[UPDATED] ICECreatureControl v1.4.0 - creature AI for enemies, animals, monsters, zombies ...

Hey,

I want to know there is any variable or function that return total creatures that is killed by player in scene ?

And total creatures that spawn by ICE in scene ?

 

I dont think there is. But you could always add a public variable int, and find the spawn code to increment this, then add another variable for the death sequence to increment this when they die.

 

Actually I want those scripts that show dying and spawing

 

@icetec Hows the 1.4 update coming along? Need any help testing or fighting bugs?

 

it is ridiculous to see everyone in here waiting for the update including me, They may be feeling frustration to wait for the update as well

 

@icetec What did you mean the update will come soon in the next few days? or you meant next few weeks? I am waiting for the update, so I will be able to progress with my project, at least say something to us keep us updated even if you need more time....

 

One question here: anyone has experience using ICE's sensoria functions? I can now only set the visual abilities for my creatures, but have no idea how to use the hearing or the odour to let animals detect my player.
In my mind the hearing should pair with a noise function on a creature that defines how far the creature can be heard depend on it's behaviors(running cause higher noise, walking lower)
And odour should follow the wind direction, stay in an up-wind position to an animal should be easier detected by it and vice-versa.
Need to know if ICE can achieve these by default or I should tinker more scripts in it to achieve this function.
Also need to know which scripts should I look into.

 

Iv'e not implemented smell yet but I do intend to if it's reasonably feasible. My games contains lots of wild animals so it would help with realism if done right.

 

To be honest - we've had no reply from Pit for some time now, let alone support. Whilst the reviews section showed that the update was meant to be here on the 28th of August, its two weeks later without a reply, even "Sorry its going to be late" - at least keep people updated even if its going to take another month - its frustrating. At the moment its showing signs of being abandoned and its the 3rd most popular AI system in the store at the moment.

I'm really routing for Pit to sort this out. No matter what problems he is having - we're here for you Pit. Get back to us.

 

29th he have write me on skype what the update Comes in next days he will finish the new Video stuff but yeah your right 2 weeks now later and nothing and i cant use the ICE at all I wish I had never bought it but i have talk with him 3 month ago and i have trust him about the update

 

Something must be up, as he has been logging on (checking posts) - last time 4th of September. But no posting - it's not as if we're throwing him to the wolves, or something but more concern for Pit as a developer. I'm not posting to put pressure on him at all, but more interested in whether he needs help with the update, happy to help him with videos/written tutorials/screenshots of the 1.4 update, and some support even if its classed as a Beta. I can't even install 1.3.7, it crashes my project, and still need to figure out why, I can't even go back to a previous release as the Asset store doesn't allow it.

 

you have a Crash i have a Crash too from me Comes from the Terrain Composer

 

wondering which other 2 most popular AI systems are?

 

And I wonder why this here is popular at all, I am totally dissapointed.
I bought it because it has 5 stars, but it is way to complicated and buggy, too.

I am waiting since a month or more to get this 1.4 update which should have been here since 2 weeks or something. I am developer and understand updates may take longer, but the author is never seen here. I thought I might give the update a Chance before I give a one star rating. I have bought over 20 assets right now and only did this once ( and I think my 2nd lowest Rating was a three).

I guess this asset maybe good together with other assets it seems, so some only use it as an addon but when you buy only this and want to use it from the scratch, it is a complete waste of time and Money in my opinion.

Sorry I was afraid to tell and maybe I'll earn a S***storm, but I see here and in the Reviews, most or all new user are totally... disappointed. And only those who seem to use it forever like it. Or those who use it as an addon for other assets...

Sorry.

 

These would be my preferences;

ICE Creature Control (for not having to do any coding or Behaviour Trees) is currently the top asset, but its grown too big to manage, so I would think when and if 1.4 comes out, it should just stay as 1.4 without any further feature updates (such as support for 3rd party add-ons) and concentrate on fixes/support for a while. It should pretty much cover everything anyway. Maybe a later update like Zone controller where you can control other assets properties would be cool.

Emerald AI is a close 2nd, especially with the 2.0 update coming out, but it doesn't have networking support yet, but is planned, however I've heard from a few devs that it was quite easy to implement. Developer is adding quite a few features that will be very useful. This asset is fast becoming my first choice, or at least in line with ICE as they should compliment each other. Providing 1.4 fixes everything that is not working and multiplayer support it would be the top solution to get your game working on both single/multiplayer.

AI Behavior from Walker Boys - I found this one to be pretty good, but only recently have they started updating it again. The only problem I had with this asset is that I had to setup each AI and couldn't copy a configuration over to another AI of the same type, maybe they fixed this or implemented it I can't remember. So it was time consuming when applying changes to 30-40 different zombies.

If anything I find using two AI systems in your game is better.

Then you have your Behavior Tree / Visual Scripting for AI systems;

Behavior Tree Designer by Opsive
Playmaker
and many others.

 

Its quite an advanced system. I can't speak for 1.3.6 / 1.3.7 as I've not used them, but prior to that I found ICE Creature Control to be very good. Maybe 1.4 will address this, but it is a steep learning curve at first, but once you get how it works then its easy. It does need more tutorials I agree and plenty of example projects. Hold out another week before you give it a 1 star for the developer to redeem himself.

 

And I still do not understand why you cannot load a preset for a hermivore, carnivore, neutral being.
I asked that a month ago. It would be so easy to get a first success...

Or have a working(!) prefab for each of those where you can drag you skinned mesh onto, and link the animations or Animation Controller. And then it should work. And if you want to, you can then set a thousand additional parameters if needed, after you got it working quick and easy.

And not be foreced to read about those thousand Parameters at first but do not get the Basics working at all...
I do not think it is a steep learning curve, it think it was uncontrolled growth. Everyone aksed for a new Feature or a new compatible asset, everyone was served, Basics are not working anymore and new users cannot understand them anymore. I would like to have an asset from easy to complicated.

 

I meant for a noob

I can't really say much other than time is running out for me to finish my game, so I'll be choosing my direction within the week if nothing surfaces on the 1.4 update, then I'll probably ditch ICE. It would be a shame, but I'm not getting anywhere without 1.4 or a reply from the developer.

 

I think a noob would not even stand a Chance. It is more than that.
I believe it could be really useful even for noobs, if it had some prefabs or presets for common beings instead more and more new stuff.

Something like I take the carnivore prefab, turn off the navmesh and use raycasting, add my skinned mesh and link animations. Okay. working! Now I can enable a thousand more properties if I like.

 

Anyone that has never used the package before faces a 30+ day learning curve, if they are given support in the forums. That has been my experience, having 10 years of hobbyist dev experience, and 3 years with Unity. I said it early on, it would be really handy to have a set of typical presets, and attempted to throw a couple up on the ICE website. It is not setup to accept its own format, or .ZIP for that matter.

The documentation is good, however it was written by a developer for a developer. Knowledge of how and when to use a function or feature is assumed or implied, rather than being called out. As a security professional, I often fall into the same trap, writing reports and presentations to my peers, rather than to my customers.

Another developer asked me for input into how to make his weather product better. The answer was "simple". The product did everything from day/night cycle to dynamic clouds and even liquid caustics. Amazing power, but it was a real bear to configure. Get one option "wrong" and your FPS is halved. There are so many sliders and check boxes, you would have no idea what you changed. Add a "configurator", a guidance system for the most common settings. Best practice in a bottle. Using that interface, asking a handful of questions, you come out with a basic, working weather system. Now you can use the same I/F to set advanced options, or go to the granular dials to tweak and test.

Bottom line for me, this product works well, and does much. I rate it high, and I own at least six other AI systems that I have tried to get working in their simplest forms with varied success.

 

I've had my issues with this asset and the support but in it's defence setting a herbivore or a carnivore is not a problem. There is a learning curve and if you cannot do that then I think you have not mastered the curve yet.

If your talking about flying creatures, or swim and land animals like crocodiles then it is in need of further tutorials and documentation. I think it gets a lot of admiration because people who have played around with it and got some success start to see the capabilities of the asset.

I do hope Pit is ok though and he has the motivation to get 1.4 out of the door soon.

 

What release of Unity are you using? and if you've upgraded recently... did you not include the Standard Assets? Sometimes when you use and older release of the standard assets with a newer release of Unity it will cause you issues. Backup your project and then see if you remove standard assets folder if it will allow you to import ICE without crashing after it updates using the API.

 

I'll try and look into this over the weekend. See what I can come up with.

 

If you are looking for the 1.3 manual its in the asset folder for ICE, or at least should be. The Documentation link shown on the asset store page for ICE has not been updated and linked to 1.1, but if you are new to ICE and wanted to find out more about 1.3 here's the link to the document on ICE website http://www.icecreaturecontrol.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ICECC_MANUAL_1_3.pdf

 

Is it somehow possible to have multiple death animations on one creature, and furthermore is it possible to let the physics engine take care of a death, like a creature gets shot in the head and the force to the head affects the death apperance? I`m using ICE and UFPS

EDIT: OK, First question is solved I think, by adding additional rules. But how I can let the creature choose only one of the rules instead of make a cycle of those?

 

someone now how to count enemies deaths?
So i can complete a lv?

 

This is true and should very clearly stand at the top of the description in the asset store. Then new users would not be so disappointed.
I had also Bugs with animations etc. and still believe it has grown too much and could be much more better and easier for new users if some prefabs or presets were given.

Many People agreed a dozen times presets or prefabs would help but since the author is never here nothing happens. Still disappointed.

Since I want to release a first public prototype soon, I now made my own scripts which I are not good, but at least they work, beings walking around, enemies attacking Player on sight. Until they run into an obstacle of Course

PS:
ICECreatureControl is an incredible asset to breathe life into your virtual characters - within minutes and without typing one single line of Code!
I do not want to comment this first lines in the asset store description. No I won't. Could have worked with prefabs or presets.
Should be
ICECreatureControl is an incredible asset to breathe life into your virtual characters - if you are very clever, extremly tenacoius and have at least a month to only work on this.
Okay now I will stop trolling and wait again on 1.4 and meanwhile work on my scripts maybe it will soon be obsolete...

 

I haven't progressed quite that far yet that I am looking for directional forces on the animated character or ragdoll replacements, but have implemented headshots. It would seem the way to go for your use case would be to use the Add Force option (I think that's what it's called) under Impacts in the Body Part script on the head object. Since I haven't tested it, and am not in front of my dev system, I am sort of guessing...

Mark

 

Take a look at the advanced options in the rules. Might be worth adding a Main Death Behavior, with a rule that uses an if .... or something, then make multiple if statements for them to select a different Death Behavior. So In effect you have a master controller for Death.

edit: I mainly used it for hurting the AI, not killing .. so it could get up again, but it can be used for just death - however Mark posted about using Random animations so that may be your better option.

 

In the Behaviors you can open the specific behavior entry and create the multiple animations to play. At the very top of that animation list is a grey box that says CYCLE. Change that to RANDOM, and make sure that the animations are not set to loop.

Mark

 

When was that added? I must admit I've only used 1.1.7 before. I remember why I used it that way so that the AI could get up again after an attack if it was just hurt, not dead.

I'm still trying to install 1.3.6, it crashes on the API when compiling - driving me nuts, no other asset crashes on 5.6.2f1

edit: fixed it. I believe (not 100% sure yet) until I try it again.. as I deleted lots of assets in bunches that it was an older version of Probuilder clashing with ICE. I now have it installed! Finally!!

 

I'm not sure when it was added. My first installed version is 1.3.7. If you can add multiple animations to behaviors, you can choose between cycling through them one-by-one, or randomly. As soon as you add that second rule for animation activation, you should see the little grey box that says CYCLE by default. (Labeled as Order Type)

 

I'm getting the Ghost parameters bug even when I reset Unity. Did you ever find a fix for this?

 

The only way I have found to avoid this, is to apply the changes to the prefab, THEN save the scene. The params will still disappear, but you can now revert the scene object back to the prefab settings, getting them all back.

 

@icetec Your delivery date is now well over two weeks past due.

When do you think it would be appropriate to show your customers that you are aware of their concerns, still working on the solution, aiming for a new delivery date, or abandoning this project altogether? I need to know whether I should continue with ICC in my current project or move on and collect a refund.

Please provide an update and ETA.
Mark

 

Has anyone heard from pit? Website, skype anything? I hope he is ok as this is very strange from someone who has been on here a longtime and has a a product with an update due.

 

2 weeks ago I have write with him and he say few days he will bring the update

 

I posted a bad review on the asset page and he answered quickly:

Seems he just doesn't care about the forum anymore.

 

And 2 weeks ago he say is complete finish only update the new document is missing sorry but I see at the moment only laying

 

We'll just have to wait and see. I'd rather 1.4 be fully working and blow us away with the sheer awesomeness of what it can do, rather than cause lots of issues further down the line. Its a big project, and one with many additions (3rd party) that needed to be considered - so as long as its still in development, I can wait for it a while longer. No show in the forums is not great, and we have to hear it from the reviews - but at least that is something. Hopefully 1.4 will fix many of your problems, which is why Pit is probably not bothering with 1.3.x support. As you can see historically his support and reviews have been by far from good - it cannot always be that way in life, so hopefully things will get better for Pit once 1.4 is out.

 

I'll just stick with current version and write my own scripts to optimize or extend the ICE system, just finished my own AI_Home script that can control max AI numbers by each home, stick AI's to their original homes, reproduce baby animals according to the pack's situations (sexual reproductive animals can not reproduce babies if there lacks a gender in the pack, I can add further functions to let them migrate to another pack and merge together). And also culling AIs outside a certain range.
ICE offered quite a decent foundation, we just need to add bricks to it while waiting the new version coming out

 

@Harekelas - yes, thats all you can do. Assets can only take it so far without having the press button to make a game, creating clones all over the place. Adding some originality enhancements to what you have already, as long as you understand the structure it will add value to your games or mix them up with other assets. I'm going to try and work with forge networking in the next couple of weeks to see if I can get ICE to use that.

 

That's great, I'm having a mating system in my game so I might hit you up for advice if you are able,

 

Have patience. Pit has a good asset. I'm also waiting for an update, which should solve my problems. As before, Pit before releasing the update also disappeared for a while. Then came the update. And Pit was back with us. We all waited a long time. I think there is very little time left until the new update. Disappearing Pit is the other way around. So he sweats the system in the sweat of his face)) sorry for my English))

 

Yep, it'll be here soon I have every confidence in Pit to deliver it, albeit later than expected - but that's just development - timescales are not always met. Just didn't want to work on 1.3.7 if 1.4 has any breaking changes, even though Pit said there will not be any, this may not always be the case. No biggy if there is though, as long as you can import the settings, but then make changes to the defaults that are new thats fine.

 

Sure, I can use some ideas about making a mating system too!

 

how to use events with own scripts?

 

Hi Everyone! First I gotta say, this asset is awesome! But its also quite complex, couldn't make heads or tail of it untill I checked this video, tought I should share:

Now I got two dumb problems I cant seem to shake, hopefully one of you guys can help before I annoy the dev:

1st Problem: I created a creature in an empty project and saved its settings. Went back to the main project, used the wizard to setup ICE and the creature. I then imported the previously saved creature preset. Appears to work EXCEPT for the creature getting teleported to the other side of the map. I realized its Home object was there and moved it were I wanted (right on top of the creature). BUT no matter what I do the creature still gets moved across the map at game start even though its home object is at the new location and doesn't get moved.

2nd Problem: I keep getting an error message saying "Animator does not have an AnimatorController" well the creature does have an animator controller so I am not shure what is going (See full error log bellow).

Any help is appreciated.

Thank you,

Fred.



Full log (Not csharp, had to insert as code to prevent emoticlowns):

Code (CSharp):

1. Animator does not have an AnimatorController
2. UnityEngine.Animator:CrossFade(String, Single, Int32, Single)
3. ICE.World.Objects.AnimationPlayerObject:Play(AnimationDataObject) (at Assets/ICE/ICEWorld/Scripts/Core/Objects/ice_objects_animation.cs:664)
4. ICE.Creatures.Objects.BehaviourObject:NextBehaviorModeRule(Boolean) (at Assets/ICE/ICECreatureControl/Scripts/Core/Objects/ice_CreatureBahavior.cs:1108)
5. ICE.Creatures.Objects.BehaviourObject:SetBehaviourModeByKey(String) (at Assets/ICE/ICECreatureControl/Scripts/Core/Objects/ice_CreatureBahavior.cs:1069)
6. ICE.Creatures.ICECreatureCharacter:OnDisable() (at Assets/ICE/ICECreatureControl/Scripts/Core/Base/ICECreatureCharacter.cs:179)
7.  

 

Did you perhaps enable Overlap Prevention?

Just ignore this, it is a bug in the current version of ICE.

However, I will warn you that if you use Mecanim, make a prefab of your creature BEFORE saving the scene, and apply any changes to the creature's prefab before saving.

This is because there is another bug with ICE that seems to wipe the mecanim parameters you set in the creature's behaviors when you save. IF you have applied changes to the creature's prefab, then all you have to do is revert it to the prefab's settings to get them back.

 

Errrr.... yes, I do and of course turning it off or moving it beside my creature fixes the issue.

Thank you for clarifying about the bug and for the Mecanim warning!

I see that you are the guy who made the videos I am currently watching, they are VERY helpfull, thank you for making them.

Do you show how to handle creature spawning and pooling in one of them?

I need a lot of bad guys on the screen at the same time and obviously just cloning the same creature several times trows several errors.

Thanks again!

Fred.

Ps: When are we getting our Canibal butterfly tutorial? (joke)