Master's Project Week 7

This past week has been another that has featured a lot of changes to the project. More updates to the AI have been made, mostly fixes to how the enemy moves within the world. Beforehand just to get the AI to move within the area a task was set in the behaviour tree was set for the AI just to move around within any random point in the Nav Mesh and move towards it. This randomness was both a pro and a con for the AI, because the AI was more free to move wherever they wanted however it would also send them into places where the other AI were standing. This was changed to feature target points within the world that each enemy has set so they have more of a patrol route. To keep the random aspect, the enemies choose their patrol points at random instead of a patrol sequence.

Another big change is that now the AI can hear noise made by the player. When firing a weapon for example, the enemy now investigates the sound in the same way they would when searching for the player's location.

AIPatrol

Investigate Sound

I've also added a lot more to the level and have the layout from beginning to end now finished. I am now nearly finished scripting the level events/combat scenes for the player to experience. The next combat scene after the player escapes from the rooftop is played in a nightclub after the player crashes through the giant windows. The player must defeat the enemies within the nightclub and escape via the back door. There are additional weapons for the player to acquire in this area if the player wishes to explore and this area is where the dive mechanic can be most useful to the player as there are a lot of open spaces combined with cover to dive out from and catch the enemy out.

Nightclub

MainStreet

AlleyToApps

Appsblock

Once the player has left the nightclub they must sprint to the apartment block across the street to seek medical attention from their ally in Apartment number 303.

Next week I am hoping to have advanced the AI logic even further to hopefully have them take cover behind objects and for them to not all do the same thing once the player has been spotted as well as finish the level scripts and begin adding detail in other areas.