Enemy detections and raycast

Juryiel

For enemy detection, is it possible to have walls and solid objects with colliders prevent detection? I enabled raycast but it seems to not work and players get detected through walls (I also set the layer mask to both 'Everything' and 'Nothing' and neither made a difference).

Also, is it possible to have status check conditions for detection? Would be nice to have players who are not detectable based on some status.

gamingislove

When using raycasts, make sure game objects have colliders and are on casted layers (e.g. not on the Ignore Raycast layer). Also, try using the child object settings, otherwise the raycast will most likely go from the user's to the target's feet, possibly not going below the floor.

Target conditions are set up in the Hunting and Fleeing settings to either hunt or flee from a detected enemy.

Kaemalux

I will take advantage of this thread for my doubts. :)

If you cast a ray (2D) between two objects, and the ray hits another collider before, is the ray check failed?

Juryiel

Hmm I don't think the layer is being ignored by raycasts in general (I have other raycast things for those same objects that do other functions, and those seem to collide with the objects just fine). I will try using the child object settings as that seems like it could potentially be the case if the raycasts are travelling below the floor and therefore below the walls blocking line of sight.

As far as the status conditions in the Hunt, I'm curious about how those work. If we imagine that the Hunt conditions require that a hunt target does NOT have Status A, then what happens if a target is currently being hunted but then acquires Status A? You can imagine two scenarios - in one scenario you want the target to continue being hunted. In another, you can imagine that you want the target to stop being hunted. The former is intended for an effect that, conceptually, prevents detection, but once detection has happened it has no effect on the Hunt. The latter would be for an effect that entirely disengages the Hunt even after it has begun.

Juryiel

I tried using the child settings but to no avail.
If my object is named Object1 and it has a child named 'eyes' I tried putting both eyes and Object1/eyes in the 'Use Child' box

My other settings under Enemy Detection is as follows:

Timeout(s) = 0.5 Base Detection Range 100, threshold 0.5 None of the checkboxes (except Use Detection) are checked in the first part of the setup.

Then, I have just one Move Detection

Type: Sight From Child: (empty) Use Raycast: Checked Layer Mask: Everything Use Child: (either Object1/eyes or just eyes) Range Settings: Range: 10 Threshold: 0 Ignore Y Distance: Checked No Combatant Radius: Unchecked Angle Settings: Angle: 360 Angle Offset: 0 Horizontal Plane: XZ

I'm not sure why it's not working. I'm using mesh colliders and I thought it might be the backface culling of the wall pieces, so I put some more wall pieces facing the opposite way (so that the forward faces are facing the enemy) but detection still happens through the wall.

There's also another weird strange thing. When the player party spawns, there are 3 characters. The character being controlled spawns normally, but the other characters spawn higher up from the ground. When the enemy detection happens it seems like the players fall to the ground and move a bit. Their move AI is to just follow the player leader, so I suspect that's where they move to, but it somehow seems their detection is somehow triggering their move AI or something. I don't quite understand, and it's probably totally unrelated but since I wasn't sure I thought I'd include it.

gamingislove

@Kaemalux Yes - if the raycast hit anything between the move AI user and the detected target, the check failed and the target is not detected.

@Juryiel The conditions are currently only checked when detecting a target. Path to child objects are always without the root object name, i.e. if your child object is named eyes, you just need to use that as the child path. If it's a child object of another object, (e.g. Object1 > face > eyes), you'd need to use face/eyes as child path.

If your combatants aren't spawning on the ground, add a Place On Ground component on them.

Juryiel

I guess in that case I'm at a loss as to why my player combatants are being detected even though they are behind a wall with a collider. Do you have an example where the raycast works and combatants behind walls are not detected? It might be useful to help me figure out what's going on.

gamingislove

Just a quick question - do you have multiple detections? If yes, any of the detections could cause detecting the enemy, unless All are needed.

Otherwise, I'd need a test project from you to look into it. I currently don't have a set up example project for this.

Juryiel

I only have a single detection. I can try to to build a new slimmed down project with just this and send it when I get the chance.

gamingislove

I'm out of office over the weekend anyway, so I wont be able to look at it until next week :)

Juryiel

I did some testing a new project, and here's my findings with how things work:

Raycast Disabled:

Enemy immediately detects and charges toward target behind wall (as expected).

Raycast Enabled:

Enemy starts to wander toward his first waypoint (random). After a bit of time (doesn't have to reach the waypoint) he will detect the player behind the wall and charge at him. After the Target Lost Interval expires, he will lose the player target, and never* detect it again. Importantly, if I then manually move the enemy on the other side of the wall so that the player is no longer blocked, the enemy still won't hunt the player. But if I put him within attacking range he will begin to attack him.

Furthermore, if I enable Raycast but remove the wall, the enemy will try to get to the player, and if I manually keep the enemy away from the player until Target Lost Interval expires, the enemy will lose the player target and never* again hunt the player. Without the Raycast enabled, the enemy will never lose the target even if I manually keep them away from each other.

To me this suggests that:

The Raycast is going through the wall in call cases.
After initial detection, Raycasts are no longer fired (or maybe there's a REALLY long delay between them, something along those lines).

(*I'm not sure if 'never' is true, but in my tests it didn't seem to anyway.)

If whatever is causing this is obvious in the code, great. If not, I can send a test project. Let me know :)

gamingislove

In which situation is the move AI used - e.g. inside a real time battle area, the enemy's battle AI is still able to target the player if he's in range (but you can check for move AI conditions there as well).

I'll need a test project to check what's going on - there are just too many things that can interfere here :)

Juryiel

Ah, yes, it's a realtime battle, I'll check the battle AI, and I'll bet that's probably causing it! If that's causing it ill just report back for closure. If it isn't, then I will send a test project your way :)