Adventure Game Studio

I'm trying to detect which character is the closest one to the player. I have a Distance(char1, char2) function returning the distance in pixels between two characters so far. I suppose it will come in handy here.

Basically, I'd like to make a GetClosestTo(char) function but have no idea where to start. I'd appreciate any ideas or pointers.

You'd need to loop through all other characters and check their distance.

This is some code, that should work (although untested), but it could probably be improved somehow.


function GetClosestTo ( Character *Origin )
{
int result;

int charid = 0;

while ( charid < GetGameParameter(GP_NUMCHARACTERS, 0, 0, 0) )
// loop through all characters
{
if ( (character[charid].ID != Origin.ID) && (character[charid].Room == Origin.Room) )
// skip the origin character and characters not in current room
{
if ( Distance ( Origin, character[charid] ) < result ) // function described below
// if the distance between the characters are smaller
// than what we had before
{
// then store the new value
result = Distance ( Origin, character[charid] ); // function described below
}
}

// keep on searching
charid++;
}

// now return the result
return result;
}


Hope this is right and works. I am sure it will set you off in the right direction though!

Edit by strazer:

Added * and GetGameParameter

Btw, the "Distance" function:


function Distance(Character *char1, Character *char2) {
  int a = char1.x - char2.x; // get x-distance between characters
  int b = char1.y - char2.y; // get y-distance between characters
  return FloatToInt(Maths.Sqrt(IntToFloat((a*a) + (b*b)))); // calculate direct distance between characters (pythagoras)
}


Edit 2:

Added Pumaman's fix.

Haha, that was fast! This gave me a good idea for my own function. Thank you very much! :)

In the loop, you should probably also make sure that the character is in the same room as the one you're testing.