Hey! I'm working on a zombie horde game but I want my AI to be better!

Help and Feedback Code Review
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#1

Barebones_Zombie_Model_Script.rbxl (68.5 KB)

This is my first post here on the DevForums and finally I can post! Anyways, sorry if this is structured weird but I’m just working on a small zombie project and followed a tutorial by “Y3llow Mustang”
Roblox - Zombie Advanced AI Tutorial (Pathfinding, Custom Animations, Raycasting) - YouTube | It’s a really good tutorial but the AI is well, slow. Not performantly slow, but slow in the head. The thing is when it tries to find paths it yields the script so I could walk in front of it but when the “Walkrandomly” function is being called it cannot check if your there. I’m not really familiar with multithreading but I’ve tried wrapping certain areas of the code in a coroutine and did some research into the parallel lua beta but to no avail so as a fix. Exciting future but it’s pretty limited with it’s whitelisting. Anyways I need advice and some pointers (anything helps like if I could make it faster that would be amazing!) on how to in the future improve AI’s and it would be nice if you could help! (btw I just removed the movetofinished:Wait(1) check but didn’t realize that ruins the walkrandomly because it keeps getting called every 0.1 seconds)

-- // changed version
local myHuman = script.Parent:WaitForChild("Humanoid")
local myRoot = script.Parent:WaitForChild("HumanoidRootPart")
local head = script.Parent:WaitForChild("Head")
local lowerTorso = script.Parent:WaitForChild("LowerTorso")
local Config = script.Parent:WaitForChild("Configuration")

local clone = script.Parent:Clone()

myRoot:SetNetworkOwner(nil)

-- // the new walk randomly func but it still yields the script so its sort of brain dead (MAIN CULPRIT)
function walkRandomly()
	local xRand = math.random(-50,50)
	local zRand = math.random(-50,50)
	local goal = myRoot.Position + Vector3.new(xRand,0,zRand)
	
	local path = game:GetService("PathfindingService"):CreatePath()
	path:ComputeAsync(myRoot.Position, goal)
	local waypoints = path:GetWaypoints()
	if path.Status == Enum.PathStatus.Success then
		for _, waypoint in ipairs(waypoints) do
			if waypoint.Action == Enum.PathWaypointAction.Jump then
				myHuman.Jump = true
			end
			myHuman:MoveTo(waypoint.Position)
			myHuman.MoveToFinished:Wait()
		end
	else
		print("Path failed")
		walkRandomly()
	end
end

function findPath(target)
	local path = game:GetService("PathfindingService"):CreatePath()
	path:ComputeAsync(myRoot.Position,target.Position)
	local waypoints = path:GetWaypoints()
	
	if path.Status == Enum.PathStatus.Success then
		for _, waypoint in ipairs(waypoints) do
			if waypoint.Action == Enum.PathWaypointAction.Jump then
				myHuman.Jump = true
			end
			myHuman:MoveTo(waypoint.Position)
			local timeOut = myHuman.MoveToFinished:Wait(1)
			if not timeOut then
				myHuman.Jump = true
				print("Path too long!")
				findPath(target)
				break
			end
			if checkSight(target) then
				repeat
					print("Moving directly to the target")
					myHuman:MoveTo(target.Position)
					attack(target)
					task.wait()
					if target == nil then
						break
					elseif target.Parent == nil then
						break
					end
				until checkSight(target) == false or myHuman.Health < 1 or target.Parent.Humanoid.Health < 1
				break
			end
			if (myRoot.Position - waypoints[1].Position).magnitude > 1000 then
				print("Target has moved, generating new path")
				findPath(target)
				break
			end
		end
	end
end

function checkSight(target)
	local ray = Ray.new(myRoot.Position, (target.Position - myRoot.Position).Unit * 40)
	local hit,position = workspace:FindPartOnRayWithIgnoreList(ray, {script.Parent})
	if hit then
		if hit:IsDescendantOf(target.Parent) and math.abs(hit.Position.Y - myRoot.Position.Y) < 5 then
			print("I can see the target")
			return true
		elseif (myRoot.Position - target.Position).magnitude < 5 and Config.EnableHearing.Value then
			print("I can hear the target")
			return true
		end
	end
	return false
end

function findTarget()
	local dist = Config.MinDistCheck.Value
	local target = nil
	local potentialTargets = {}
	local seeTargets = {}
	for i,v in ipairs(workspace:GetChildren()) do
		local human = v:FindFirstChild("Humanoid")
		local torso = v:FindFirstChild("Torso") or v:FindFirstChild("HumanoidRootPart")
		if human and torso and v.Name ~= script.Parent.Name then
			if (myRoot.Position - torso.Position).magnitude < dist and human.Health > 0 then
				table.insert(potentialTargets,torso)
			end
		end
	end
	if #potentialTargets > 0 then
		for i,v in ipairs(potentialTargets) do
			if checkSight(v) then
				table.insert(seeTargets, v)
			elseif #seeTargets == 0 and (myRoot.Position - v.Position).magnitude < dist then
				target = v
				dist = (myRoot.Position - v.Position).magnitude
			end
		end
	end
	if #seeTargets > 0 then
		dist = Config.MaxDistCheck.Value
		for i,v in ipairs(seeTargets) do
			if (myRoot.Position - v.Position).magnitude < dist then
				target = v
				dist = (myRoot.Position - v.Position).magnitude
			end
		end
	end
	if target then
		if math.random(20) == 1 then
		
		end
	end
	return target
end

function attack(target)
	if (myRoot.Position - target.Position).magnitude < Config.AttackRange.Value then
		if target.Parent ~= nil then
			target.Parent.Humanoid:TakeDamage(Config.Damage.Value)
		end
		task.wait(0.4)
	end
end

function died()
	
	task.wait(5)
end

myHuman.Died:Connect(died)

lowerTorso.Touched:Connect(function(obj)
	if not obj.Parent:FindFirstChild("Humanoid") then
		myHuman.Jump = true
	end
end)

function main()
	local target = findTarget()
	if target then
		myHuman.WalkSpeed = Config.ChaseWalkSpeed.Value
		findPath(target)
	else
		myHuman.WalkSpeed = Config.WalkSpeed.Value
		walkRandomly()
	end
end
-- // also might be a problem
while task.wait(0.1) do
	if myHuman.Health < 1 then
		break
	end
	main()
end

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- // ORIGINAL SCRIPT (SLOW IN THE HEAD AI)
local myHuman = script.Parent:WaitForChild("Humanoid")
local myRoot = script.Parent:WaitForChild("HumanoidRootPart")
local head = script.Parent:WaitForChild("Head")
local lowerTorso = script.Parent:WaitForChild("LowerTorso")

local clone = script.Parent:Clone()

-- // old walkrandomly func but yields the script
function walkRandomly()
	local xRand = math.random(-50,50)
	local zRand = math.random(-50,50)
	local goal = myRoot.Position + Vector3.new(xRand,0,zRand)
	
	local path = game:GetService("PathfindingService"):CreatePath()
	path:ComputeAsync(myRoot.Position, goal)
	local waypoints = path:GetWaypoints()
	
	if path.Status == Enum.PathStatus.Success then
		for _, waypoint in ipairs(waypoints) do
			if waypoint.Action == Enum.PathWaypointAction.Jump then
				myHuman.Jump = true
			end
			myHuman:MoveTo(waypoint.Position)
			local timeOut = myHuman.MoveToFinished:Wait(1)
			if not timeOut then
				print("Got stuck")
				myHuman.Jump = true
				walkRandomly()
			end
		end
	else
		print("Path failed")
		wait(1)
		walkRandomly()
	end
end

function findPath(target)
	local path = game:GetService("PathfindingService"):CreatePath()
	path:ComputeAsync(myRoot.Position,target.Position)
	local waypoints = path:GetWaypoints()
	
	if path.Status == Enum.PathStatus.Success then
		for _, waypoint in ipairs(waypoints) do
			if waypoint.Action == Enum.PathWaypointAction.Jump then
				myHuman.Jump = true
			end
			myHuman:MoveTo(waypoint.Position)
			local timeOut = myHuman.MoveToFinished:Wait(1)
			if not timeOut then
				myHuman.Jump = true
				print("Path too long!")
				findPath(target)
				break
			end
			if checkSight(target) then
				repeat
					print("Moving directly to the target")
					myHuman:MoveTo(target.Position)
					attack(target)
					wait(0.1)
					if target == nil then
						break
					elseif target.Parent == nil then
						break
					end
				until checkSight(target) == false or myHuman.Health < 1 or target.Parent.Humanoid.Health < 1
				break
			end
			if (myRoot.Position - waypoints[1].Position).magnitude > 1000 then
				print("Target has moved, generating new path")
				findPath(target)
				break
			end
		end
	end
end

function checkSight(target)
	local ray = Ray.new(myRoot.Position, (target.Position - myRoot.Position).Unit * 40)
	local hit,position = workspace:FindPartOnRayWithIgnoreList(ray, {script.Parent})
	if hit then
		if hit:IsDescendantOf(target.Parent) and math.abs(hit.Position.Y - myRoot.Position.Y) < 3 then
			print("I can see the target")
			return true
		end
	end
	return false
end

function findTarget()
	local dist = 50
	local target = nil
	local potentialTargets = {}
	local seeTargets = {}
	for i,v in ipairs(workspace:GetChildren()) do
		local human = v:FindFirstChild("Humanoid")
		local torso = v:FindFirstChild("Torso") or v:FindFirstChild("HumanoidRootPart")
		if human and torso and v.Name ~= script.Parent.Name then
			if (myRoot.Position - torso.Position).magnitude < dist and human.Health > 0 then
				table.insert(potentialTargets,torso)
			end
		end
	end
	if #potentialTargets > 0 then
		for i,v in ipairs(potentialTargets) do
			if checkSight(v) then
				table.insert(seeTargets, v)
			elseif #seeTargets == 0 and (myRoot.Position - v.Position).magnitude < dist then
				target = v
				dist = (myRoot.Position - v.Position).magnitude
			end
		end
	end
	if #seeTargets > 0 then
		dist = 60
		for i,v in ipairs(seeTargets) do
			if (myRoot.Position - v.Position).magnitude < dist then
				target = v
				dist = (myRoot.Position - v.Position).magnitude
			end
		end
	end
	if target then
		if math.random(20) == 1 then
			
		end
	end
	return target
end

function attack(target)
	if (myRoot.Position - target.Position).magnitude < 5 then
		
		if target.Parent ~= nil then
			target.Parent.Humanoid:TakeDamage(25)
		end
		wait(0.4)
	end
end

function died()
	wait(5)
	clone.Parent = workspace
	game:GetService("Debris"):AddItem(script.Parent,0.1)
end

myHuman.Died:Connect(died)

lowerTorso.Touched:Connect(function(obj)
	if not obj.Parent:FindFirstChild("Humanoid") then
		myHuman.Jump = true
	end
end)

function main()
	local target = findTarget()
	if target then
		myHuman.WalkSpeed = 16
		findPath(target)
	else
		myHuman.WalkSpeed = 8
		walkRandomly()
	end
end

while wait(0.1) do
	if myHuman.Health < 1 then
		break
	end
	main()
end
4 Likes
#2

Your scripts are being yielded due to for i loops being used for the movement method, pay a visit to Roblox’s Pathfinding tutorial to prevent this problem:

This article uses connections for its method so there will be no yields, it also covers the newer objects for Pathfinding such as the Pathfinding Modifiers.

#4

Just curious, did you manage to solve the jittery movements? If so how?

I’ve tried to method on Roblox’s website, but by constantly updating the path, the path itself sometimes does not get computed which then locks the zombie in place.

#5

myRoot:SetNetworkOwner(nil)

replace myroot with your zombie’s root

#6

what do i do about the i,loops