..
  This file was automatically converted from MediaWiki syntax.
  If some markup is wrong, looks weird or doesn't make sense, feel free
  to fix it.

  Please remove this comment once this file was manually checked
  and no "strange ReST" artifacts remain.

.. _steering-behaviors:

Steering Behaviors
==================

These AI behaviors control the basic motion of NPC objects in a game and make
it look realistic.

PandAI is inbuilt with handling the functionality of the seven following basic
steering behaviors :

 Seek

Flee

Pursue

Evade

Arrival

Wander

Flock

Obstacle Avoidance

Path Follow

Before you start exploring these various behaviors, let me give you a brief
introduction on how it is setup and what you need to begin :

All the Steering Behaviors are part of the Behavior class of any AI Character.
Hence, to use them you need to get a reference to it via 'getAiBehaviors()'
function of the AICharacter class.

Once you get this reference, you can use it to call any steering behavior.



.. code-block:: python
    
        
        //For example:
    
         aiBehaviors = aiCharacter.getAiBehaviors();  
         aiBehaviors.seek(targetNodePath);
    



-  Once you have read this page, you can proceed to explore the individual
   pages for each AI Behavior for details and even an example demo for each
   one working.

--------------

PRIORITIES :

Every steering behavior can also take a second parameter which is priority.
This ranges from 0 to 1 and it defines the behaviors intensity when combined
with other behaviors.



.. code-block:: python
    
    
        //For example: 
        
        aiBehaviors.seek(targetNodePath_1, 0.5);
        aiBehaviors.flee(targetNodePath_2, 0.5);
    

This will cause the
AICharacter's resultant force to be an equal balance of seeking
'targetNodePath\_1' and fleeing 'targetNodePath\_2' .

--------------

HELPER FUNCTIONS :

(For beginners -> Come back to these when you need this functionality)

For the AIWorld class: 

.. code-block:: python
    
    void addAiChar(AICharacter aiChar);
    
    void removeAiChar(string name);
    
    void addFlock(Flock *flock);
    
    void flockOff(int ID);
    
    void flockOn(int ID);
    
    Flock getFlock(int ID);


For the AICharacter class:


.. code-block:: python
    
    double getMass();
    
    void setMass(double m);
    
    LVecBase3f getVelocity();
    
    double getMaxForce();
    
    void setMaxForce(double max_force);
    
    NodePath getNodePath();
    
    void setNodePath(NodePath np);

For the AIBehaviors
class: 

.. code-block:: python
    
    aiBehaviors.behaviorStatus(string AIName)

This function
returns the status of an AI Behavior whether it is active, paused, done or
disabled. Returns -1 if an invalid string is passed.

-  Note for pathfinding status, use pathfollow as the string name, since
   pathfinding is a subset of pathfollow.

To remove any AI after their call has been instantiated.


.. code-block:: python
    
    void removeAi(string "AIName");



-  Note for pathfinding removal, use pathfollow as the string name, since
   pathfinding is a subset of pathfollow.

To pause or resume any AI after their call has been instantiated.


.. code-block:: python
    
    void pauseAi(string "AIName");
    
    void resumeAi(string "AIName");

where AIName refers to:

"all" - removes all the Ai's

"seek" - removes seek

"flee" - removes flee

"pursue" - removes arrival

"evade" - removes pursuit

"arrival" - removes evade

"wander" - removes wander

"flock" - removes flock

"obstacle\_avoidance" - removes obstacle\_avoidance

"pathfollow" - removes pathfollow

--------------