How do I get my enemy to open the right doors?

xyz

Audiobellum First make the enemy go through closed doors.

Audiobellum

xyz
Hmm...🤔At first, I thought what you were saying was crazy until I started thinking about it. Naturally, it would be easy for me to get the enemy to go through a closed door by messing with layers and mask but, it wasn't immediately obvious to me how it would help me to deal with the issues of open doors.
However, I've got an idea; I just want to run it by you first. I think what the enemy can do is have some sort of "ghost" of itself that also purposes the player but, the "ghost" stays in front of the enemy, goes through doors and give the doors "info" that makes the enemy able to open that doors specifically while ignoring the others. I think that's very doable for someone like myself but, I'll have to test it out to see if it works.

Gowydot

Audiobellum
If the enemy knows where the player is why not just use some indicator (bool,..etc) to force the enemy there? Like, if player is in room A then enemy go to room A.door.

Audiobellum

Gowydot You mean like teleportation?

Gowydot

Audiobellum

So the enemy already knows which door the player is behind, correct? That means player must have activate(open) that door before so once player open the door then use a bool (or something) to indicate to enemy that player has activated that door.
eg.
-player opens the door "A" > door_a : bool = true.
-enemy > if door_a == true : go to door_a

Something like that.

xyz

It was just a matter of time until this started happening. Kids just nonchalantly dumping a whole crapload of their buggy code after failed "ai" attempts at fixing it, basically treating forums like an input box of another vibe coding session, only now better, because humans, duh!

This is in poor taste @OP and I'm afraid that kind of thing won't fly.

I'll still give you a hint. This kind of thing is best done with a navigational/connectivity/state data structure(s) behind the scene, not by fiddling with colliders in the scene.

Audiobellum

xyz

"I'll still give you a hint. This kind of thing is best done with a navigational/connectivity/state data structure(s) behind the scene, not by fiddling with colliders in the scene."
Do you mean something like a combination between Astar and Navmesh pathfinding? I'm imagining you're talking about some sort of algorithm that tell what's the quickest path to the player by going through a series of doors and then using the Navmesh for moving through those doors towards the player.

Edit: Dijkstra's algorithm + pathfinding? 😅

Audiobellum

Gowydot Technically speaking, the enemies don't know where the doors are. 😅 It's just that the enemies will get stuck behind doors that the player can lock between them while running away from the enemy. Perhaps I could just have the enemies be able to open doors that the player previously opened before and, it would just appear that the enemy is only opening doors that are preventing them from chasing the player while ignoring them. I'm not sure if though, probably players might notice that the enemy still opening an irrelevant door.

Gowydot

Audiobellum

I don't know how to get the enemy to focus exclusively on doors that stand between it and the player.

Technically speaking, the enemies don't know where the doors are.

I'm a little confused. Do you want enemy to go to the door of a room that the player is in? Maybe you can explain the situation and the behavior of enemy you want to happen.

eg.
-enemy saw player go into a room > enemy go to that door > enemy open the door.
-enemy knows player is in a room > enemy doesn't know where is the door to that room > enemy must find that door.
-Player gone through a series of doors > enemy must follow player through those doors.
..etc.

Once you got the logic you can start implementing the codes step by step.

xyz

Audiobellum Do you mean something like a combination between Astar and Navmesh pathfinding? I'm imagining you're talking about some sort of algorithm that tell what's the quickest path to the player by going through a series of doors and then using the Navmesh for moving through those doors towards the player.

Something like that, yeah, tailored to your specific needs which will mainly depend on the high level data model of your map. If you don't have any and rely solely on scene tree and physics - you won't be able to solve this. Opening doors is not really your problem here at all. Your problem is lack of navigational data structures, whatever they might be. So this whole question is a classical case of xy question.

Audiobellum

Gowydot

Enemy chases down > enemy open doors that stand in the way of it chasing the player( while ignoring every other door) to continue chasing down player without anything in it's way.
Getting the door to open for the enemy is the easy part. I could make the door check to see if the enemy is in it's area and if the enemy is the in chasing state, then call for the function for opening the door if the door is closed.
What I'm tried to prevent the enemy from doing is opening doors that it aren't supposed to, while chasing down the player. If the enemy is running past a door( that's not in it's way) while chasing down the player, I don't want that door to open just because the enemy is the door's Area3D.
I just want the enemy to ignore irrelevant doors; that being doors that aren't in it's way.
If I were to edit the code to make the doors open for the enemy, it would look something like this:

func _on_body_entered(body):
	if body.name == "FPS_Controller":
		if locked_with_key and unlocked == false:
			if body.keys[door_key_index] == true:
				unlocked = true
				locked_with_key = false
		entered_the_area = true
	#Code for opening door for enemy!
	elif body.is_in_group("Enemy") and door_open == false:
		if body.is_chasing: #Making sure the enemy is chasing the player before opening the door for the player.
			door_animation()

However, even though it will make the doors open for the enemy, it wouldn't necessarily make the right doors open for the enemy; doors infront of the enemy will open for the enemy just like doors right beside it. That's the problem.
I want the enemy to open doors that are in its way; that being doors that would prevent it from chasing down the player through rooms.

Gowydot

Audiobellum
It's an automatic door? It is kinda make sense to open when someone walks pass. 😄
but
You could deactivate all the doors when enemy is in chasing mode except the door that player has already opened.

door.gd

#flip this to true when the player activates the door.
var is_opened_by_player = false

func _on_body_entered(body):
if body.is_in_chasing_mode and is_opened_by_player == true:
door_can_open = true
#do door_animation()
elif body.is_in_chasing_mode:
door_can_open = false

The logic is - when the enemy is chasing, THE DOOR will not automatically open if enemy is in the area UNLESS it had been opened by the player.

Audiobellum

Gowydot

You have identify the problem that I have with the enemy AI, though the door isn't automatic when it comes to the player. When the player is in the door's area, the player can open/close it.

func _process(delta):
	if Input.is_action_just_pressed("Interact") and unlocked:
		if entered_the_area == true:
			door_animation()

The door will only automatically close when the player leaves the area like this:

func _on_body_exited(body):
	if body.name == "FPS_Controller":
		entered_the_area = false
		if door_open == true:#Had to put this back into the code.
			door_animation()

So the fact that doors should automatically close complicates things. However, solutions for opening the door for the enemy probably will be automatic or at least that's what I had in mind.
I know of another indie game developer who used Godot to make a first person shooter. His solution to this problem was to just prevent the player from closing doors that they already opened; open doors stay open forever. I could do that but, I fear that would make my game feel way too much like his. Also, I feel feel that I have to solve the problem on the basis that older games like Goldeneye 64 and Perfect Dark seem to have solved it.

Edit: Hmm...I think I get it now.

Gowydot

Audiobellum

Although come to think of it, the problem is that if the particular door (that the player had opened) is one of many instances that use the same script (door.gd)

eg.
door_A #is using door.gd
door_B #is also using door.gd

When player open door_A and flip the var in door.gd then both doors' var will be flipped since they are using the same door.gd. If that is the case then you have to find a way to identify that door by name. I forgot how to do it but searching for something like "how to get the unique name of instanced scene" should help.

After that my noob theory is to use signal to inform enemy of which particular door the player has opened. Something like:

When a player open door_A it also sends a signal to enemy that a door named "door_A" is opened.
Enemy then go to the door_A location and checks if any of the area3D is named "door_A" and thus able to open it.

There are probably more elegant way of doing it (I'm no expert in coding myself) but that's how I would try to get it working at least.

Audiobellum

I just got to let you all know that I found the solution to my problems and it's so simple, I feel a bit stupid when I discovered it. Since the enemy is already turning in the direction it's moving through pathfinding, I just point another Raycast3d on it called DoorCast and that is what it uses to open doors. Since the DoorCast doesn't move/rotate, it's always pointing where the enemy is facing. Here's the function for it in the enemy state base class:

func door_opener(door_range = 2):
	if parent.door_cast.is_colliding() and parent.door_cast.get_collider().owner is Door:
		var d = parent.door_cast.get_collider().owner
		var dist_2_door = parent.global_transform.origin.distance_to(d.global_transform.origin)
		if dist_2_door <= door_range:
			d.open_door_for_enemy(parent)

Now here's how I use it in my chase state:


	# --- Normal chase logic ---
	enemy.anim_player.play("Uzi_Run", 0, running_anim_speed)

	chase_timer += delta
	if enemy.opened_a_door == false: #Pathfinding behaves normally if the enemy isn't in a door area and has opened the door!
		move_here(enemy.player.global_transform.origin, delta)
		enemy.ray.look_at(enemy.player.head.global_transform.origin)
		door_opener(3)
	elif enemy.opened_a_door == true:#Enemy has to enter door that it opened without getting stuck behind it now.
		var Dist_2_target = enemy.global_transform.origin.distance_to(enemy.away_from_door)
		move_here(enemy.away_from_door,delta)
		if Dist_2_target < 1:#Once enemy is no safely away from the door, opened_a_door is turned false; ensuring regular pathfinding.
			enemy.opened_a_door = false

After failing to do a more complicated solution with ChatGPT, I asked the AI where it got it's ideas from and I realise that it was just making stuff up; my more complicated ideas for a solutions where unprecedented. Realising this, I understood that the AI couldn't help and that older games must have had a simpler solution to the problem I was stressing myself about. That's when it hit me; Raycast! LOL!🤣