Animating enemies - Global script or individually?

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1

i think i made a post similar to this long ago, but that was back when my enemy animate scripts were like 50 lines in length

every enemy shares the same signals, there’s no difference in that
the only difference that the enemies have are animations and sounds (and quantity)

because my current animate script looks like this:

local scriptsFolder = script.Parent
local enemy = scriptsFolder.Parent
local rootPart = enemy:WaitForChild("HumanoidRootPart")

-- Path to modules;
local enemyStorage = enemy.Parent.Parent
local modulesFolder = enemyStorage:WaitForChild("Modules")

-- Modules;
local utility = require(modulesFolder:WaitForChild("Utility"))

-- Animator content;
local animationController = enemy:WaitForChild("AnimationController")
local animator = animationController:WaitForChild("Animator")

-- Animation folders;
local animationsFolder = enemy:WaitForChild("Animations")
local idleAnimationsFolder = animationsFolder:WaitForChild("Idles")
local wanderAnimationsFolder = animationsFolder:WaitForChild("Wanders")
local chaseAnimationsFolder = animationsFolder:WaitForChild("Chases")
local attackAnimationsFolder = animationsFolder:WaitForChild("Attacks")

-- Sound folders;
local soundsFolder = enemy:WaitForChild("Sounds")

-- Reparent sounds to root part;
soundsFolder.Parent = rootPart

local idleSounds = soundsFolder:WaitForChild("Idle")
local eventSounds = soundsFolder:WaitForChild("Event")
local combatSounds = soundsFolder:WaitForChild("Combat")

-- Gameplay values;
local valuesFolder: Folder = enemy:WaitForChild("Values")
local signalsFolder: Folder = valuesFolder:WaitForChild("signals")

-- Signals;
local wandering: BoolValue = signalsFolder:WaitForChild("wandering")
local startled: BoolValue = signalsFolder:WaitForChild("startled")
local idling: BoolValue = signalsFolder:WaitForChild("idling")
local chasing: BoolValue = signalsFolder:WaitForChild("chasing")
local fleeing: BoolValue = signalsFolder:WaitForChild("fleeing")

-- Helper functions;
local function PlayRandomAnim(animations: {Animation}, forcePrimary: boolean)
	animations = utility.ApplyEqualChances(animations)
	
	local randomAnimation: Animation = utility.RNG(animations)
	local isPrimary = false
	
	if forcePrimary then
		isPrimary = true
		for _, animation in animations do
			if animation:GetAttribute("primary") then
				randomAnimation = animation
				break
			end
		end
	end
	
	local loadedAnimation = animator:LoadAnimation(randomAnimation)
	
	if randomAnimation:GetAttribute("primary") then
		isPrimary = true
	end
	
	loadedAnimation:Play()
	
	return loadedAnimation, isPrimary
end

local function PlayRandomSound(sounds: {Sound})
	sounds = utility.ApplyEqualChances(sounds)
	
	local randomSound: Sound = utility.RNG(sounds)
	if not randomSound.IsPlaying then
		randomSound:Play()
	end
	
	return randomSound
end

-- Main functions;
local function OnWanderingSignaled(active: boolean)
	if active then
		local wanderAnimations = {}	
		for _, animation: Animation in ipairs(wanderAnimationsFolder:GetChildren()) do
			table.insert(wanderAnimations, animation)
		end
		
		local forcePrimary = false
		while active do
			local chosenAnimation, isPrimary = PlayRandomAnim(wanderAnimations, forcePrimary)
			
			if not isPrimary then
				chosenAnimation.Stopped:Wait()
				forcePrimary = true
			else
				if not chosenAnimation.Looped then
					chosenAnimation.Looped = true
				end
				
				-- since the animation played is primary, it loops until the enemy stops wandering
				-- to prevent the loop from... looping, we yield the loop until the enemy no longer wanders
				-- and then both loops break
				while active do
					task.wait()
				end
			end
		end
	else
		utility.StopAllAnimations(animator)
	end
end

local function OnStartledSignaled(active: boolean)
	if active then
		local startledSounds = {}
		
		for _, sound: Sound in eventSounds:GetChildren() do
			if string.find(sound.Name, "Startled") then
				table.insert(startledSounds, sound)
			end
		end
		
		local soundPlayed = PlayRandomSound(startledSounds)
	end
end

local function OnIdlingSignaled(active: boolean)
	if active then
		local sounds = idleSounds:GetChildren()
		
		while active do
			local soundPlayed = PlayRandomSound(sounds)
			
			local cooldown = math.random(5, 10)
			task.wait(cooldown)
			
			if soundPlayed.IsPlaying then
				while soundPlayed.IsPlaying do
					task.wait()
				end
			end
		end
	end
end

DO note that this is 150 lines of code, and it’s not finished yet (this is one enemy, where my game will have amounts as high as 23 at a time)

i had a bit of a revelation, and thought if it wouldn’t be better to just have a single script that sets up connections for each enemy, and then handles the logic based on that

NOTE:

please don’t suggest using metatables (assuming they’re even a good-use case scenario here)

2

I think this fits more in Code Review

Honestly this mostly depends on what type of game you’re making. For a tower defense game I was working on, I had a single script handle all the enemies because it was far easier to manage and I could directly modify specific ones. If you have a more general game where there are just enemies everywhere that aren’t super important then I’d probably just give them individual scripts.

At the end of the day it all comes down to preference and whatever method you find more convenient. If you’re unsure then you could try out both methods and see how they perform.