Smallones

Lots of cool and useful tips to mod either serverside or clientside
cajunwolf
Posts: 115
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:03 am
Location: Houston, Texas
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Re: Smallones

Post by cajunwolf »

Well POTAmatt ... long time no see!

If I can get anyone to understand this here it will be you.

At present your not fully understanding the big picture. How do I know? Well I have spent the past 7.5 to 8 years reverse engineering the bf42 ai system. I have the advantage of having not only long conversations with Arc, but Tobias Karlson as well. My purpose here is to get a good tutorial out before it is all lost.

First off get out of Photoshop to do this and use BFSAK. Sorry, I just find it ridicules to use Photoshop and go through all that trouble when 4c has created this fantastic tool to do it for us. You can even adjust the waypoints.

Read the thread, and if you don't understand ask questions.

The pathmapping system complements the Strageic AI, it does not control bot movement, the StrageicAreas do this and the Strategies are a child script of the StrageicAreas. The Strategies are built and controlled by the StrageicAreas. The pathmaps, properly done, allow the bots to do what the Strategic AI wants via what the StrageicAreas and Strategies dictate.

This was designed around the old method to work around lack of available memory which was not only scarce in 2002, but very expensive too. I remember that in 2003 a 1 gig memory upgrade cost me near $300 bucks USD! Anyhow I digress. Google "abstraction Layer".

I am working on a new thread-post that will address not only the "smallones" and the pathmapping system, but address the StrageicAreas and "basic" Strategies as well.

Please be patient as my time is limited by the fact that I, unfortunately still have to devote a large part of my time to making a living, but it is important enough to get this tutorial done that I am dividing my time to do so. The advantage being that the bf42 community can turn out more and better singleplayer or coop maps. After all, when all the MP servers go down, you still have these game modes to play the game.

I will pm you when it is up for your comments and feed back, I need it.

Thanks ...

L8trz,

Cajunwolf
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"When you're up to your butt in alligators, you forget your original intent was to drain the swamp!"
POTAmatt
Posts: 89
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 9:09 pm
Location: New Yawk

Re: Smallones

Post by POTAmatt »

Hey CW, Glad to see you are still involved. I only mentioned that photoshop example for that rare ocassion where you want to touch up your pathmaps based on your textures (the painted roadways, for example), this way you don't have to waste time adding temporary statics to affect your pathmaps. Otherwise ED42 works fine for me for path touch-ups; all else is done by hand. AI has always been a fun challenge for me since following you and the the gang at BFSP almost from the beginning, but occasionaly a new challenge in strategies pops up such as race maps, CTF, or adding AI to objective based maps. But, as you said, time has been limited lately. Keep the faith! Matt
cajunwolf
Posts: 115
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:03 am
Location: Houston, Texas
Contact:

Re: Smallones

Post by cajunwolf »

NP POTAmatt, BFSAK allows you to touch up pathmaps on the fly and instantly create a new set via Genpathmaps. As mentioned, I will pm you as soon as I have the thread up, I would really like your comments.

I have an example map I am making that show how to create a map with ai in mind. It will show also why most maps have screwed up ai and why, esp the stock maps. EA knew really nothing about the ai and esp the pathmapping system, and they didn't really care because MP sold servers and made all the money This always pissed off Tobias and the reason he finally left EA-Dice. He knew back then that this game had the most fantastic ai ever in a computer game. We will never see it again because of the modern high speed internet and the desire for mp games nowdays over ai. This is a totally reactive ai, and properly setup is as close to human ai solders as you can get. I will show you what I mean.
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"When you're up to your butt in alligators, you forget your original intent was to drain the swamp!"
POTAmatt
Posts: 89
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 9:09 pm
Location: New Yawk

Re: Smallones

Post by POTAmatt »

Sounds great! Looking forward to it. I know just what you mean about their AI lacking, have pretty much rewritten all their maps, and do occasionally come up with new ones. Most of my recent efforts were adding AI to FHSW and a few other mods. ATM, i'm just happy to have power back after the hurricane, so having heat, light and a functional computer is a luxory! LOL.
cajunwolf
Posts: 115
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:03 am
Location: Houston, Texas
Contact:

Re: Smallones

Post by cajunwolf »

OMG! I didn't know you were in the strike zone! Poompoom500, one of my main admins and news poster is in NJ and just got his power on too. My thoughts are with you, and remember I can understand, unlike the rest of the country, I am from the gulf coast where these storms are a threat every year. The last storm through Houston left me without power for 15 days, I have to scrounge for food for 10. Perhaps folks in your area now will join us here on the gulf coast to blast those in charge of our infrastructure with the following message;

"It is so dumb to continue to provide power and communications via above ground power grids, which are susceptible to damage by the whims of mother nature, when placing this critical infrastructure in a below ground matrix would practically eliminate the problems we face today. Additionally the weak argument that such a change would be to expensive to convert to is totally blown away by the shear cost to restore services to the traditional and fault ridden system we employ now when a to common problem like the present one (Sandy) occurs."

That being said ...

We should compare "ai notes" and work this thread together, as I use a thread such as this to glean feedback for the eventual tutorial. Your thoughts?
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"When you're up to your butt in alligators, you forget your original intent was to drain the swamp!"
POTAmatt
Posts: 89
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 9:09 pm
Location: New Yawk

Re: Smallones

Post by POTAmatt »

You're absolutely right. Days before, they were complaining about the expense of burying the power lines for the sake of aesthetics alone all the while ignoring basic maintenance and upkeep, trimming trees, etc. I trimmed back and/or removed all my trees before the last hurricane a year ago, but because the neighbors didn't, all our power goes out when their trees take down the lines. As expected, they now have the trimmers cutting down everything. LOL. Better late then never.

As to using this thread as a springboard for eventual documentation - great idea! With AI being the quagmire it is (Weapons templates vs. SAI vs. Strategies vs. Pathmapping, CSM vs. SSM, etc.), you may consider restricting this thread to pathing and smallones, but i've never been known for following rules. Whatever floats your P.T. boat. LOL.
cajunwolf
Posts: 115
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:03 am
Location: Houston, Texas
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Re: Smallones

Post by cajunwolf »

you may consider restricting this thread to pathing and smallones,
Yes your right and the reason is to see what it takes to explain it so almost anyone can understand, from an unambiguous narrative, and replicate then apply the knowledge in their own maps. If you start out on a topic and let it "morph" into a multiplicity of the original thread, all your breeding is confusion with no coherent line of actual knowledge learned or retained. I on the other hand prefer to create a thread on how to float the PT boat separately and get feed back on that topic alone, but DACV beat us to that one when, in the old fps forums he blew our minds on the topic back in 04! ;)

A little tidbit of what I have in mind is as follows ... I have used static markers laying out the 64x64 "smallones tiles on the map. Each "square in BC is 4 pix's and a smallones tile is 16x16 BC squares. Note the church is set dead center a smallones tiles and once all statics in place will form one do go area within the tile. Map center is noted for reference .. see where I am going with this.

Example image;
Image the responsibility of cajunwolf alone. No other share fault in this. LoL!
Image the responsibility of cajunwolf alone. No other share fault in this. LoL!
Think about this ...

All will meet at the Waypoint in Yellow. Here, once I finish laying out statics the smallones will dictate the Infantry follows the route indicated (SA-B) and the tank vehicles will go to SA _ A. Why? Well all I am saying right now is "can we say "Allowed and Disallowed Vehicle Types" for a SA? Interesting huh?
Image

"When you're up to your butt in alligators, you forget your original intent was to drain the swamp!"
POTAmatt
Posts: 89
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 9:09 pm
Location: New Yawk

Re: Smallones

Post by POTAmatt »

"Image the responsibility of cajunwolf alone. No other share fault in this. LoL!"

LOL. You are not alone. Interesting? Yes to you, me , DACV, (Thanks for reminding me. We chat AI regularly and last we spoke, he was recovering from the prior hurricane. I hope he is okay. His brother and I began working for a local college together years ago and introduced me) etc. With the final release of BF42, we could add amphibious pathmaps, car pathmaps, landing zones,etc., create new behaviours to any map, even server side.

I kiddingly say "you work too hard" because all AI can be accomplished by text and without the need for the advanced tools. The strategicareas dictate the allowed vehicle groups, and the direction of the troops are dictated "on the fly" by the strategies. SA's are connected by smallones upon pathmap regeneration, and strategies could be monitored by the basic ai debugger. I think the biggest problem for everybody is adding basic AI to their map. Using BFSPC (Good) vs. Botinator (Bad) (and the why), and then going beyond that and doing it yourself.

All these things combined would make for one awesome piece of documentation Tobius would be proud of.
cajunwolf
Posts: 115
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:03 am
Location: Houston, Texas
Contact:

Re: Smallones

Post by cajunwolf »

Wow, so you have talked to DACV recently? I thought he had retired long ago. We used to chat, mod, and pathmap while chatting for hour over Vent almost every night. Is his email the same?

Send me a pm on this and lets compare notes. If your still into modding the old game and want to help me do these tuts, I would be honored. I could use the help and if you have been working with DACV, well much the better, I consider DACV, along with Dnamro, to be among the most knowledgeable, over all, on bf ai, Hands down .. no competition. I only wish I had their over all knowledge. My specialty on the other hand is in how the ai works, how the strategies and SA's work together to entice the bots movement along with the actual mechanical workings of the pathmapping systems, and I think both DACV and Dnamro will give me credit there. I have spent the last 10 years learning what I know, and now I want to explain and teach what I have learned in a way, that the most very fresh, newbe, or beginner can read my tutorials and apply it all to future maps they might create, there by contributing to the bf community to keep it alive as long as possible. I think it is really kewl that they are now offering a free download of BF42, the game that brought the FPS to the forefront of computer gaming and forever changed it, for all and the response it has received. I was online gaming last night and got 63 newbe kills on EL AL, but in all fairness, I have played that map for 10 years, mostly against my bad as#sed bot's: so I am well "practiced" to say the least. Even though a long time coop-singleplayer, it was great playing DC 73 Eastings's, my all time favorite map, one more time on line again. I can die a happy old bf modder now, LoL! :D (they were really ticked at me for the number of kills (47 one round)), but again, how many time have I played that map? After all, I do have the best bot version of it there is, no brag, just fact. ;)

Give me a pm.

L8trz
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"When you're up to your butt in alligators, you forget your original intent was to drain the swamp!"
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