Small animals

[Fencerkid161]

Quick question, stuff like squirrels and butterfly's, i want them flying around randomly, events for such or what i just did random movement and it looked bad.

[:)]

why not just do custom movement? just randomly click up up up turn to player down down so on, then repeat.

[AiR]

For small animals, I find it's better to give them a set path and both begins and ends in the same place. However, they don't have to go directly back and forth.  It can be awkward when your butterfly runs into a tree or some such, so I set up a pattern of flowers and have it trace them at different intervals.  Something such as:

Flowers:

  OOOOOOOOOO
OO OOOO   OOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOO   OO
      OOOOOO
Then, have a pair of butterflies start toward the center  Possibly at hhese locations:
OOOOOOOOOO
OO OOOO   OOOOOO
OBOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOBOOOOOO
OOOOOOO   OO
      OOOOOO

Then, have the butterflies move around in a set path that occassionally retraces a step or two.  If you use a pattern of 15-20 steps, it will give the illusion of randomness to the casual observer while still keeping them in the correct section of the map.  Controlled randomness. V...