Comments

• mikdog

  March 8

  I got Claude.ai to write me a script:
  https://pastebin.com/VXnBSveU
  which surprisingly does kind of work (I don't really understand it, but it works), made a separate Particle system then attached this script to the player and dragged the particle system into the field. It's not perfect (the puffs appear at the start of a scene and then stop), but yeh, this is the kind of thing I'm aiming for I guess:
  
• mikdog

  March 10 edited March 10

  The Claude script is actually working pretty well for me. Tweaked it so I only get the particles (which is a basic sprite animation) playing when the player moves over a certain speed. I don't think what I ended up with needed to be particles, but anyways. Works for now.
  [Actually, maybe not. Getting very unusual computer freezes and crashes, might be related to this, not sure]
• mikdog

  March 11

  Having mixed results with AI making scripts. Is there a simple/performant way to do this, please?
  
  I'm kind of getting there with AI slowly but there always seems to be some caveat downside.
  Just want a short couple-frame animation to play when character runs, to be able to dial in speed of the animation and the space between them (and ideally separate effects when character walks or runs.)
• ChrisIceBox

  March 11

  Use Unity's Profiler, with Deep Profile enabled, to learn the source of any performance spikes in the scene.

  If you're looking for a simple sprite animation, switching to an Animator prefab that just plays a simple sprite animation may be preferable. Rather than playing particles, just spawn in an instance of the prefab.
• mikdog

  March 11 edited March 11

  Thanks Chris, will try the animator prefab method.
  Ignorant question - what’s a good way to spawn in that prefab, please?
  I’m thinking maybe I could add animation events for each step, and then somehow (maybe with custom scripting) spawn in a prefab each time an event is triggered, and maybe destroy it at the end too so they don’t stack and take up memory. Or make sure only like 3 prefabs can be shown at any time with a pool or something.
• BecauseBecause

  March 11

  Chris will undoubtedly have a better solution than me but if I want something to not be visible, I change the asset to use a material that is invisible. Would that be useful?
• mikdog

  March 11

  Thanks for the comment! It’s a good idea, I also sometimes use a blank png / blank animation to essentially get rid of something. My concern is more that the character walks around a scene for 30 seconds and spawns like, 1000 little dust animation prefabs.
  I’m not super au fait with prefabs, so wouldn’t know how to destroy them. I know in principle there’s a way to have a limited ‘pool’ of them where instances keep getting reused (I saw Corgi Engine or Top Down Engine uses a pool for bullet sprites). But yeh, just want to make sure it’s somewhat performant.
• BecauseBecause

  March 11

  Ah right, I haven't done anything like that yet, personally I'd just keep it simple and have the dust marks be a part of the running animation and call it a day, lol.
• ChrisIceBox

  March 12 edited March 12

  Yes, animation events is the way to go if you want to spawn them in.

  Something like this, attached to the Animator's GameObject, should do it:

  using UnityEngine;
  
  public class PrefabSpawner : MonoBehaviour
  {
  
      public GameObject prefabToSpawn;
      public float lifeTime = 2f;
  
      public void SpawnPrefab ()
      {
          var newOb = Instantiate (prefabToSpawn);
          newOb.transform.position = transform.position;
          Destroy (newOb, lifeTime);
      }
  
  }
  

  This'll spawn a prefab in when the "SpawnPrefab" event is triggered, and remove it some time later.
• mikdog

  March 12

  Hi Chris, super, thank you.
  May I ask please if there a way to make it so the dust puffs only trigger when the character's running? I don't have a unique running animation, the character just moves quicker.
• ChrisIceBox

  March 13

  using UnityEngine;
  using AC;
  
  public class PrefabSpawner : MonoBehaviour
  {
  
      public GameObject prefabToSpawn;
      public float lifeTime = 2f;
      public Char acCharacter;
  
      public void SpawnPrefab ()
      {
          if (!acCharacter.isRunning) return;
  
          var newOb = Instantiate (prefabToSpawn);
          newOb.transform.position = transform.position;
          Destroy (newOb, lifeTime);
      }
  
  }
  
• mikdog

  March 13 edited March 13

  Thanks Chris, that does the job really nicely. I asked Claude to tweak it a bit for me so I could have different PreFab dust animations for both running and walking, and also added an offset to correctly place it:

  using UnityEngine;
  using AC;
  
  public class PrefabSpawner : MonoBehaviour
  {
      public GameObject runningPrefab;
      public GameObject walkingPrefab;
      public float lifeTime = 2f;
      public Char acCharacter;
      public Vector3 positionOffset = new Vector3(0, 0.1f, 0);
  
      public void SpawnPrefab()
      {
          GameObject prefabToSpawn;
  
          if (acCharacter.isRunning)
          {
              // Character is running
              prefabToSpawn = runningPrefab;
          }
          else
          {
              // Character is not running (assume walking)
              // You might want additional checks here if the character could be stationary
              prefabToSpawn = walkingPrefab;
          }
  
          // Only spawn if we have a valid prefab for this movement state
          if (prefabToSpawn != null)
          {
              var newOb = Instantiate(prefabToSpawn);
              newOb.transform.position = transform.position + positionOffset;
              Destroy(newOb, lifeTime);
          }
      }
  }