Footprint Breakdown - Starting and current situation.

So Initial Concept and Progress / Results

The concept of the footprint system is to see footprints on the ground on certain physical materials like is seen within Metal Gear Solid.  The AI would see the footprints from the player character and follow the prints until it catches up to the player and then attacks the player when in sight unless it gives up and goes back to the patrol. This was the initial concept but the design of it that was perceived to be less difficult, actually turned out to be one of the hardest things I've tried to work on.

Development Progress / Faults / Issues

With initial attempts, myself and a fellow developer attempted to integrate it into my current AI system.  I initially attempted to log it with a tagging system that wasn't going anywhere as I researched into it and felt wouldn't do what is required.  Kind of like a way for a cheating a way to detect decals but it wasn't working correctly and was feeling incredibly complicated.

I then went into a tried to develop a system that worked alongside the AI with like a cookie crumb system.  After going into researching it, it seemed like the better system to work with and can provide a bit of diversity in how the information is sent and can be received.  I developed an initial concept of making a volume appear when the footprints down, the volumes would be a breadcrumb that the ai could pick up.  I then initiated a macro to determine if the breadcrumb is legit and then run it as an item to make it so the AI can see it as an item.  In the Blackboard, I developed to grab the breadcrumbs and use them as another sense of possible stimulus for the predator AI to hunt the player.  After searching and development into this, myself and my colleague hit a missive issue as the sight perception of the AI was not developing the stimulus needed as well as not picking it up at all for detection.

With queries to colleagues, MA lecturers in regards to idea on how it possibly can be adapted to see it in a different context or possibly a different idea that could work?  Suggestions would be to use a sphere that I am currently using for touch by the player as a way to raise the stimulus value to kill status.  We attempted to make it detect via the sphere and although it was overlapping with print strings emphasising that it was doing a trigger which we could call.. it wasn't detecting it within the BT and although we were trying to pull the trigger and making the AI detect and follow, the selector with task / decorator was never firing.  It was infuriating as this took a couple days of development and wasn't working.

Although the footprint system is working more for a different physical / sound printing.  I do want to go back and attempt to work with the system but with time constraints with other testing in the AI, physical materials and camera system working.  I need to put it on the back burner at the moment.