2d Spring joint...did not work for a sprite to follow my guy...while moving.

I was trying to build a character like a ghost follower dude that hovers around my player and follows him as he moves through the level. I wanted sorta random hovering movement around the 2d sprite...I thought a spring joint 2d would be good place to start but it seems that the fact it needs a rigid body it really wonks with the other character as he moves (and changes his behavior and physics and forces a lot)...I even set the mass of the follower around to 0 on the rigid body ... no go. So is the wrong tree to bark up? Think of a fairy hovering around the head of the player ..that is basically what i want (with it having semi random movement or movement that is reactive to what the player is doing).

As I type this, sounds like I am going to have to script this myself and I have no idea where to start.

 

Yep, you'll have to script yourself an AI. I'd recommend something like this:

Code (CSharp):

1. public Transform player;
2. public Vector2 nextPoint;
3.  
4. void Start (){
5.  
6. NewPoint ();
7.  
8. }
9.  
10. void Update (){
11.  
12.    if (Vector2.Distance (transform.position, nextPoint.position) > 0.1){
13.  
14.    Vector2 direction =transform.position - nextPoint;
15.  
16.    //TODO: Move to the next point either by translating the sprite or using Rigidbody forces.
17.  
18.  
19.     }
20.  
21. else
22.  
23.  
24. {
25.  
26. NewPoint ();
27.  
28. }
29.  
30. }
31.  
32. void NewPoint (){
33.  
34. nextPoint = player.position + new Vector3 (Random.Range (-1,1), Random.Range (-1,1), Random.Range (-1,1));
35.  
36. //Or something likewise.
37.  
38. }

You'd probably want to add some animations/delays but these are the bare bones.

 

Thanks for the response, i was also investigating a simple ai steering algorithm.