AI Wandering Backwards/Other Questions

Scripting Issues
1

I’m working on some AI for an enemy ship class, and I’m planning on using a mix of FSM, panda3d.ai and a few custom methods.

Focusing on the wandering, I recently switched to using the wandering ai packaged with panda, and I found it odd that it’s making my enemy ships flying backwards.

Things I know:

  1. The model is a simple triangle, pointing forward in the y plane upon creation.
  2. Using a call like this moves it in the proper direction:
self.model.setY(self.model, self.currentSpeed * self.world.dt)
  1. using the wander ai makes the ship move beautifully in the opposite direction.

Another thing I’m wondering about is the wander Area of Effect - it says it’s the radius from the ‘starting point’. Is there any way to make that a specific point in space? My ships enter the screen from the edge, but I’d like them to wander around the center of the screen.

Last thing is I have a border set up on the edges of the screen. I have Into Planes set up there, and From collision spheres on the ship. Since it’s using the wander AI, how can I prevent it from going through the plane and instead bounce off or something and keep wandering?

Cheers! Time to hide from Hurricane Irene… =)

2

Alright well, sans any other approach I can think of, I remade the model… backwards. Seems to do the trick for when the model is moving due to the wander AI. I guess I’ll just have my other movement methods go in reverse, I guess.

I’m still trying to figure out how to get a handle to the movement information provided by the AI. I need to be able to have events, like hitting something, make the movement be altered and reflect.

Thoughts?

3

You could just turn the model node 180 degrees when it is wandering.