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Level Design Path Node HELL!

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Slyk

Slyk

Grizzled Veteran
Feb 17, 2006
1,277
10
www.after-hourz.com
#1
Seriously, enough wasted time. What is the single best way to place nodes? I have wasted near countless (20 at least) hours on this crap. One minute the schmucks are Ok, the next they can't find their way out of a two-sided box.

Issues:
1. They are freaking dumb. Explain to me how a half dozen German troops can't go 100 feet while a hand full of Russian bots can run some 300 yards to find the freaking AI path from their end...this is with all my nodes at uniform heights.
2. My 'static actor' whatever is invisible...all three of them.
3. I created a 64 unit tall box, placed that on the terrain and then aligned the nodes with their center at the box top....this does not work.
4. It appears that road paths are lower than the foot nodes... wtf is that about?
5. Are we, the community, using the same tools?
6. I look in stock maps and they appear so nice and neat. How many southeast Asian children do you have slaving away at this or is it some sort of mutant-map-imported-monkey-man that goes by the name of 'Jonny Appleseeder'???

I would love to AI path my 'Berezina' map but there is NO way I am investing any more time in this without some sort of serious advice or whatever. It just makes no sense.
 
#3
Try and keep the pathing as simple as possible and try not to do anything fancy. Some tips I learnt

- The bots are stupid less brain cells then Paris Hilton, use them how you would use fodder. Sorry but as soon as the idiots don't have anything but a white or blue path, they stop still and do nothing.

Bots in tanks are interesting characters, did you know any bot regardless of class can drive a tank.

As for nice and neat, as long as they roughly follow the path you want I wouldn't care what it looks like.
 
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#4
See, this is why I don't do much pathing. The rendering time alone swallows hours like an amateur porn star.

Try and think in terms of "routes" and keep those routes as free of obstructions and complications as possible. I am admittedly no expert, but when I've done pathing in the past, I've set it up so that there are a few clear routes that the bots can take without getting "hung". However, I place plenty of cover adjacent to these paths which the humans can use effectively.

A good example of this would be Barashka. You have multiple routes the bots can take via the bridge or peninsula that are completely free of obstacles. Bots can navigate them free without getting snagged on buildings and terrain. However, next to them you have loads of sandbags, bunkers, trees, buildings, trenches, etc. which form good cover for your intelligent human players.

To answer some questions:
  • Yes, you are using the same tools the devs use.
  • Keep a close eye on the color of your paths. Different colors mean different things - for instance the precedence of one path over another.
  • There are no slave children. Only clones of Yoshiro trained using a combination of electro-shock therapy and Chips Ahoy! cookies to create perfect millimeter-aligned bot paths.
 
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#10
I find the best thing you can do is place the pathnodes clouser togeather than you think you have to (but be mindfull that they get too clouse either, and start inter-connecting in bad ways), also, enable "show paths" and rebuild the paths often, as in all the bloody time, or its way too easy to get lost in your work.
 
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#11
Slyk said:
I laid out only about a dozen nodes to get the fools to the first objective. They can't even do that. I've done this three times and then deleted them all and started over. I just don't get it, I guess. But to do a map 1km x 800m in size? I think not. I certainly do not have the patience when there is so little progress.
Click to expand...

You need to motiviate the bots to head towards objectives. :]
Do you have your objective priorities setup?


Start with simple roadpathnode network.. straight line through the various objectives.

If bots can't find a handy foot-path network, they will follow the roadpathnodes iirc. 99% of the time this is undesirable in the long run, but for now don't sweat it.

You can trim down the path rebuild time by trimming the MaxRoadDist down to just over as far as you really want. The default is 10,000uu btw.. so it'll try and see if it can make a clear path to every pathnode within 10k UU.. sometimes you -know- it can't, so you can trim this down to what you know it -can-.
 
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#12
Another 3+ hours and the same B.S.

Started over and followed the tutorials. The fools can't move a vehicle 5 feet most of the time. A few times they would drive about 100 yards and then stop dead...this at a slight slope in the terrain. I added a node at the bottom of the slope and top, they still can't, no, won't drive up that slope...It is VERY gentle so the angle is not the issue. Not looking good for bots in this map.

Yes, the Russians still run a couple hundred yards to find the nodes and then follow them. Apparently they are smarter than their German counterparts.
 
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#16
Sorry to hijack your thread, Slyk.

I was finally able to get the bots from both sides on my Voronezh map to work on an acceptable level. Now, most of the bots are capable of rushing towards the objectives without too much use of Commands.

Two things that really helped me out was the View ---> Paths to see how the paths are connected to the nodes (as mentioned above). I also removed as many extraneous nodes as I could and checked out how it would affect the pathing on a visual level before rebuilding. I also removed/moved as many obstacles as I possibly could, including PlayerStarts and VehicleGenerators. Probably most importantly, I tried to make the nodes fit the curves in the terrain. For instance, if I had a hill that I need the bots to drive over, then I put a node at the bottom of the hill, one right at the apex, and then another at the bottom on the other side. Keep it simple, was my motto.

Hope this helps.
 
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#17
Thank, Shurek. That's basically what I have been doing. I recently started on the Russian end, thinking it might be easier there...not so much. Currently the fools just move around...10 feet forward, rotate a few degrees, back up, repeat. They can't even find the first node, 20 feet away. Tweaking and ranting...the dogs are not even in the same room anymore.
 
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#18
It -really- sounds like your bots aren't able to find anything to do.. that is, for some reason they aren't being given any orders.. this is good because at least there is nothing wrong with the network that you dropped in the level.. you should just have to fiddle with some values on yoru objectives hopefully.

try putting 'showdebug' in the console (if you haven't already).. then cycle through your bot's cameras.. it should show stats about where they are going, what thier current orders are, etc.. it will also trace out the destimation path node the bot is tring to get to and show you the node-by-node path they take.

Check here for some other helpful debug commands:
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Console_Commands/Debugging_Console_Commands


Remember if you need to speed things up, use 'slomo n' (n=number.. 1=normal speed, .5 = half speed, 2 = double speed).
 
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