Day 14 - Anonymous NPCs and Stuff

Handling arbitrary NPC names, etc.

We are NPCs. Expect Us.

Guy Fawkes the Priest, meet Guy Fawkes the Balm Seller, meet Guy Fawkes the Confessor...

Time to further simplify life by removing the one-name-at-a-time NPC updates. It’s all well and good for bears and boars and orcs, but each human NPC has a unique name, which may even be autogenerated. On instantiating an NPC, we can just look in the Resources folder for a Material of the same name. If not found, we’ll look for “anonymous”.

Managers/NpcManager.cs GitLab

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    void Update () {
        if (Time.time > nextDBUpdate) {
            print("Time to read from the DB! " + Time.time);
            nextDBUpdate = Time.time + dbUpdateDelta;
            activeGameRounds.Clear();
            cellsContainingNpcs.Clear();
            UpdateAllNpcs();
            UpdateNpcCohab();
        } 
    }
    
    void UpdateAllNpcs() {
        List<NPC> npcs = DragonsSpine.DAL.DBNPC.GetAllNpcs();
        print("I found " + npcs.Count + " NPCs");
        foreach (NPC npc in npcs) {
            if (npc.lastActiveRound > maxGameRound) maxGameRound = npc.lastActiveRound;
        }
        foreach (NPC npc in npcs) {
            if (!activeGameRounds.Contains(npc.lastActiveRound)) activeGameRounds.Add(npc.lastActiveRound);
            Vector3 cell = new Vector3(npc.X, npc.Y, npc.Z);
            npcLocations[npc.worldNpcID] = cell;
            if (!cellsContainingNpcs.ContainsKey(cell)) 
                cellsContainingNpcs[cell] = new List<int>();
            cellsContainingNpcs[cell].Add(npc.worldNpcID);
            Vector3 position = new Vector3((-1f) * npc.X, (-1f) * npc.Y, (0.1f * npc.Z) + 0.2f);
            if (!npcScripts.ContainsKey(npc.worldNpcID)) {
                NpcScript tempNpc = (NpcScript) Instantiate(npcScript);
                tempNpc.npcId = npc.worldNpcID;
                tempNpc.name = npc.Name;
                npcScripts[npc.worldNpcID] = tempNpc;
            }
            npcScripts[npc.worldNpcID].newPosition = position;
            npcScripts[npc.worldNpcID].lastActiveRound = npc.lastActiveRound;
            SetMaterial(npcScripts[npc.worldNpcID]);
        }
    }

    void SetMaterial(NpcScript npc) {
        Renderer rend = npc.GetComponent<Renderer>();
        Material liveNpc = Resources.Load("Materials/" + npc.name, typeof(Material)) as Material;
        if (liveNpc == null) {
            print("Couldn't find live Material for NPC name: " + npc.name);
            liveNpc = Resources.Load("Materials/anonymous", typeof(Material)) as Material;
        }
        Material exNpc = Resources.Load("Materials/ex" + npc.name, typeof(Material)) as Material;
        if (exNpc == null) {
            print("Couldn't find dead Material for NPC name: " + npc.name);
            exNpc = Resources.Load("Materials/exanonymous", typeof(Material)) as Material;
        }
        if (npc.lastActiveRound >= maxGameRound-1) // one round leeway in case we catch the DB in mid-update
            rend.material = liveNpc;
        else
            rend.material = exNpc;
    }

Not really the way it should be done, since we’re scouring the Materials every time we update an NPC. It does let you add materials while the thing is running, though:

That Guy Fawkes is actually a dragon!

Keeping Up Appearances

We’ll make the NpcScript responsible for its live and dead materials, and switching between them as appropriate (although NpcManager still kicks things off):

Assets/NpcScript.cs GitLab

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    public void UpdateMaterial(int currRound) {
        if (lastActiveRound >= currRound-1) // one round leeway in case we catch the DB in mid-update
            renderer.material = liveMaterial;
        else
            renderer.material = deadMaterial;
    }

Managers/NpcManager.cs GitLab

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            if (!npcScripts.ContainsKey(npc.worldNpcID)) {
                NpcScript tempNpc = (NpcScript) Instantiate(npcScript);
                tempNpc.npcId = npc.worldNpcID;
                tempNpc.name = npc.Name;
                SetMaterials(tempNpc);
                npcScripts[npc.worldNpcID] = tempNpc;
            }
            npcScripts[npc.worldNpcID].newPosition = position;
            npcScripts[npc.worldNpcID].lastActiveRound = npc.lastActiveRound;
            npcScripts[npc.worldNpcID].UpdateMaterial(maxGameRound);
        }
    }

    void SetMaterials(NpcScript npc) {
        npc.liveMaterial = Resources.Load("Materials/" + npc.name, typeof(Material)) as Material;
        if (npc.liveMaterial == null) {
            print("Couldn't find live Material for NPC name: " + npc.name);
            npc.liveMaterial = Resources.Load("Materials/anonymous", typeof(Material)) as Material;
        }
        npc.deadMaterial = Resources.Load("Materials/ex" + npc.name, typeof(Material)) as Material;
        if (npc.deadMaterial == null) {
            print("Couldn't find dead Material for NPC name: " + npc.name);
            npc.deadMaterial = Resources.Load("Materials/exanonymous", typeof(Material)) as Material;
        }
    }

That’s a bit faster and cleaner, even if we lose some of the dynamism (for now). Using the debug, I spent a few hours adding a lot of the materials we’re missing. Though I still don’t have a solution for the generated NPC names.

Sven, the priest, and the ghost confessor sorted, at least.

Now I’m off to watch Unity Live Training April 13th, 2015: Creating a Simple Messaging System and maybe learn something for tomorrow.

More to come

Day 14 code - client

301 Days (redux)

Another metric leap year of gamedev experiments and such

Day 14 - Anonymous NPCs and Stuff

We are NPCs. Expect Us.

Keeping Up Appearances