NPC Walk Paths

[JohnC998]

Forgive me if I couldn't find an existing topic on this.

NPC travel from place to place can be quite comical at times but it becomes as issue when the player has to wait for an NPC to get to a specific place. For instance, if Brittney needs to get into the hot tub, she'll miss the hot tub steps for many minutes before I can "coral" her to the steps. There are many occasions where NPCs will show very little skill at moving through doorways and hallways or avoiding walking into each other. (Watching Frank and Patrick fight for five minutes can get very tedious. They each step behind the other and then throw a punch or kick.)

Can this be improved so less time is wasted waiting for them to get where they need to go?

[DanL58]

Just wanted to say that the NPCs seem better getting somewhere if you are not watching them. For example, Brittney will make it up the hot tub steps on the first try if I just walk away and go to her side of the hot tub if I want to talk to her again.

This definitely works for the Derek and Frank fight. I have waited several minutes for them also, but as soon as I leave the room Derek gets knocked out.

[JohnC998]

Well...whoda thunk! Thanks for the tip, DanL58. I'll give it a try.

[eekdon]

Hm, the biggest thing that happens when an NPC is off-screen is that they are no longer rendered. Their character controllers and scripts are "still going" so to speak. Pathing is definitely something we'll have to tweak repeatedly as we move forward with development.

When this happens, are there any other NPCs in the hot tub?

[peter980]

Maybe when not rendering, there are no issues with characters getting stuck due to body physics colliding with environment or other characters?

[DanL58]

When this happens, are there any other NPCs in the hot tub?

It doesn't seem to matter if other NPCs are in the hot tub and it occurs with all NPCs. They just keep missing the steps into the hot tub and go to the sides of it.

My suggestion to not watch their movement isn't 100% but it definitely helps.

[eekdon]

Actually there are two more types of components that are disabled when you're not looking "at" her (or more specifically, when the engine deems it appropriate to cull an NPC). Rendering components of course are disabled, but there are also some rigging/joint control & animation elements disabled while not looking at her as well. Unsure if that's relevant though, as these aren't expressly necessary to get a character as a whole to a certain destination. I'll bring it up with our lead dev.