Beavior tree samples

[Mad_MarkParticipant]

I have been beating the hell out of my keyboard trying to figure out how to make RAIN-AI work for my NPC zombies. I have moved forward with Sigil’s help in the other thread, and others are reporting that it is useful to them.thread Yet I am still struggling to get a working, functional zombie AI that doesn’t have major quirks in it. The wiki is incomplete, the API page assumes a working understanding of the tool, and the forums are only being answered by the dev team. I see very few responses that actually answer the questions posed coming from the community at large. Google searches turn up little useful (up-to-date) information, and absolutely no sample BT’s.

RAIN has been around for quite some time now. Is it not about time that we had some up-to-date tutorials on its basic functionality that are spoken clearly, recorded crisply enough to read the text being entered, and performed without fumbles and oopsies? It is about time that we had advanced tutorials that tell the user when to use a specific node, the expected tree hierarchy, dependencies and flow, and how to avoid common mistakes. Finally, there should be a collection of common, complete, working, BT’s that can be dropped in and modified to suit ones needs, with direction on integration with Mecanim and a character controller. This is basic IT, create a standard asset and provide direction on how to alter and customize it. Why is it that we are all expected to re-invent the wheel every time we each build an AI, when we are all seemingly trying to accomplish the same basic things?

Yes, I know. I will draw the sticks and arrows of those who have been able to make this work. We are responsible for building our game, no one is going to do it for us, and for making it as individual as we can, but if the screwdriver doesn’t turn the screw, it starts to look more and more like a hammer is required. Yes, there is the Starter Kit and Quick Start, both good starts, but either out-of-date or incomplete. This piece won’t work with that piece because they use different variables, and are not designed to work together. WHY NOT provide a complete and working AI model in one or both of these “aids” that does the most commonly requested functions in a consistent and cohesive manner? It is much easier to remove stuff that I don’t need than to start with an empty slate. Why not make “modules” that can be dropped in with directions on placement in “the standard” hierarchy and provide notes on the variables required? Build an understanding of this complex tool through WORKING example that is built with internal integration in mind. Not snippets, not independent unrelated functions, not discrete functions that cannot be easily put together.

PLEASE, folks at Rival Theory, fellow RAIN users, can we start sharing these things? I am at the point where I am about to abandon RAIN, along with it the paid for Squad Commander AI (if I can’t figure this out, what’s the point of further frustration?) and will have missed the Dec 25 date to deliver my custom game to my grandchildren. I have stuck with it thus far as I see great power and potential within RAIN if I can ever figure out how to get the lid off and pour.

Just my 2¢ after almost a year of limited progress.
Regards and best wishes,
Mark

[IbrahimParticipant]

Hello,

I was about to write a new post but I found yours.

After a few months working with RAIN and trying my best to use it in my game, only today I felt that I should give up RAIN. I was all the time till today excited about it and I have faith that it will do all what I dreamed to achieve with my AIs. However, my development is very slow, and I learn things by trial and error. I spend much time fixing errors and figuring out how things are done and how to implement the behavior that I need for my AIs using BTs, Custom Actions and Custom AI. What I would like to have is more video tutorials on advanced topics. How to design the BTs. Is it easy to change the design of a BT once its built? To integrate farther complications.

I wish if I can hear from the guys who really did benefit from RAIN, does it really worth it? Were they able to build complicated AI behavior using RAIN? How long it took them? and what resources they used/read?

Thank you.

[Author]

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