Optimizing AI Attack Animation

Author: Trayvion Coats

Posted on: 04/26/2024

Part 1: The Problem

During this week's development cycle, I encountered a perplexing issue with the AI animation system: the attack animation wasn't playing when triggered, or at least, that's what we initially thought. This problem posed a serious concern as it directly impacted the core gameplay experience. Players expect smooth and responsive animations, especially during combat sequences. Without the AI animations playing correctly, players would perceive the game as glitchy or unfinished, leading to dissatisfaction and potentially negative reviews.

Imagine engaging in a boss battle, anticipating the enemy's attack animations to dodge and counter, only to find that the animations fail to execute as expected. It breaks the immersion and disrupts the player's sense of agency within the game world.

 Part 2: Problem Solution

After thorough debugging and analysis, I identified the root cause of the issue: a mismatch between animation triggers and animation states in the AI controller. The animations were indeed being called, but due to a coding oversight, they were not transitioning properly from one state to another.

To rectify this, We revised the animation triggering mechanism and ensured that the AI controller correctly handled animation states. Additionally, I implemented robust error-checking routines to catch any discrepancies between animation triggers and states during runtime..