@vstirbu I've only been able to find one example of a finite state machine used for character movement, and I can't see how to apply it to any of the javascript state machines. I have a basic project setup where I'm messing around with this. I think it would be good to make a good demo of moving a character around / jumping, etc with the state machine. Could you give me some pointers?
When I get it down, I could make a nice repo that will hopefully help other people with the same questions.
I've got an
update function for the game that ticks every frame:function update() {
hero.update();
//etc
}
I'm not sure where to put my key/input checking logic and hero velocity and animation logic.
@m59peacemaker, an example of using the ism for controlling the movement of the character in the game would be really useful! I have not used it myself together with a game engine so I would well come an exam ole like this.
I have a quick look at the example you provided, and I think that the general approach in this case is to use the facilities of the game engine to handle the interaction and rendering, while controlling the state of the character using the state machine. At first glance, the example already provides the complete state machine definition including the states and the possible transitions. They can be mapped quite easily:
var sm = StateMachine.create({
initial: 'standing',
events: [
{ name: 'move', from: 'standing', to: 'running'},
{ name: 'jump', from: ['running', 'standing'], to: 'jumping' }
// and so on with the rest as listed in the picture
],
callbacks: {
}
})function running() {
// logic for every frame
}function update() { // game loop
hero.render(); // set to "running" function when state is running
}
I did try something like that and it didn't work out, but if that's the way to do it, at least I can keep tinkering with that approach
just a quick remark on using the library with a game engine. this library is intended for application scenarios where all transitions are potentially asynchronous, which can be challenging in gaming context where you need to complete operations within a strict time limit (e.g. ~16ms for 60 FPS). also, each transition is a sequence of promises which brings some overhead that might not be negligible
and this is the state-machine I ended up with from that example https://github.com/m59peacemaker/game/blob/master/src/state-machine.js
I still don't know how to do this with any of the fsm libs.
