How to code SMARTER A.I. enemies | Unity Tutorial 

please help NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object EnemyState_RunToCover.OnEnter () (at Assets/Enemy/Enemy Scripts/EnemyState_RunToCover.cs:20) StateMachine.SetState (IState state) (at Assets/Enemy/Enemy Scripts/StateMachine.cs:36) EnemyBrainV2.Start () (at Assets/Enemy/Enemy Scripts/EnemyBrainV2.cs:32) ive followed yout tutorial till the 27 min mark and have ebeen stuck sorting out errors for about 8 hours now finnaly down to 1 and i cant understand as to why im getting this problem i have done everything you have mentioned but yet still no progress

@@REALHARIBO the issue here is a reference is null, so either a variables os not initialised or you did not link all the things in the editor. My guess from your error pasted, is the CoverArea is null but could be something else

You need to drag CoverArea Script to 'Covers' GameObject in hierarchy@@REALHARIBO

@@REALHARIBO I Guess stateMachine = new StateMachine(); is to be initialized in RunToCover State

Thanks! That’s the plan :D

Thanks for the class

I was wondering, without access to editable scripts or ability to use new scripts... Is there any way we can use ultimate events to make them seem smarter or exhibit new behaviors?

Event system can help yes, but you will need to write some code, at least to raise the events at the right moment.

@@this-is-gamedev Alright. Thank you. The reason I was asking is I'm trying to get some desirable behaviors out of the AI in Bonelab, but those developers thought it was a great idea to not permit their edited SDK for unity and their game to use scripts that weren't included in the base game, so most of us are stuck trying to force ult events to do things that it wasn't meant to do. Technically we do have their base scripts, but no access to see what is inside of them.

Yes, with more than one, you probably want a manager / commander that will tell where each agent should go. That can then also be a statemachine with different strategies etc based on the player’s actions :D

Hi, thanks! Difficult to say what is the cause, is it maybe a loose rigidbody?

The gizmo thing can be added, it was an example. The code is in the pinned comment.

Thanks

You’re welcome :D

Search “liamacademy bullet” it’s the first hit.

ty:) @@this-is-gamedev

Didn’t touch GOAP, yet. It’s a lot of work and ideally you will need some custom tools to debug everything, since enemies are a kind of “free”

@@this-is-gamedev Jesus christ man im just an artist trying to survive programming subjects but the things they ask sometimes are ridiculously difficult. BTW Great video super interesting!

Oh wow. Check LliamAcademy, he has a good series on GOAP

@@this-is-gamedev Will do asap bro thanks a lot.

Hey thanks! Appreciate it!

Great comment, I feel the same way. I learned a lot, thanks!

Thanks Appreciate it! 🤓

better than school :)

I’ll take a look. Thanks!

You’re welcome :D I am happy it’s helpful :D

Thanks. First time I get this feedback! It’s a fair point :D

Awesome! Good to hear!

It's more ML than AI, not all ML is AI

Yes, just the AI navigation is now a unity package. But its API is the same.

Ok thx

Thanks! That’s true. I’ll see what I can do. Could make another video showing different use cases and just focusing the FSM

@@this-is-gamedev for sure! I mean no shade, I don’t have the courage to post videos so either way - it’s your style! I’ve been a dev for a while now but newer to C# and Unity - and I’ve always personally preferred highly specific videos as gluing the pieces together usually isn’t too bad once you know how the individual pieces work. But that’s just me and I know I don’t speak for everyone. Was a very useful video overall

@@squirrelzarNo worries. I am listening to all feedback and ideas. :D

The player needs a health script that detect the bullet hitting them (physical collision) or the enemy tells the player “I hit you” via raycasts

@@this-is-gamedev thanks!

EnemyBrain_Smart has the state machine inside. You can’t use a transition -> you have to ->

I happy you find it useful! Give it some time and try to use it in a simple way like just 2-3 states to get started.

Awesome! There is a lot to learn in this subject! Happy if this hells you start!

Thanks! I am glad you like it!

Thanks! To play both, you need to split them on 2 animation layers and setup the avatar to mask the bones for the second layer

On unity 2022.2+ you need to install AI navigation package from the package manager.

If that’s the case, not done on purpose 😌

Usually, the enemies act local to a part of the world. You can’t really have tons of enemies active at ones. Or you can. You might have to look into ECS maybe or other ways to manage open world games. But state machine can be used for everything, yes :D

Yes, you have to create a new script that implements IState and then where the state machine is create, you create a new instance of your state and make sure it is either the starting state or you transition to that state.

I missed that news with 2022. It seems you have to installed from the package manager. It should be called “AI Navigation”

​@@this-is-gamedev Thank you so much..❤ Im from Iran, and there is no one to ask him, and I get lost

It might be that the Reload layer on the animator does not have the weight to 1. Or that the transition is not well configured.

@@this-is-gamedev yes that was it thx

Thanks! Mmm, this might be some pivot issue

@@this-is-gamedevthanks man I already solved it it was a code issue

Thanks!

If you can write code, you can write state machines

Yes. But I am not that familiar with photon, so you have to just intergrate it with whatever photon uses to sync data across clients

Nice! Happy it’s helpful :)

Check the conditions and check that when you call methods on the animator that the strings match 1 to 1. It is case sensitive

@@this-is-gamedev thanks for help u got one sub from me :)

Mmmm, add some Debug.Log to be sure that 1) all states enter and exit correctly 2) monitor the values that are used to transition from 1 state to another

@@this-is-gamedev heres my enemy cover script i think it is the main problem as i am getting an error that The local function 'Any' is declared but never used using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using UnityEngine; public class EnemyCover : IState { private EnemyReferences enemyReferences; private StateMachine stateMachine; public EnemyCover(EnemyReferences enemyReferences) { this.enemyReferences = enemyReferences; stateMachine = new StateMachine(); // STATES var enemyShoot = new EnemyShootState(enemyReferences); var enemyDelay = new Delay(1f); var enemyReload = new EnemyReloadState(enemyReferences); // TRANSITIONS At(enemyShoot, enemyReload, () => enemyReferences.shooter.ShouldReload()); At(enemyReload, enemyDelay, () => !enemyReferences.shooter.ShouldReload()); At(enemyDelay, enemyShoot, () => enemyDelay.IsDone()); // STARTSTATE stateMachine.SetState(enemyShoot); // FUNCTIONS & CONDITIONS void At(IState from, IState to, Func condition) => stateMachine.AddTransition(from, to, condition); void Any(IState to, Func condition) => stateMachine.AddAnyTransition(to, condition); } public void OnEnter() { enemyReferences.animator.SetBool("combat", true); } public void OnExit() { enemyReferences.animator.SetBool("combat", false); } public void Tick() { stateMachine.Tick(); } public Color GizmoColor() { return stateMachine.GetGizmoColor(); } }

@@this-is-gamedev please help bro

Looks correct. Are you sure the animator is correctly setup? That all parameters match. lowercase and uppercase is important

@@this-is-gamedev yeah it was that i forgot to actually start the reload function when the ammo was empty but thx

Thanks! 🙏

Haha, that’s awesome. I am happy it’s helpful :D

Thanks! Happy you like it!

De rien 😉