Enemies which rotate towards player position.

[shrewd patio]

I've been working on two different enemies for my game. Both of them need to be able to track the player's position and rotate to face them.

I initially tried using an IK control in LookAt mode, but jumping over the enemies causes them to flip upside down and fly all over the place. Ideally, I'd like to use IK controls while locking the movement in the Y Axis, though I don't know how to do that.

I also tried using CFrames, however I want to avoid this where possible for performance reasons, as well as the fact that it causes other issues elsewhere.

Any suggestions would be really helpful. Thanks.

[vague wedge]

atan2

[shrewd patio]

thanks. I'll see what i can do

[rocky ridge]

If you let me in a copy of your game I can get it working for you

[shrewd patio]

I don't think I can do that. This is one I have to write myself. Can you describe the solution instead?

[rocky ridge]

Not until I can see the code

[shrewd patio]

at the moment it's just a while loop that constantly updates the CFrame of the HumanoidRootPart, which is obviously very inneficient

[soft cove]

-- Assume Enemy is a model
-- Assume Character is a player's character model

RunService.PreRender:Connect(function()
  Enemy.CFrame = CFrame.lookAt(Enemy.Position, Character.PrimaryPart.Position)
end)

if it's just a visual effect, you should put this on the client

[shrewd patio]

I see.

[languid wagon]

** You are now Level 1! **

[shrewd patio]

The problem is that the enemies also have to be able to interact with players to some extent (e.g shoot at them, punch them .etc)

[soft cove]

oh yeah

[shrewd patio]

how would you still make it compatible with a system like that?

[soft cove]

in your combat system for the enemies, the attacks shouldnt be dependent on the direction they are facing necessarily

as long as a player is close enough and it is able to attack, it should just aim attacks/hitboxes towards the player

that is relating more to your combat system rather than where the enemies face

[shrewd patio]

yeah i can do that fairly easily with some adjustments

thanks for the suggestion

[soft cove]

no problem

just try to think of it like

I separate (mentally) the things an enemy or player or whatever you are making, should do in my head

I separate them based on if it is necessary for the thing to function, or if it's just a visual

for example, an enemy does not need to be facing towards a player to attack them, since you can program their behavior however you want

[shrewd patio]

yeah

[soft cove]

but if you would like them to face them visually, you can do that easily

[soft cove]

another example is like

the enemy does not need a punch animation to punch or deal damage

however you obviously want that because it looks good

this is called polish basically

you can have a fully functioning game with no polish

[shrewd patio]

Yeah. I just don't think I ever considered that placing it locally would work

but thank you very much for the suggestions. I'll make sure to implement them

[soft cove]

yeah no problem

also, I read you were concerned about performance

as you should

but you can be much more lenient with performance on the client

[shrewd patio]

yeah. hence why i didn't want to run Cframes on the server

[soft cove]

yeah

[shrewd patio]

yeah

[soft cove]

thats good

thats why visual stuff is best on the client side

[shrewd patio]

mhm

[soft cove]

you dont really need to worry about updating where something looks for everyone necessarily

since the game functions just fine without it

but yeah let me know if you have any questions