[Quick 3rd Person View Character Test.]

Hey WM, happy new year to you sir. Thanks, it was just a curiosity test really to see what the model looked liked, very nice it is too, although as with most bought assets of this type it still lacks on the number of basic animations. On another plus note, the walk and run cycles are excellent compared to some other characters offered by other companys.

[No SOPA]

[No SOPA]

[No SOPA]

@Mika: SOPA has nothing to do with preventing piracy, no matter what they claim, its about being able to control and censor the internet.

[No SOPA]

[Happy Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone.]

Yep .. happy crimbo to you all .. not sure why there is laughter at the image .. just Santa putting another log on the fire

[Pathfinding]

I vote a mix of 1 and 2. Hire someone to do it, but make sure they knowledge you and Marley have libraries, Pixel wrote his own editor even, but think of the time you put into those. Would be so much easier (and cheaper if your time is worth money) if Josh has it in the new LE. If people did all that for learning purposes then that's cool, but I'd prefer to just use a library built into the engine myself.

 

 

I assume Pix wrote his editor to be able to create the graph data for the pathfinding to work on, the A* is the easy bit. My solution in Bmax took a week, 2 days to write the A* as I had no idea what it was and the rest of the time to find a way to generate data from a test level on which it could chew. My Lua A* took a day to write from scratch, with most of that time spent learning Lua, I am now still finding ways to generate the data for a level on which it can chew. This time had to be spent, as LE has no inherent pathfinding. I'd prefer to just use a library built into the engine also, but until there is a version of LE that has that functionality there is not a lot of options.

[Pathfinding]

Yes, but those are all node or grid based, are they not?

 

 

A* is A* its an algorithm .. nothing more nothing less. Nodes, Waypoints, Grids, names and addresses, towns and roads and Navmeshes are just what can be used to create the data that makes up the graph that it uses. Recast makes a navmesh its Detour that does the pathfinding and spatial reasoning. A tile map is a collection of grids, waypoints are a collection of linked nodes and a navmesh is a collection of polygons. tile or waypoint or ploygon makes no difference essentially they are all just a collection of nodes with connection information. All I am doing currently is experimenting with different ways to assemble that graph data. The A* remains unchanged except for the interface between it and the data.

[AI, Waypoints, A* Pathfinding, Lua & Leadwerks.]

Thanks Mack, I am sure I can squeeze a little more out of it though, which is on that never ending to do list.

[AI, Waypoints, A* Pathfinding, Lua & Leadwerks.]

Thanks RP, Mack wrote the function(s) for the random visible waypoints. Not sure what hes working on now as we are not working to a plan just each having ideas in this area, writing scripts and then adding them to "the" pile. We have an A* pathfinding library that we have been using thats written in Lua which is showing promise for quite a few things I have in mind.

[Ambient NPC population ... a continuation of an idea.]

Hi Aggror, So far I have avoided models with interiors that include an upstairs. My approach to making the node data was at best limited and quickly thrown together as proof of concept. Navmeshes/waypoints and a square on a grid are basically just ways of generating the node data. With different floors, you need to remember the new degrees of freedom, not just x and z but y as well. Which is why, IMHO, a navmesh would better serve this purpose. Or more basic, a collection of pathnodes.

[Data Loss Announcement]

Josh, I think that you should first of all stop thinking about the past and turn toward the future. It seems to me that it is not worth wasting your valuable time to searching the archives. Probably the biggest pain is the loss of documentation for LE2. The rest is not critical. Asset store files, screens, blogs, posts, etc., many of these things are made by individuals from community, and perhaps some may be (in some cases) restored by their authors (if this will be really needed).

 

 

 

Actually that's quite insulting to the community I think, which is made up of many individuals who have spent many hours of their valuable time contributing to it, with "Asset store files, screens, blogs, posts, etc." and much more, but as none of that was critical I am sure they can now take it easy, stop uploading files, writing blogs, posting, helping with technical support, writing tools, headers and tutorials.

[Next.. Ambient NPC population]

That's a really interesting read MG. A subject that I've only just considered, ambient mobs or mobiles. Reading what you wrote sparked a few ideas on zones and assigning such spawned entities to different movement behaviours within them.

 

 

Thanks Flex, I always hope some (or any) of my musings help others, I feel this to be an important part to game dev. thus worthy of thinking about. A lot of the ambient life I see in games simply is "smoke and mirrors" .. had the Great Bard been an Indie developer I think he'd have said "All the game world's a stage, And all the NPC men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances..." And typically thats what the tier idea is about .. not every NPC will require complex or even medium AI coded ability nor even A* .. I am simply trying to work as though its a film set ... Extras .. walk on parts .. co-stars and stars ... that sort of thing. Still needs better formulation though.

[Next.. Ambient NPC population]

Good stuff, MG. I can't wait to check out a video with the progress. Screen-shots for AI doesn't do any justice for it.

 

 

Sorry Paul would have got back to you sooner but as you know I am "spring cleaning" the Dev system lol

 

 

Yes a video is always preferable with AI but this is still in its early stages and so far all there would be is the two NPCs running through thier respective animations. But I will certainly use videos in the later dev stages.

[New video finally ... free flight]

Sorry about the lack of blade-cam

 

 

The last one made me dizzy so no need to be sorry lol

 

Looks fantastic Flex, I have been following this for ages and it just keeps getting better.

[Week 2]

So it will be released when all three stages are done?

[Shard - The Return]

Newton's Aquarium?

[Shard - The Return]

my target market being education institution and astronomy fanatics

 

It would have to be very good indeed to compete with the free software of Celestia and Stellarium

[Grunge Bob Square Pants ....]

@Pixel : Not sure even a Hazmat suit is going to be enough when I have finished

 

@DieDir : thanks .. but someone has to take the corridor .. the rooom the other end needs working on lol

 

@Mike : I thought including the stages might promt people to say what they liked in one stage but I dropped in the next.

 

@Gimpy : yes m8, I am very sure I am not an artist

[Everything in its place]

I am the same as Flexman, not used an MS Office product in years, OpenOffice is great.

[Don't you just hate it when that happens ...]

@Joh: More than likely a value set too low in the playervisible function portion of the class, I see what you mean though, probably did not notice whilst unleashing death on them I expect a few variables still need tweeking as they are still set for the 3rd person testing I did.

[Don't you just hate it when that happens ...]

spiders scare me a lot at that scale

 

 

lol, I think any "creepy crawly" which grew to that size would invoke some degree of trepidation.

[Don't you just hate it when that happens ...]

very impressive MG !

good AI work,

i wish i could do that for my cars...

 

 

Thanks diedir, I guess the principle would work for cars, do you mean on a track? if so waypoints would be needed I think.

[Don't you just hate it when that happens ...]

You had all those grenades and you were using bullets?!!

 

@GameCreator : lol yeah, but the bullets are far more fun, and I was just "looking after" the grenades for someone as I was doing some "visuals" for him, so not really my place to show them off besides .. the bullets worked just fine see!!

[Don't you just hate it when that happens ...]

@RVL: Well for what it is and does, yes. But the problem with raycasts is the micro freezing on the initial cast, which is the same for the "bullets".Not so bad on really basic shapes or primitives but really noticeable on the "bug" model when firing at it and the Player HUD gun model when the bugs collision rays hit it for the first time (or indeed if one bug casts onto another) Having to use individual models to over come the instancing "do for one do for all" outcome means thus far too much micro freezing.