I am creating an enemy system in my tower defense game. I decided to use ‘lerp’ to calculate the movement as it does cause CPU leaks. But the only problem is, how do I calculate the alpha in Lerp?
I tried a lot of ways but it just ended up failing. I really need help on the math to find alpha.
It depends. Is your path linear?
yes, mostly going to be the same speed
In that case, alpha is the time from the starting position to the ending.
local t = 0
while t < 1 do
local position = startingPosition:lerp(endingPosition, t)
t+= task.wait()
end
I appreciate the help, but this will cause a lot of lag when running 1000 enemies. I am looking for an equation that changes alpha every time after the enemy moves, so it looks like movement. I run a heartbeat event to loop through all the enemies and move them
Like a transition kinda to replicate movement, and also somehow i need to make speed take affect on this to
In that case, you should use time() to get the current game time. When you begin to run your enemies, you should apply some sort of time offset to when the enemy started.
--enemy.start is when it started moving
--enemy.end is when the movement ends
--enemy.startPosition
--enemy.endPosition
--enemy.position is the position
--in your heartbeat function, a for loop that iterates through all the enemies
enemy.position = enemy.startPosition:lerp(enemy.endPosition, (time()-enemy.start)/enemy.end)
correct me if I’m wrong, but this should work just fine in your case (the variable names will need to be changed).
Alright i will try this later, and confirm if it does work
correct me if i am wrong, but isnt start position and Position the same? or is it like the start position got added and your midway to the end
startPosition is the position at the spawn of the enemy. position is the current position.
i would make startposition the new waypoint they reached, because we got to take account to bezier curves for the enemy to rotate
In that case, you might want to manipulate endPosition and the end time. Not really sure how this would be coded since I’ve never attempted something like this before, but if you’re able to make a bezier curve somewhat linear then you’re able to.
something is wrong with my code, can you help me on this? enemys dont move at all
local enemy = workspace.Enemies.Active:FindFirstChild(v.ID)
local node = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(v['Node'])
local node2 = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(v['Node'] + 1)
local distance = (enemy.PrimaryPart.Position - node.Position).Magnitude
local current_time = workspace:GetServerTimeNow()
local speed = enemyInfo[v["Name"]].Speed
if v["Node"] == 2 then
v["EndPos"] = node2.CFrame
v["StartPos"] = node.CFrame
v["StartTime"] = workspace:GetServerTimeNow()
v["EndTime"] = distance/speed + workspace:GetServerTimeNow()
elseif (enemy.PrimaryPart.Position - node2.Position).Magnitude < 0.1 then
v["Node"] += 1
node = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(v['Node'])
node2 = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(v['Node'] + 1)
v["EndPos"] = node2.CFrame
v["StartPos"] = node.CFrame
v["StartTime"] = workspace:GetServerTimeNow()
v["EndTime"] = distance/speed + workspace:GetServerTimeNow()
end
enemy.HumanoidRootPart.CFrame = v["StartPos"]:Lerp(v["EndPos"], (time()-v["StartTime"])/v["EndTime"])
the node == 2 is the start node btw
I forgot to say that endTime should not be adding the server time, it is just the duration.
local enemy = workspace.Enemies.Active:FindFirstChild(clientInfo.EnemyHash)
local node = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(clientInfo['Node'])
local node2 = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(clientInfo['Node'] + 1)
local distance = (enemy.PrimaryPart.Position - node.Position).Magnitude
local current_time = workspace:GetServerTimeNow()
local speed = clientInfo["Speed"]
if clientInfo["Node"] == 2 then
clientInfo["EndPos"] = node2.CFrame
clientInfo["StartPos"] = node.CFrame
clientInfo["StartTime"] = workspace:GetServerTimeNow()
clientInfo["EndTime"] = distance/speed
elseif (enemy.PrimaryPart.Position - node2.Position).Magnitude < 0.1 then
clientInfo["Node"] += 1
node = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(v['Node'])
node2 = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(v['Node'] + 1)
clientInfo["EndPos"] = node2.CFrame
clientInfo["StartPos"] = node.CFrame
clientInfo["StartTime"] = workspace:GetServerTimeNow()
clientInfo["EndTime"] = distance/speed
end
enemy.HumanoidRootPart.CFrame = clientInfo["StartPos"]:Lerp(clientInfo["EndPos"], (time()-clientInfo["StartTime"])/clientInfo["EndTime"])
still not working for some reaosn
well it glitches and sometimes moves
for i, clientInfo in pairs(Enemys) do
local enemy = workspace.Enemies.Active:FindFirstChild(clientInfo.EnemyHash)
local node = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(clientInfo['Node'])
local node2 = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(clientInfo['Node'] + 1)
local distance = (enemy.PrimaryPart.Position - node.Position).Magnitude
local current_time = workspace:GetServerTimeNow()
local speed = clientInfo["Speed"]
if clientInfo["Node"] == 1 then
clientInfo["EndPos"] = node.CFrame
clientInfo["StartPos"] = node.CFrame
clientInfo["StartTime"] = workspace:GetServerTimeNow()
clientInfo["EndTime"] = distance/speed
elseif enemy.PrimaryPart.CFrame:ToWorldSpace():ToObjectSpace(node2.CFrame).Position.Z <= 0.1 then
clientInfo["Node"] += 1
node = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(clientInfo['Node'])
node2 = workspace.Waypoints:FindFirstChild(clientInfo['Node'] + 1)
clientInfo["EndPos"] = node2.CFrame
clientInfo["StartPos"] = node.CFrame
clientInfo["StartTime"] = workspace:GetServerTimeNow()
clientInfo["EndTime"] = distance/speed
end
enemy.HumanoidRootPart.CFrame = clientInfo["StartPos"]:Lerp(clientInfo["EndPos"], (workspace:GetServerTimeNow()-clientInfo["StartTime"])/clientInfo["EndTime"])
end
So do you want a number that is the time(in seconds) from the start of the round/game or what?