What is Bot nav mesh zones

What is Bot nav mesh zones?

It's not on the wiki....

[bobdaduck]

Zones bots use to navigate.

[kaen]

A thing of the past. Bots are very clever, and more than capable of navigating through maps on their own. Previously, one had to manually define bot navigation zones for bots to use a level. Now, it's done automatically when the level loads.

Perhaps interestingly, if a level takes a really long time to load then it likely has too many barriers. The more complex or numerous the barriers on the map, the longer bitfighter must spend dividing it up into navigable zones.

[watusimoto]

The mesh zones still exist, though they are not something that ordinary users would want to interact with. You can turn them on in the game to check if the generation algorithm is working. But it's (very) rare now to find a level that doesn't work.

So why do bots need them?

[raptor]

The answer to that is rather complex; but, you'll find all your answers here:

http://www.policyalmanac.org/games/aStarTutorial.htm

[watusimoto]

But it's (very) rare now to find a level that doesn't work.

I'll also note that creating the zones was one of the most technically challenging computational problems I've ever worked on. A week+ high energy cooperative effort between me, sam686, and raptor gave us a solution that is actually really good.

The answer to that is rather complex; but, you'll find all your answers here:

http://www.policyalmanac.org/games/aStarTutorial.htm

So I have to put Bot Nav Mesh Zones like in this picture?

[watusimoto]

They're generated automatically, and require no action on your part.

yeah it doesnt really to be used much naymore.

They're generated automatically, and require no action on your part.

I'm talking about 013.

[bobdaduck]

They're generated automatically, and require no action on your part.

I'm talking about 013.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Basically, cover the entire level in navmeshzones and then maybe bots might work. You'll probably have to program the bots yourself too though, I'm not sure S_bot was around in 013.

point and case being they arent really needed anymore maybe we could find a replacement for them?

[bobdaduck]

point and case being they arent really needed anymore maybe we could find a replacement for them?

Pay attention. Have you ever seen a bot nav mesh zone?

For some reason, Lamp is dinking around in 013 and they were visible to him then.

They are needed, but the user no longer needs to generate them by hand. Its done automatically.

[watusimoto]

You can still see them with one of the debugging /cmds (/shownavmeshzones? it's in the help)

It's /showzones.

Well I think there should be an option to manually do it because in some levels, zone creation fails.

So, the bot just stays anywhere inside the zones?

[raptor]

If zone creation fails, please let us know and send us the level.

I have not personally seen a playable level with bot zones failing to be created since we introduced the automatic zone creation (back in 015a). We spent a *lot* of time on it to make sure it would be reliable

If zone creation fails, please let us know and send us the level.

I have not personally seen a playable level with bot zones failing to be created since we introduced the automatic zone creation (back in 015a). We spent a *lot* of time on it to make sure it would be reliable

I think it happens on large levels.

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1856

Also another one I made right after or before this i forgot

[raptor]

OK Yes. There is a limit with botzone generation. This is the error message you get when loading that level:

  Code:

Level too big for zone generation! (max allowed dimension, after gridSize expansion, is 65535)

[watusimoto]

Wow! I've never actually seen that error message used. Great job, guys!!

[watusimoto]

Well I think there should be an option to manually do it because in some levels, zone creation fails.

Trust me on this one... you would never ever want to do this. Before we could automatically create zones, I developed a really nice tool for building these in the editor, and even then it was so tedious that I only did one level, once.

Echoing raptor, send us levels that fail and we'll see what's going on.

yep i found the same bug but lsmp beat me to it. maybe this is why bots gets stuck on large maps lack of nav zones.....

yep i found the same bug but lsmp beat me to it. maybe this is why bots gets stuck on large maps lack of nav zones.....

They dont spawn if zone creation fails...