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Gotta love scripts...

Name:	Scott Coursey
Date Posted:	Dec 17, 2006
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Blog post

I'm working on the AI components of my game right now. It's in the early phases, so there's plenty of work to be done. I've made a few false starts on it and decided to take a step back and model the AI's behavior so I could visualize it better.

Since I'm a Mac user, the most logical choice (for me) was to use OmniGraffle. I already had the tool and was familiar with it. So, off I went to design the thought process.

The diagram soon became quite large and the idea of turning it back into code was daunting, to say the least. I looked at the data file from Graffle and saw that it was XML. Cool.

So, after a while of putting some script together, I was able to translate this:

into skeletal TorqueScript. Very cool indeed. It not only writes the main if/then/else blocks, but includes the function stubs so I can fill those out later. Like I said, there's LOTS to do, but this is a great start.

Now, if I just change a part of the model, I can re-extract the code from it and have the TScript re-written.

Recent Blog Posts

List:	01/24/07 - Claude gets a makeover 12/30/06 - Finally, I can beat my game! 12/24/06 - My AI is so frustrating 12/22/06 - Progress on strategy AI... 12/17/06 - Gotta love scripts... 12/12/06 - My brain hurts... 11/29/06 - Raiders of Leeros pre-beta DEMO 11/26/06 - Filtered Movement Maps Done

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Richard_H (Dec 17, 2006 at 17:10 GMT)

Sounds awesome! What kind of AI will it be?

Tom Eastman (Eastbeast314) (Dec 17, 2006 at 17:40 GMT)

That's pretty cool! Sounds like a fun path from design to implementation.

Scott Coursey (Dec 17, 2006 at 17:47 GMT)

The AI will be turn-based strategy. I already have some group checking (assigning various units depending on distance from each other into groups) and plan on monitoring and remembering the players' actions and preferences.

Everything I have is extremely fast, so there's tons of features I can add. And, I have yet to move away from Torque Script. So far, everything runs with the stock TGB binaries with no problems at all.

Don Hogan (Dec 17, 2006 at 18:14 GMT)

I love it when there turns out to be nice path between applications - and this sounds really cool!

Scott Coursey (Dec 17, 2006 at 19:57 GMT)

If anyone would like my script, I'd be more than happy to email it. It only works with OmniGraffle (Mac), so I don't know if anyone else would be interested in it.

So far, the script (written in TCL) is 337 lines, and there's several more features I need to add.

Bob (Dec 18, 2006 at 06:39 GMT)

Hey Scott, I'd love to check out your script.
My email address is in my profile page.

Allyn "Mr_Bloodworth" Mcelrath (Dec 18, 2006 at 16:25 GMT)

ya know, i would really like to help you re skin your game =)

Scott Coursey (Dec 18, 2006 at 16:53 GMT)

@Allyn: Which part are you referring to? Do you mean in-game (units, environment) or out-of-game (GUI elements)? I know my units and environment need some work, but most of the game meets my goals perfectly. The version I have in-house (newer than the previous demo) has some significant changes on the appearance of the in-game GUI elements.

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