Hey, just wondering for my game what was the easiest and quickest way to do ai pathfinding. All the needs to be done is one point to another avoiding obstacles. I have seen a couple examples but they are over 30 lines long or extremely buggy.
Thanks Lucas
Can't think of a really "simple" way (to do a "complex" thing)
Pathfinding object (windows only) would probably give you best results in shortest time,
although it's not so quick/intuitive to setup at first use.
Other way could be shooting objects in multiple directions, that would shoot other connected objects in multiple dir, etc.
placing and marking "seeds" on each shoot, and chasing successful "generations" of seeds (those impacting target at end)
but this is far from being simple
I've a couple of other ideas.. I may try to give it a go for the sake of learning,
but no clear chance they would end up working
Aye, there isn't any easy way to do this. If you use grid-based pathfinding it's easier though.
i have a way at the momment it just acts a little strange sometimes and i dont need it that simple just not 30 lines
here is a very simple way --http://community.clickteam.com/threads/92528-Path-Finding-no-extension-needed-Example
im sorry its too basic and it just goes straight into the obstacle
I'm sorry to say that it's probably either going to be the method Sparckman came up with or around 30+ lines of code, or using an extension that's an absolute pain to set up right (from my own experience) and only works on Windows, or otherwise only works in a runtime or two. That's really as simple as you can get it when it comes to pathfinding, unfortunately.
You aren't going to find a simple pathfinding method because pathfinding isn't simple.
Just to add a quick thought:
although pathfinding is a really, really interesting dynamic,
I find it's application scopes being more limited than one usually thinks of...
i.e. applying pathfinding to enemies in a shooting/tactics game >
a) in complex scenarios, would make them act "supernaturally",
how would an enemy chase its target so easily through mazes of walls?
Unless he owns some sort of radar... he can't see you
b) in simple scenarios (few obstacles) would be "underused" due to the linearity of the task
(a "tweaked" bouncing ball setup could just serve the scope well enough)
The A* algorithm (like in the Pathfinding Object) is probably going to give the best results. This method will always find a path to the destination and will work without glitches even in complex level geometry. If you can get away with 4-directional paths the Pathfinding Object is fine, but I find it unsuitable for pathfinding with 8 directions (it doesn't understand corners).
There were some other pathfinding extensions for MMF2, but they don't seem to be available for 2.5.
If you want to do A* pathfinding with no extensions I recommend this article: http://www.policyalmanac.org/games/aStarTutorial.htm.
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