[Feature Request] Isometric Pathfinding

I love the new pathfinding plugin, but I think it's a bit too limited. I think It would be better if you could specify what sprites the pathfinder CAN use as well as the ones it cant. I think you should also be able to specify the type of movement it can have, whther it should rotate smoothly or go in strict straight lines.

What I mean by Isometric Pathfindig is that the path finder sticks to 8 directions that you can specify ( 8 directions in Isometric movement is not 45 degrees each direction, rather arctan(1/2) degrees for 4 directions and (90-arctan(1/2)) degrees for the other 4.)

In the past I suggested that we be able to set the vertical and horizontal speed of pathfinding sprites separately. I'm working on an isometric game and I don't need them to follow the grid precisely (as your suggestion would allow), but they don't appear to be moving realistically when they move the same speed across the screen up/down and left/right.

There are definitely lots of useful parameters that could be added to Pathfinding to make it suit other game types and other situations. I hope the Scirra guys return to it to make it even more powerful. It's already been a godsend for me, though.

I'm waiting for new features too.. like specify the type of movement it should have.. like 4 directions only in a grid based game.

Guif0DA: This is already in, simply set the property "Diagonal" to "Disabled".

That's how I did for my bomberman inspired tutorial (week 3, will have to wait for more explanations, the creeps movement).

There is no need to adapt the pathfinding behavior to work in isometric. An isometric game is still a grid based game, just displayed differently.

Ashely, is there any way to make a sprite stick to using certain sprites, and using a fixed 8-directional custom movement? My game is supposed to be very strict in movement, and I can't see any other way of customising the behavior. I'm looking for movement like Migo Land or Habbo, where the characters stick to a strict grid pattern, and moved in only 8 directions (not just 45 degrees each way) The Pathfinding behaviour doesn't seem to do it for me for some reason.

Guif0DA: This is already in, simply set the property "Diagonal" to "Disabled".

That's how I did for my bomberman inspired tutorial (week 3, will have to wait for more explanations, the creeps movement).

No it's not. Your exact demonstration the enemy makes little movements in diagonal too when changing direction and that's what I dont want to in my game.

I had to use another pathfinding plugin to make possible what I want in my game, unfortunately the pathfinding from scirra still need more work on it.

I would use the pathfinding behaviour if it could detect certain sprites rather than "solid" sprites only. Though I haven't looked into the pathfinding behaviour so it probably is already supported XD

To make it more clear my post what I mean is that the current pathfinding from scirra still do some minor diagonal movements even when the diagonal are disabled. If a gamedesigner want only straight movements like up, down, left or right (like a Final Fantasy from SNES) then it will have to use another way to make possible pathfinding while respecting the movement.

Continuing.. improving the pathfinding behavior with more options. It can get some new tools like specify how much an object move before changing his direction.. this would be VERY useful on games that are GRID BASED like FF3 For SNES... so the object would move like in a CHESS table, respecting the tiles.

Guif0DA: Nothing prevents you from programming/handling your own movement and only using the pathfinder to calculate the path.

Then you'd have exactly the type of movement you want for your game.

Jase00: It is indeed already supported. This is done by setting the property "Obstacles" to "Custom" and using the pathfinder action "Add obstacle".

Bit late to the party but must add a big +1 to the request for isometrc pathfinding.

I can't see at all (been trying for a week) how the current pathfinding nodes translate to isometric, they do 2.5d well but that's a whole different game style. Isometric tile heights are half the tile width and the whole board (and each node obviously) is a diamond not a square so odd and even rows/columns of nodes will be offset from the one above.

Setting the layout angle to 45degs gives a close approximation, ie. coming directly N,E,S or W leads to the correct zigzag motion.

Hopefully I'm missing the obvious and will keep on trying wither way :)

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When you want to make an isometric game, you're supposed to virtually program everything on a square, regular grid (imagine a minimap, top-down view). All the pathfinding, gameplay, AI stuff... happens there. Then, you convert the position of your assets to the isometric system.

You can probably google it or find some resources on the forums.

Good luck,

Nathan

I've been reading endless programmers thoughts on it so far (Mostly searching A* isometric alogs) and haven't heard that said yet but you may well be right :)

However, In C2 and specifically the pathfinding it wont work due to the offset of the tiles as they are not square.

This won't divide into a square grid whatever way you rotate it.

<img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/201483942/isomtile.png" border="0" />

I'll keep on trying though!

Isometric tiles math.