2.2 Line-of-Sight Chasing

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2.2 Line-of-Sight Chasing In this section we explain a few chasing and evading algorithms that use a line-of-sight approach. The gist of the line-of-sight approach is to have the predator take a straight-line path toward the prey; the predator always moves directly toward the prey's current position. If the prey is standing still, the predator will take a straight line path. However, if the prey is moving, the path will not necessarily be a straight line. The predator still will attempt to move directly toward the current position of the prey, but by the time he catches up with the moving prey, the path he would have taken might be curved, as illustrated in Figure 2-2. Figure 2-2. Line-of-sight chasing In Figure 2-2, the circles represent the predator and the diamonds represent the prey. The dashed lines and shapes indicate starting and intermediate positions. In the scenario on the left, the prey is sitting still; thus the predator makes a straight-line dash toward the prey. In the scenario on the right, the prey is moving along some arbitrary path over time. At each time step, or cycle through the game loop, the predator moves toward the current position of the prey. As the prey moves, the predator traces out a curved path from its starting point. The results illustrated here look more natural than those resulting from the basic-chase algorithm. Over the remainder of this section, we'll show you two algorithms that implement line-of-sight chasing. One algorithm is specifically for tiled environments, while the other applies to continuous environments.

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