Random Walking Civilians

[no1lives4ever 0]

Alrighty, guys, after a long hiatus of not doing anything, I finally got some willpower to start working on my game again.

 

So, I'm at this part where my characters have gotten into a big city, and I was hoping I could get some civilians walking through the streets without having to use autorun.

 

It's not key to my story, it's mainly just for looks since you can't interact with them and whatnot. I was kinda looking for style similar to the one used in Outlaw City. I wanted my sprites to follow a set path and then have the action repeat once it got to the edge.

[rgangsta 43]

Easy. Set an event's autonomous movement to "Random". No need for autorun or parallel process or whatever.

[Moonpearl 32]

Or alternatively, set it to Fixed and edit the move route like you would do with an event command.

[Kange 0]

wouldnt making a movement route for each citizen take forever, on top of that, if you wanted them to walk all over the city, it would have to be extremely long and the end would have to be at the begining so the cycle could repeat, and on top of that, if the cycles are to blocky or the characters spend enough time in the city they will notice patterns. i think different frequencies and move speeds at random would have the best affect.

[Moonpearl 32]

Well, I suppose it depends on how the city is laid out. As far as I'm concerned, I never actually draw an entire city into a single map, but rather several small maps with the city's points of interest connected with each other. In that case, it's easy to have one event simply go from the left to the screen to the right, and then disappear. Also, I don't see anything wrong with the player noticing the pattern, as long as there are enough citizens walking in different directions, and at different speeds. On the contrary, I think random movement is much more unnatural, you never see people take a step, then stop, then take another step in the opposite direction right after in real life - not to mention that if you want to draw a modern city with roads and cars, citizens with random movements get to get run over quite often. Anyways, that's just some insight, I still agree random movement remains an easy, though rough way to give NPCs some life.

[Kange 0]

well theres pros and cons for each then, as with anything. random- fast, easy, no pattern and is more natural in that aspect, less natural cause this guys doin circles in the road and no one knows why, eventing a path takes longer, looks better but has a pattern, and im the kind of guy that walks with an npc, juuuust to see lol, but that tells me the maker spent more time on the project, pending the path, if its jsut a square over and over then nah. anywhooo, if it was right to left then disappear like your maps, that could easiely work and take little more time then random walking.

[Moonpearl 32]

Yes, beside you can actually enter only a single command (move right) and have it repeat.

[Kange 0]

true. hmm up to him really, but those are the two ways to do it

[Hodgeelmf 3]

no1lives4ever,

I agree with the above that there are only two ways to do this with the point and click aspects of the editor. Another, albeit a much more difficult one to set up, method for random npcs in a city map would require a bit of scripting knowledge. I have never come accross this, but I just thought of it reading this thread.

 

There are multiple event pathfinding scripts on the web, most of which function fairly well. Using one of these, you could set movement for npcs in your map based on finding paths to different locations on the map (ie a shop, bank, inn, etc). Admittedly, this would be more time consuming than using random route generation. The advantage would be a more realistic, on-the-go type of feel to the citizens. As well, you could then have, for example, women going to several shops, then to a house, then fading out at a doorway. This means multiple destinations without having to manually configure the routes. This does have potential to cause lag, but using SDK and compatible scripts tends to help reduce lag with more efficient refreshing and the like.

 

A further advantage of a system like this is you could somewhat randomize who appears on the map each time you enter it. This would be done by using an auto run event when you enter the map and setting, say, 10 event placements from a potential 15 by random selection and process of elimination. This could also be done more efficiently by scripting, but it does not have to be. This way, your city would have a feel of change and randomness. Who knows, maybe each city could have some npcs who only appear under certain conditions but are rewarding to the long-sufffering gamer.

 

I realize that this might be more complicated an answer than you are looking for, but I just thought of it and wanted to pass it along. I would actually love to work on a user-friendly script for making this happen, but I am in classes full-time right now and cannot guarantee the time. I think others might be willing to give it a go. Anyway, I hope this is a helpful idea for you. Keep on!

[no1lives4ever 0]

Sorry it's taken me so long to replay, but I've been on hiatus from my game for quite some time.

 

I really appreciate everyone's feedback. Now that I'm working on my first city, I'll have to look into everyone's solutions.

 

My city's are not on one gigantic map, haha. That'd take forever to make and I'm not quite sure if I have enough patience for it. Instead, just like Moonpearl stated, I make the majority of my cities out of smaller maps where all the key points are emphasized. It's both easier to work with and makes making citizen paths much easier.

 

Again, I'm sorry for taking so long to respond.

I'll keep everyone updated on my game!

[Action Kasper 1]

i think it would be really creepy if you had an NPC follow the character. they would have to look really out of place graphics wise, but if i saw that in a game, it would freak me out a little if everyone else kinda blended in with the rest of the map and other npcs. really interested to see how this is resolved.

[Heretic86 25]

Just one? How about THREE! I think these guys definitely might be Stalking the Player! ;p

 

http://www.775.net/~heretic/downloads/rmxp/cat.php

 

Yeah, never missing a chance to pimp my stuff!

 

(This time its for giggles, not for actually being useful!)

[ramza1337 1]

Personally I think random looks messy and lazy, like me. I don't like to be reminded of that, so it's doubly ugly. I think in some circumstances, inside a shack its fine. Otherwise your npcs ought to have a purpose or a function. It just looks bad, and thats enough.

 

Patterns are great, just look at elderscrolls, they look like they are up to something, rather then just loitering.