AR :: Janbruary Update 2013

[OWA]

Hey everyone! It's been a long while since the last update, but here's a new one to stop those AR blues. Plus, we simply couldn't have APB and TSR releasing new updates without us!

We missed the boat on posting an update last month, so here's a new one to cover January and February! We've done a fair amount of work (or rather danpaul88, dtrngd and ChAoS have) since the last time we updated!

Here's what the team have been up to recently:

• One Winged Angel recently turned 23. He's still a handsome devil though.
• dtrngd has been working on AR's presets recently and there have been a lot of updates for the testers to play with, but now he's moved his attention onto Reborn, so that a playable build can be constructed. fear not Rebornites! your game is in very good and capable hands!
• danpaul88 has been working on loads of great new scripts; some of which are demonstrated and explained in this update!
• ChAoS has been rigging weapons using the new first person hands; a cool video of that is on show below.
• BogdanV has been modelling bits and pieces, but has a fair bit of University work that has been getting in the way.
• The rest of the team has been up to various bits and bobs.

Beta 2 Gameplay Footage

danpaul88 has recently posted this video on the BHP youtube channel which shows lots of lovely Beta 2 gameplay! Watch Grizzly, IFV and Harrier rushes on South Pacific as well as some infantry action on Rocky Pass and capturing structures on Freezing Straits! Not much else to say about this one, so enjoy the video!

New First Person Rigs

ChAoS has been hard at work rigging the weapons up in first person! Once we get enough weapons into the game, we can transition over from the old renegade rig to our new shiny rig!

The problem with the Renegade skeleton is that it's old and quite simple compared to what we could potentially do. so what we have done (or rather what Eggman891 has done) is create a rig for a new set of hands that has a lot more joints in it; this way, we can produce better animations that look nicer. It's only an aesthetic change, but it does affect the whole first-person mode of the game, so we're going to make sure it's done right. :)In the future we could potentially create more hand types and every infantry could have their own set of hands, but that's a maybe.

Check out the video below where ChAoS runs through some of the weapons that he's completed using the new rig.

Conquest Mode AI

As well as playing the game, danpaul88 has also been coding up a storm recently. We should have really called this the Janbruary Update: danpaul88 and ChAoS edition!

Anyway, back to the news at hand. a new AI objective system has been written up so that bots can actually play various game-modes! Why is this important? It's important because it means we can put bots on any map that we want to and have them play entire games out by themselves (in the simplest form). For example, a SEAL will be able to work out that infantry are more important to shoot than tanks, but he won't be smart enough to place C4 on weakpoints.

In the past, bots needed waypoints that they could follow like a trail of breadcrumbs around the map, but now we can auto-generate our pathfinding data, give a bot an objective and they'll find their own way to achieve it. This is currently how our miners work, which is incredibly easy for mappers to setup and is incredibly flexible if we want to do multiple ore fields (se the next segment for more on that).

The key points concerning this new AI is that it's based on two simple concepts; offence and defence. An offensive AI will swear at you loudly and show you his arse prioritise attacking over defending and will also decide what to attack based on it's unit-type. I.e. A Rhino Tank will look for other tanks to attack when assaulting a position, whilst a Navy SEAL will always prefer to attack infantry.

Defensive AIs will prioritise defending over attacking and can be assigned to defend key targets. Just captured an oil derrick? No problem; some Grizzly tanks will move in to defend it for you. This could also be used for maps where defending the ore miners are key; so each miner could have an escort of a couple of tanks when moving out into the battlefield to harvest more.

Objectives are also unit-type based depending how suitable they are for certain units.

To test this new AI out, danpaul88 set up a test game of conquest mode to find out if it was capable of playing an entire game by itself. The results were good!

All of the documentation for this new AI can be found here: http://doc.tiberiantechnologies.org/scripts.dll/classdp88___a_i___objective.html

Re-Growable Ore Fields

danpaul88 has worked more magic by creating scripts that will support re-growable ore fields! You heard it right!

This basically means that ore fields will shrink as they are harvested by miners. Then when the field is fully depleted, the miner will move onto the next field (and yes the AI is equipped to do this on it's own). If a field is depleted, but it has an Ore Extractor, the ore will regrow over time; so an ore field that gets depleted at the start of the game, might become a source of income again nearer the end!

So now we have the potential to create maps that start with a small field of ore or gems close by that will get depleted, thus making the miner search for alternate sources later on into the game. This will give a massive C&C-feel to the game which will hopefully get everyone buzzing with nostalgia!

The documentation for these scripts are public, so feel free to check them out below!

Ore Field Script: http://doc.tiberiantechnologies.org/scripts.dll/classdp88___ore___field.html
Ore Extractor Script: http://doc.tiberiantechnologies.org/scripts.dll/classdp88___ore___field___drill.html

Misc. Other News

In other news this update, here's a list of other things that we've been up to:

• The doors of the War Factory are actually targetable now. this means that shooting them will do damage the building itself!
• Dawnblaze has been working on the %5Burl=%5Burl=]Soviet Spy Plane[/url], but it's not quite ready yet.
• The new Rocketeer physics are ingame! This means that when you deploy the rocket pack now the Rocketeer should fly like a proper VTOL with a lot less lag!
• We tried giving Crazy Ivan a grenade-type weapon to make him more effective against infantry, but now we've removed it in favour of a more RA2-style small sticky bomb.
• We're working on getting parachuting reinforcements into the game. When you lose your War Factory, extra vehicles will be parachuted down to you. We might even be able to parachute down weapons and equipment for when the barracks is lost as well.
• The Engineer IFV now repairs continuously instead of in bursts. This has made it a much better vehicle!

Rand00m

Something for Zelda fans.

Something for Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter fans.

Aaaaaand something for C&C fans.

Fini

See you next time guys and gals!

[Guest C0de_man]

Good thing you made such progress with the AI, i have been trying to rig up vehicle NPCs for APB but couldnt find the proper scripts to make things work. Vehicle AI has quite a bit of potential i think.

Hopefully by the next APB release i can benefit of the new scripts too.

 

Keep it up.

[Guest SirJustin]

Hmm first video shows them exploiting the tesla coil with grizzlys .... hmmm need our new target bone for grizzly lol.

AI that can chose destinations without the pathfind is great! No more MASSIVE map files.
The options to customize the AI will be invaluable!

I found the AI video to not show much at all.. then the bots driving in a straight line and firing.

 

WF doors being target-able is nice finally.

 

Can't wait for things to move on to public.

Edited February 26, 2013 by SirJustin

[Killing_You]

APB could certainly use multiple hands for each character, too. It is very baffling to get a LAW pickup as a Tanya, and then go into first person mode and see yourself with sleeved, masculine hands.

 

Anyway, I can't wait to play around with the new AR weapons!

[danpaul88]

I found the AI video to not show much at all.. then the bots driving in a straight line and firing.

Yeah, the flags are quite small so it's hard to spot what it is they are fighting over. I condensed the video down a lot too so you don't see as much of the less interesting "sitting about capturing a flag" bits

[Guest SirJustin]

I found the AI video to not show much at all.. then the bots driving in a straight line and firing.

Yeah, the flags are quite small so it's hard to spot what it is they are fighting over. I condensed the video down a lot too so you don't see as much of the less interesting "sitting about capturing a flag" bits

Well it wasn't that.. I saw the flag, I was just hoping to see them navigate the map... that was my interest.

 

Actually navigate difficult terrain without getting stuck on trees etc moreso.

Edited February 26, 2013 by SirJustin

[danpaul88]

The mapper still has to do a bit of work to mark out areas that the vehicles should avoid otherwise they can indeed get stuck, unfortunately the engine simply isn't geared for that sort of dynamic obstacle avoidance, but I'm hoping we can add to these capabilities going forwards. What you see in the video IS the bots navigating the map, it's a lot more than any previous AI code could do (dynamically choosing places to go based on objectives etc.)

[Guest SirJustin]

Oh very much so, well at least you could set .. more or less waypoints of where to head? And thus avoiding obstacles by driving in more or less opened areas?

 

ie: Drive through the field and around the forest, not through it.

 

Also, when can we expect to have some ultra useful AI friends to help spread the bullets around?

Edited February 26, 2013 by SirJustin

[Guest TheMojoJockey]

Jeeze, enough game play of me getting wrecked?

 

But seriously I'm really glad that so much is happening with AR!

[danpaul88]

There's plenty of footage of me dying too Mojo

[VERTi60]

Speaking of footage, I still have plenty from January. If there's still a demand for sharing it let me know.

[Guest Sonarpulse]

So, danpaul88. How easy would it be to make an infantry that when ordered to enter a base defence/vehicle took on that vehicle's AI, and when ordered to leave reverted to it's normal AI? :

[Guest HeaVyMenTaL]

Really AWESOME VID'S guys , theres even stuff for the kids wow

 

and whats with the russian video on C&C online nobody understands them

[Guest DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr]

Holy hell, that bot support is sweeeeet!

 

I WISH every APB map had bots like the ones in your video, except with foot soldier bots too!

[Guest APB_ICE]

APB could certainly use multiple hands for each character, too. It is very baffling to get a LAW pickup as a Tanya, and then go into first person mode and see yourself with sleeved, masculine hands.

 

Anyway, I can't wait to play around with the new AR weapons!

 

Actually, Volkov has his own hands, directly from his character-model. The cool thing about this is that edits to his coat-texture (for example, changing the colour) will also show up on his first-person hands!

As for the blog:

 

Weapons/Hands Rigging: Awesome!!! AR and APB are going to look much nicer once we get these in-game!

 

Growing Ore Fields: All 3 games need this now! Imagine watching Tiberium grow in Reborn... and imagine watching a little mine-cart come up and dump ore when an APB ore-field grows...

 

Oh, but only the fields with a mine shaft/extractor/Blossom Tree should regenerate; Unsustained Ore/Tib' fields should disappear permanently once depleted.

 

Improved AI: Again, all 3 games need this. Perhaps some maps could get a certain number of AI players. For example, Bonsai could have 5 AI Rifle Soldiers and 3 Medium/Heavy Tanks for each team. It'd add some extra action to the game, which would be really nice during low player-counts.

Edited February 28, 2013 by APB_ICE

[Guest HeaVyMenTaL]

Ice man i'm going blind trying to read your stuff just leave it black

[Killing_You]

and imagine watching a little mine-cart come up and dump ore when an APB ore-field grows...

 

This reminds me; why do the Ore Trucks in APB "dump" using the scoop animation? It'd be cooler and more r(e)alistic if they dumped the backside like an actual dump truck.

[danpaul88]

Oh, but only the fields with a mine shaft/extractor/Blossom Tree should regenerate; Unsustained Ore/Tib' fields should disappear permanently once depleted.

Check the linked documentation, this is already the case.

 

Ice man i'm going blind trying to read your stuff just leave it black

Just highlight the text, it's readable that way. I don't know why people insist on using fonts that are so hard to read on the white background... saying that, the default grey colour for quotes is hard to read too....

[Guest SirJustin]

This is why I use the brave theme...

[danpaul88]

I use Elegant

[Guest HeaVyMenTaL]

This is why I use the brave theme...

weird i cant use any themes?

 

Ice man i'm going blind trying to read your stuff just leave it black

 

Just highlight the text, it's readable that way. I don't know why people insist on using fonts that are so hard to read on the white background... saying that, the default grey colour for quotes is hard to read too....

 

 

I know about highlighting im just poking ICE

Edited February 28, 2013 by HeaVyMenTaL

[Killing_You]

This is why I use the brave theme...

weird i cant use any themes?

Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

[Guest kamuixmod]

About the New smarter AIs. What about the Artillery and the V2? Would they try to aim from the distance to hit the Enemy or would they simply run into the Enemy and try to shoot by a 2m distance?

[Guest HeaVyMenTaL]

This is why I use the brave theme...

weird i cant use any themes?

Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Oh yea thanks man, i forgot, my memory is goin' or leaking i'm getting old, i got the APB theme on, this all looks alot better now.

[Guest APB_ICE]

I use the old-school APB forum theme. For me, my font-colour shows up very clearly. Lol, I keep forgetting that most people are still using the bland theme. :

 

Is this better?

Oh, but only the fields with a mine shaft/extractor/Blossom Tree should regenerate; Unsustained Ore/Tib' fields should disappear permanently once depleted.

Check the linked documentation, this is already the case.

I saw that, but I just wanted to make sure. :wink:

By the way, what do you think of my mine-cart idea for APB? (Assuming it gets growing ore-fields, which it must)

Edited February 28, 2013 by APB_ICE

[Guest HeaVyMenTaL]

_{LOL now i got the APB theme on i cant see the blue letters}

[Guest APB_ICE]

 

This forum needs more shades of blue, dammit!

Edited February 28, 2013 by APB_ICE

[Guest Sonarpulse]

Do only testers get the classic forum theme ATM? I would switch if I could.

[Guest HeaVyMenTaL]

Do only testers get the classic forum theme ATM? I would switch if I could.

Just scroll down left hand side.

 

this topic is being derailed.....something just thought about when AR + TS reborn

are released to the public,

that will pretty much kill TCW witch is already like a zombie game.......back on track

[Killing_You]

Back to AR, I wonder what the Psychic Sensor would do. Assuming it gets implemented as the Soviet counterpart to the Gap Generator.