct maybe don't mind the first idle. Ie check when you transition from walk to idle again and see if the feet floats.

Also this is less AI related, if you still have issues, #animation may be a better channel

[night thicket]

Anyone have experience in making a director AI?

[lyric flint]

I am thinking of a simple ai which roams around map and shoot player.I am thinking of implementing it in BP.DO i have any advantage of implementing it in behaviour trees

[night thicket]

The only difference I could tell is that BTs is more organized.

If you're good at organizing your scripts and know what your doing than BP should be fine. Also EQS can be run in BP.

[fiery pecan]

I need some help to make a Ai in UE4 can anyone help m e ?

Can you anyone tell how to do this : Ai Follow Another Ai with Ai Move To Blueprint Code . If can me message me

[olive crown]

There are a tonne of tutorials covering this kind of stuff. For instance, check out Ryan Laley's tutorials on youtube.

If you can make an AI follow the player, you can make it follow another ai character

[fiery pecan]

send me video

[static timber]

Just look it up on YouTube. Searching it wont took more than 3 minutes, unless you have absolutely shitty internet connection.

[fiery pecan]

i didnt fined he show only ai follow player not ai follow ai

with ai move to code

[static timber]

As Brown Sugar said, if you can make AI follow the player, you can change it to follow another AI Character.

Try not to be too rigid about it

[snow jacinth]

heya, i've been having trouble implementing the attack animations for my AI enemies, i've got the movement and idle animations working by checking the velocity of the character and alternating between movement and idle respectively, but i'm unsure as to how to tell whether the character is ready to begin the attack animation. i've got a damage system already in place which uses an enum system so i tried to use that for triggering the animations but it doesn't seem to be working. would be willing to hear other approaches to this or a way to fix the enums approach
Thanks in advance 🙂

i used this code to get the speed and location of the ai and the player character, and checked it against a certain range where the 'combat' enum should be triggered on

[stable void]

is it possible to have different cell sizes for different recast navmeshes? is so, how?

I don't need the same precision for all sizes

but if I change any of these setting the engine just ignores them

and keeps using the same ones in project settings

[ebon zenith]

It's more an animation setup/blueprint problem than a AI problem. You need to learn how to setup a state machine and animation transition/blending with just the anim BP before your use the variable updates from AI to drive that animation.

[stable void]

my pathing requests are literally taking 10 seconds or more

no good

[lyric flint]

Thanks for your reply.I want my ai to pick a gun and it should go to that gun location as soon as it lands..Is it possible??.It is for a battle royale game and spawn items are random

[night thicket]

Everything is possible, just need to know how to do it. But as I said BP is a spaghetti mess and if your not really comfortable with BP than going BT is a better route.

[lyric flint]

okay

[lyric flint]

The image on the right shows an actor, there's navmesh being generated inside the actor (this can be seen on the left image), I'm trying to do a "circle" EQS around my actor but the circle locations from the EQS are being generated in the inside area of the actor, instead of the outside, regardless of the radius I give to the EQS, is there a way to fix this?

[pulsar geyser]

Hey does anyone know how I can add an or statement in the behavior tree because ive been using decorators but all of them have to be true to run the task

[misty wharf]

If you want an optional branch use a force success decorator on it

you can also use a Selector node and put the choices under it, since it will keep trying nodes until one succeeds

[vivid drift]

My game crashes when I try to use a navmesh beyond a certain size (across many tiles of a landscape). Can I just have multiple adjacent navmeshes? Are there any downsides to this ? Can they overlap without issue?

for static navmeshes*

[cursive igloo]

does anyone know good shooter AI tutorials? I watched all of "Ryan Laley" tutorials and I want to learn more

[tall mulch]

Hi guys, I'm working on a behavior tree for a worker npc who builds structures

it works by reading the build task specifications from a blackboard variable, and then it just tells the actor to go and play some animation while keeping track of time

what i'd like to know is, is there a way to decorate nodes so that they are selected for execution only if a function called on a blackboard variable returns a value that satisfies a condition?

for example, i'd like to decorate a node so that it only triggers if the return value of the function GetProgress, called on the blackboard variable Task, is < 1.0

do I have to make a sequence which first calls service that stores the function output in a blackboard value, and then checks the blackboard value?

[granite robin]

Why can't I find this node? I made a new in the blackboard and I can't get this condition (to then access that key) to come up - I can copy this one but I want to know what it is called - I'm confused about why I need to make a new decorator (when I dbl click on the existing conditions there, they don't take me to a new Blueprint like hitting new decorator does)

[misty wharf]

it's just called "blackboard"

[granite robin]

ugh, thank you

I mean how do I make a new one of those? I want multiple conditions based on the enum state (i added a new enum) - I was able to get it to work but just copying that condition node there but I want to know what it's called in the menu

[misty wharf]

It's a decorator, not a task

So you need to right click one of those nodes and then choose add decorator or whatever the option is called

[low path]

why wont my service run in my behavior tree?
and did they remove event receive execute?

[granite robin]

I don't see condition here

[misty wharf]

it's called Blackboard

[granite robin]

Less of an AI question but might be relevant - I'm spawning AI characters from random points in that collision box - but they stay floating in the air - WHY?

I've disabled "player can step on" and the box is set to overlap all dynamic - this couldn't be a nav mesh issue because this isn't navigation, it's gravity - why are they floating there?

[granite robin]

@misty wharf can you advise?

[misty wharf]

Characters don't follow physics, they use the CMC to fake it

[granite robin]

ah

[misty wharf]

I think there's an option to make them not simulate physics if they aren't possessed, so that could be one reason

otherwise there's probably something that collides under it

[granite robin]

that makes sense, I'm glad you told me of that concept because it seems extremely important

So basically try to get that CMC and set it to simulate physics?

[low path]

why wont my service run in my behavior tree?
and did they remove event receive execute?

[granite robin]

I also have this weird issue when my AI are falling through the floor, as though the game loaded simulate BEFORE it loaded the ground's collision - but again, it's not everytime, so I am very confused

[misty wharf]

The CMC should have an option for something like "simulate only when possessed" or something like this... if it's not possessed and you want it to simulate you need to change that setting if it's in the wrong mode

[low path]

this wont execute

[granite robin]

Can you help boop_xyz if you know where he should look? he is being patient

[low path]

any reason why?

[granite robin]

what does the breakpoint show you?

[low path]

nothing

it just doesn't print anything

[granite robin]

I mean, does the cast fail?

[low path]

i dont think so

does the sequence need a task?

for the service to run

[granite robin]

Real quick - are you using F9 and setting a break point

[low path]

no

[granite robin]

I believe so, even if the task is waiting .1 second....

okay, so this is more important thing

select that CAST node and hit f9 on it - youll see a red dot appear

[low path]

yes

[granite robin]

then when you hit play, the game will run that code and pause there, and you can 'step' through each execution

more importantly, you will be able to view the value of variables realtime

[low path]

when i click play it just plays

[granite robin]

so you'll see if that reference is valid or not

then that cast event is never firing

[low path]

so the event tick isn't runnin

[granite robin]

so that actor doesn't exist

[low path]

oh wait

crap

i need an AI controller

don't i

[delicate hazel]

Anyone knows if EQS generators are instanced (same goes for the tests)

[low path]

@granite robin the cast is failing

[granite robin]

so that thing doesn't exist

so the receive tick event isn't work - go to the blueprint that is supposed to be sending that

make sure that 'expose on spawn' is checked if you are passing that owner variable

[low path]

so where do i tick that>

on the item that is failing?

[granite robin]

So, something has to be SENDING that event tick

[low path]

well the thing is firing

its printing "FAILED"

though

[granite robin]

did you watch the blueprint communications video?

https://youtu.be/EM_HYqQdToE

this will help immensly

[low path]

2 hours

eek

[granite robin]

no, trust me

you'll become a wizard after watching that

you've already spent 30 minutes trying to figure this out, there is so much conceptual wisdom in this video

but you can try using Get player controller and plugging that into the cast

[low path]

could you tell me how? cause i don't got much time until I have to do something

[granite robin]

then just do event tick (which you should be aware of the cost of using tick)

[low path]

ill be sure to watch it

[granite robin]

your problem is also more BP related than AI

plug that into your cast node and use event tick for now

[low path]

it says

"First Person Controller" does not inherit from "Player Controller"

[granite robin]

then use get actor of class, and put first person controller

note - Get Actor of Class or Get All Actor of Class can also cause issues

[low path]

yes

get player character works

[granite robin]

think of it like duct tape - you can use it but it's better to understand where you are getting your references form and setting up your BP communication effectively

Yes, you learn Unreal like I did, piecemeal and just plugging things in until they work - my advice is to force yourself to be patient and watch some of these conceptual videos as soon as possible

[low path]

okay

so this works

sort of

the variable is blank

[granite robin]

when you hit begin play, is this present - you should see the name of something there

[low path]

yes

[granite robin]

@misty wharf I can't find simulate on the CMC...

[low path]

it says SetFreddyVar

[granite robin]

so the set event never happens so you go there

go to the BP that is supposed to set the boolean

[low path]

ok im here

[granite robin]

pull everything out of that function

Plug it into event tick directly so you can step through it and see the values

[low path]

gotcha

[granite robin]

functions are great when everything works but when you are building/prototyping you want to not use them because you can't see variables inside of a function easiyl

[pulsar geyser]

Hey so in my BT Task Node c++ class in the execute task function I’m calling AIController->MoveTo(Player) and it works perfectly fine but when I go to project settings–>Framerate and use a fixed frame of eg. 40fps, then my character moves at a different speed?

I want my character to move at the same speed no matter the framerate, please can someone tell me how I can achieve this, I’m really struggling!

Any help is much appreciated, thank you! 😦

[low path]

alr its taken out

[misty wharf]

this is what it's called actually

[granite robin]

put a break on the tick see what the hit result is

[low path]

so f9 on event tick?

[granite robin]

and look at what it was - ah HA @misty wharf thanks for the help

[low path]

alr im in debug mode

on event tick

[granite robin]

@misty wharf why do they fall through the ground though?

[low path]

how can i see what the bool is?

[granite robin]

show me your linetrace results

[misty wharf]

no idea, fucky collisions

[low path]

or how can i see the stuff

i only can move to nodes

wait i think i got it

[granite robin]

hover over different nodes, like the yellow vectors and it should tell you their current values as long as you don't have it inside the function still

[low path]

it seems to be working fine

like it sets the var to false

since im not looking at it

[granite robin]

was the cast failing?

[low path]

no the cast works

the variable is blank

[granite robin]

show me

[low path]

the spaces between them

so im debugging the printing part rn

[granite robin]

no, show me the BP

[low path]

and the variable seems fine

[granite robin]

put a break on the node RIGHT after the "get boolean value"

[low path]

done

the variable is false

the Set Blackboard value says thi

"Variable is not in scope"

the string is returned as ""

[granite robin]

when that says "no controller' does that mean player controller or any, because these have AI controllers

[misty wharf]

any

[low path]

hmmmmmmm

[granite robin]

first, rule out this as a blueprint problem - make sure you can get the one value to update on the other blueprint - for now, manually just set it via blueprints, don't use blackboard

[low path]

yea the value isn't setting correctly

[granite robin]

@misty wharf So this SEEMS hacky as fuck but it works - it's just an event I run at the end of that AI begin play

[misty wharf]

Weird 🤔

[granite robin]

I thought it was because I was using editor simulate mode - but it happened on regular play too

you know what - it's probably a level streaming thing

that's what it is, I'm retarded - I added these actors to my main (but empty) level, and then the other level is streamed in - so they fall because the streaming level doesn't exist when they start

[misty wharf]

Oh yeah that sounds like it could do it

[granite robin]

yep - i moved them to the correct level and disconnected that function - whew I must be learning, in the past this would have been hours and hours

[stable void]

does anyone have a link for an in depth explanation of these settings?

[celest python]

How can I set my own AllowedTypes in FBlackboardKey in C++?

[stiff gale]

Making noise is not getting picked up by my AI NPC. https://gyazo.com/6281d0532ab7143ae00657380c9b4b50

Any idea what's wrong?

[low path]

are you using AI perception?

[stiff gale]

Yes

[stiff gale]

I got it fixed. Thanks

[low path]

okay I tested some stuff

the variable is correct, the set blackboard value is not working

[lyric flint]

Hello guys.I am making a battle royale game which spawns AI.It has guns in random locations.I need ai to move to that gun location using EQS.I am using blueprints to do that.Plz tell me how to do that??.Thank you

[night thicket]

As long as you know how EQS work it's really simple. Setup your EQS parameters and than just use RunEQSQuery node.

Than pull the results you need.

[lyric flint]

Bro i tried it.But can you post some example on finding an item in a map.I tried it using some tests.But it is not working.PLz post a example or any refrence of finding an item in a map near to it

[night thicket]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY1jnFvHgbE Someone gave me this link before. Just skip to the EQS part.

[lyric flint]

okay

[slim knoll]

UE4 beginner here: I have setup an AI Blueprint class and was wondering how can i make it so the blueprint class doesnt get spawned with the same mesh i gave it in the Viewport but with different meshes all using the same AI Blueprint? Do i have to make childs or can i do this with blueprints ?

[misty wharf]

it kinda depends on how you want to set it up, but creating child blueprints from it would be one way to do it yeah

you just give the child bp a different mesh

[slim knoll]

Is there a possiblitiy to make it with blueprints?

[misty wharf]

what do you mean?

[slim knoll]

for the gameplay i followed a simple tutorial on youtube which helped me build a simple horde game. He uses an array and stores the one NPC into an array and all that. So i was thinking instead of having to feed in child actors everywhere now maybe i can just instantiate the actor with a different mesh anytime he gets spawned

[misty wharf]

Right, yes it's possible to do that too

There's two ways to do it: Spawn the actor, then set the mesh on the spawned actor, or you can set up a variable in the actor which you set to expose on spawn, and in begin play or construction script you set the mesh from the variable

the expose on spawn method makes the mesh variable show up in the spawn actor node, there isn't really a huge difference between them otherwise

[slim knoll]

So the 2nd method would spawn the actor with the correct mesh right away the first one with a short delay? I would prefer 2nd then thinking of performance

[misty wharf]

There's really no delay on the first one either

since the logic gets executed within the same frame

[slim knoll]

what would the variable for a skeletal mesh look like ?

[misty wharf]

just a regular variable with the type set to skeletal mesh

[slim knoll]

or how would i get it from content browser into somewhat of an array or list

Ah okay, and this i set to list and loop through it to select random meshes for each actor spawned

i will try this

[misty wharf]

yeah that should work

there's a random from array node btw so you don't need to loop :)

[slim knoll]

nice 🙂

[stable void]

Navmesh Lazy VS Instant ? what's the difference?

[slim knoll]

How do i get "access" to the BP's skeletal mesh via blueprint?

[stable void]

cast to it

[slim knoll]

i did it like this: with mesh01 being my new variable

[stable void]

you mean in the same bp the mesh is in? just drag it in the screen

[slim knoll]

i want to "override" it so i can add different skeletal meshes for one BP NPC class

[stable void]

yeah you do that like you did

not sure how you got that weird mesh node though as it should look like the mesh01 one

[slim knoll]

the target one was auto created when dragging the pin from the block before

[stable void]

the block before?

[slim knoll]

the SpawnActor BP_Zombie

[stable void]

from there?

[slim knoll]

this would be my random selection from array does that work ?

I dragged the pin from SpawnActor BPZombie and typed in Set skeletal mesh then the target self mesh got auto created

which should be fine

[stable void]

no you would have to provide a random stream, you should really post in blueprint for this sort of stuff send me a dm and i can help you out

[granite robin]

Is there any way (in blueprint) to get random points in an nav mesh - I want to be able to place an AI down randomly anywhere that a nav mesh is drawn

[stable void]

you can get random point and project that to navmesh

?

@granite robin

[granite robin]

But is it a random point IN the navmesh?

[stable void]

no

as far as I know you could do that ony in C++ but if i'm wrong i'd like to know

you could get a random point in navigable radius ?

but you would have to provide a validish origin point

[lyric flint]

Hey guys so am creating a projectile path using the Predict projectile path by trace channel node.
When the trace path is checked for some weird reason AI perception stops sensing the player.
Please help.

[worldly flame]

how are these determined?

how can i make someone friendly, neautral or an enemy?

[misty wharf]

It's done in C++ using IGenericTeamAgentInterface and setting an attitude solver function into the team ID system

[worldly flame]

got it. Thanks!

[granite robin]

Why are my AI drunk ? they keep wandering OFF the nav mesh and then this insanity happens? Why would they SLIDE like that?

[granite robin]

@misty wharf can you advise?

[misty wharf]

Avoidance would be my guess

[calm berry]

sorry to randomly ask a question after saying nothing in this server for a year, but I'm having trouble with ai movement

I have a horse character, and I couldn't get the smooth turning I was looking for with the regular character movement rotation settings, so I set up a thing where the horse always moves toward a "rotation target", and side to side input rotates that target around the horse rather than the horse itself

this works great on the player, but the ai ignores it and uses the regular movement input that the player can't access

is there a way I can make the ai use the same movement system as the player?

[granite robin]

What would you do to fix it?

I don't understand the sliding???

[misty wharf]

if you're not using avoidance then it's not that

it kind of looks to me like the mesh is not in the center of the actor for some reason

try making the collider visible while playing so you can see if it's in a different place

not really sure what could be causing it, unless you have some logic that moves the mesh instead of moving the actor

[granite robin]

good idea standby

doesn't appear to be the issue - i don't understand why it SLIDES, even if the navigation is off

[granite robin]

So I need to check the mesh references maybe?

this is what is firing on the BB on the afflicted actor

[misty wharf]

well it doesn't look like the mesh is disconnected from where the actor is, since the capsule is the root component

[granite robin]

which I removed and added just incase the BP instance was bugged

[misty wharf]

it also is possible that a force is being applied to it via physics or some other reason

[granite robin]

nope, not any on there

[misty wharf]

but you should try to identify what it is doing the moment it starts sliding

eg. which BT task fired just as it starts

and then find what BP nodes are being ran

this way you should be able to identify why it does that

[granite robin]

not sure where to put a break point

[misty wharf]

if you have the BT open when it starts happening you can just pause and it should show you where it's currently active

[granite robin]

okay that one I showed you didn't fire and I watched her slide so it's probably not the culprit

[misty wharf]

you may have to add some logging since these kinds of issues can be a bit hard to catch with breakpoints since they often fire a lot during execution

another thing could also be disconnecting parts of your BT to see if it helps

it should at least help you get closer to what specifically is causing it

[granite robin]

good idea - originally i had bought a pack because I wanted a simple pedestrian system - it was working fine yesterday

simulate isn't an issue right?

I watched another slide before that BT breakpoint hit (it hit right after but that means it's not the culprit)

[misty wharf]

No idea, I haven't really used simulate mode much myself

[granite robin]

why do I feel like I know this is going to be a really stupid thing when I find it

[misty wharf]

lol

at least it'll be easy to fix if it is :P

[granite robin]

what am I watching for again?

references to the mesh?

[misty wharf]

I don't think that's related, the mesh isn't moving out of the character (it remained within the capsule)

I don't really know what you'd be looking for, you just need to identify where the code is when it starts sliding

[granite robin]

and not a nav mesh issue?

[misty wharf]

hence disconnecting parts of the BT to test if it helps could help reduce the amount of code you need to look at

It doesn't really look like a nav mesh issue specifically, since they appear to be navigating normally otherwise

[granite robin]

what woudl PUSH it????

[misty wharf]

hard to say if you haven't got anything that would apply forces on them 🤔

[granite robin]

could that be a problem?

[misty wharf]

I have no clue what that is :D

[granite robin]

and wtf is requested move use accelleration??

[misty wharf]

are you using crowd or rvo avoidance?

[granite robin]

nope

not that I'm aware of - I'm using a AI Queue system but I can't find anything on his BP that moves the character unless I"m missing somehting

[misty wharf]

okay, it kinda looked like the behavior of how avoidance pushes pawns around

not sure what the AI queue system is, I guess it's a marketplace plugin or something?

[granite robin]

so guess what

first off, that wadstein guy is a god

looks at the video and after a few question says, 'is there collision on that cell phone you are attaching? "

[misty wharf]

oh

lol

I've actually had that same issue with attached actors where it causes movement to become weird

[granite robin]

told you it was going to be stupid

[misty wharf]

well you couldn't really know it would cause that because you'd think attaching them would make them not collide with itself but it doesn't :P

[granite robin]

Does that happen if you have it as a component on the BP itself?

[misty wharf]

I think only if it's a separate actor that you attach

[granite robin]

I considered just keeping it on there and toggling visbility when I needed it but decided against it lol

[misty wharf]

I have a pickup system on my npc's where it just toggles physics and collisions off on held items

[granite robin]

Is there a way to spawn AI randomly on a nav mesh? I can't get anything from the nav mesh itself and I wanted to spawn them there because I know they would be in the right spots - but I don't want to place them manually

[misty wharf]

get random navigable point in radius would probably work

I'd imagine there might be some other method for it in C++ if you dig more into how the navigation data is laid out in there, but at least that method is available in BPs

[lyric flint]

HELP: The AI stops sensing the player once i use the predict projectile path with trace path checked....is there a work around this

From what i understand correct me if i am wrong is that the AI perception uses a line trace for sight detection

And when you use the predict projectile path node with trace enabled it blocks the AI sight and sight detection is unsuccessful

Is there a way for the sight to ignore traces???

[modern owl]

I've heard that the behavior tree/black board system isn't as performant as just using blueprints for AI. And that unreal has more or less stopped working on behavior tree. is that true?

[misty wharf]

Where do people hear these things

[misty wharf]

Sight uses a linetrace with a configurable channel in project settings. It shouldn't be affected by doing other traces, but if you have something like a collider that blocks on the sight channel, that would stop it from seeing through it

[lyric flint]

@misty wharf Thanks just realized i have a collider that is blocking it

[night thicket]

Very doubtful, if anything its getting improved on. Unless a new AI system replaces it like a neural network one. I doubt that too.

[misty wharf]

There's some kind of a weird idea with modern development that if a feature X doesn't receive any new functionality it means it's abandoned and you shouldn't use it

Except... it just means it works and it does what it's supposed to :P

[pine steeple]

i mean there is additional overheard to using BT, sure, but its very minimal

if done properly

[misty wharf]

that too :D

[acoustic willow]

DLC can be free you know 😛

[night thicket]

Tbh I prefer to make my own BT through blueprints as I can do a lot more without going back and forth between them.

[misty wharf]

sequential abortable latent actions are not exactly fun to do in BP's

but I guess if you don't need to sequence actions in such a fashion then you might not get much benefit from using BTs

[night thicket]

Actually I found a way to get around stopping and use a switch on enum for whatever "task" I need.

[misty wharf]

yeah, but you basically need to build all kinds of state management into the BP

where in a BT you can just put the nodes in a sequence and it'll just work

[worldly flame]

when my AI walks towards the player... it tends to try to walk through an object... is there any way for the ai to walk around the object to the player?

i turned off effects navigation on the object

but still didnt help

[misty wharf]

If you turned that off it means it will not affect navmesh generation, as far as navigation is concerned it does not exist

it needs to affect navigation, then it should prevent navmesh from being generated under it and the AI should be able to avoid it

[worldly flame]

@misty wharf if i make that true... they get stuck on the object (table) and eventually move to fails and they lose target

[misty wharf]

Where are they trying to move?

And is there an actual navigable path to what they're trying to move to? (press P when the viewport is active to make the navmesh visible)

[worldly flame]

they are trying to move to the player

[worldly flame]

looks good to me

[misty wharf]

if you stand further away from the table do they still get stuck on it?

[worldly flame]

no

only if i m close to the table

[misty wharf]

it could be that your position is slightly outside of the navmesh

[worldly flame]

its weird that even if stand a bit far from table... it tries to colide into it

one of them doesnt because he has a clear path to me... the other one keeps coliding with table

until it slides through

if i m far far away from table then im good

[slim knoll]

Could someone help me out with AI and Behaviour Trees? I have this BT which basically moves the AI to player. Now i want to get into a new state which would be an attack state that only enters when the AI has reached the "acceptable Radius" of the MoveTo... task. How would i do that ?

[night thicket]

You could draw out the way points to see what's it doing. I forgot what the node is called but I'm sure a quick Google search could help you there.

You'll need to add a debug point to the array.

[worldly flame]

thanks it was my custom pathfollowingcomponent

something like this so ai seems a bit more realistic rather than walking in a straight line

[crisp ibex]

how to spawn many NPC, then they walking to the Player to attack?

[night thicket]

Do you know how to spawn anything?

[cosmic heart]

Is there any way to turn off "Track moving goal" on Move To in Behavior Tree from blueprints? I'm making a dash for AI but with "Track moving goal" it will track players location mid air instead of dashing in the straight line, with that turned off it works great.

[glossy spire]

@cosmic heart You could probably get that by storing your target as a location

[cosmic heart]

@glossy spire What do you exactly mean? I'm storing all the targets in the blackboard, but I couldn't really do anything useful with blackboard to change that move to option.

[glossy spire]

I havent tried it myself, but you could try setting a vector blackboard value, and use Move To with the vector as the Blackboard Key target

rather than using the player pawn

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the problem

[cosmic heart]

I think you are talking about making a custom task for a move to instead of using the vanilla one in the behavior tree so I can tick off "Pathfinding" when I want which I think behaves as "Track moving goal", I was thinking about it but I hoped that maybe there will be a solution that is less of a headache

[stiff gale]

So I've an AI that checks if the player is in range moves to its enemy then starts attacking. How can I adjust its movement to its MeleeRange. If the player moves in closer to the AI, it missed most of its hits.

[night thicket]

Depends on what move to node your using.

Also you could use a look at node on a timeline when in range and keep its rotation on the player.

[frigid compass]

How can I prevent the path from being generated so tight to the edge? Or else, how can I avoid units struggling like this to path around them? The actor is navigating around a NavModifierVolume that's generating a non pathable zone 50 units away from its true edges (As NavAgent radius is 50)

This is how I'm generating the path:

        // TargetLocation is a FVector paramenter on the method
        // OwnerEntity is the actor you see on the video
        UNavigationSystemV1* NavigationSystem = FNavigationSystem::GetCurrent<UNavigationSystemV1>(GetWorld());
        UNavigationPath* NavigationPath       = NavigationSystem->FindPathToLocationSynchronously(GetWorld(), OwnerEntity->GetActorLocation(), TargetLocation);

The default NavAgent radius I'm using is 50, and the Actor on the video has a capsule radius of 50

If I use Nav_Obstacle instead of Nav_Null, the units path nicely around corners, but they are also allowed to step in. If I can prevent FindPathToLocationSynchronously from including points inside obstacles that'd solve my issue too

[atomic badge]

You can use EQS to filter out locations that it'll overlap. Here's a video that explains how.
https://youtu.be/iY1jnFvHgbE?t=1284