Hints & Tips

• SET INITIAL CONDIDITIONS
• Establish a set of directories you can use to store all of your textures and things that are absolute to a drive (e.g. "C:\Textures"), otherwise, moving CMO's will likely ruin those paths and cause texture loss.
• if your character is walking through walls, make the walls thicker. This is a large problem with most object slider / collision groups. If the walls of the room are too thin, you'll walk right through them in the corners.
• "Bot Height" and "Bot Max Speed" are critical for correct GraphData generation. Several points appear during the GraphData generation process. Some of them are yellow. If a character cannot reach a yellow point, it's because its maximum speed is too high.
• Object Slider: all object in group must be 1x1x1 scaled (use Set as Unit).
• When doing AI, make sure all walls (and floor) are set as Fixed Obstacle in their Attrubites (3D object setup)
• Set initial conditions for the current AI data array.
• If path changes made don't reflect in character movement, save and reload CMO.
• Level script will need a cloning factory for mass unit production. Will also need an AI level settings
• Characters will need a character engine, create AI script, and set personal parameters
• All obstacles must be in a "collions" group, this includes floors and walls.
• If your pathway isn't being followed, ensure all things are right, save and reload. This usually fixes it.
• If your graph generation isnt working right, make the characters width and height more. For best results, match the Height and Width of the character to the Charater Setup reported size (round up to nearest int).
• If characters are going through the walls, increase their radius size in the Object Slider, or decrease the number of characters used to generate the graphs. Also, if the points look done, then wait a bit to see if the characters return to condense the blue graph. Its a bit iffy, but it seems to work. Larger models seem to cause more problems.
• Man, fuck Virtools.
• You can scale a character to use its original path, but test the speed of the character or it will get stuck. If the character is too large, he won't be able to move due to graph being too tight? Character height affects graph and path interaction. X & Z scale don't affect it, only Y scale.
• Characters always start path at node 0. Regardless of procximity to other nodes. Paths also seem to be independent of graph, just a generic listing of points.
• If the model's speed in fps is too fast, he can get stuck.
• Make custom or resized models/objects to "set as Unit" in 3D Setup. Helps with Object Slider being stupid.
• You can have a model of about the same size use another model's path & graph.
• If something isn't working, try saving and reloading, it sometimes works...
• Set aside some time to work with Virtools, because nothing is simple and it will take ages

Steps To Complete AI System

Step 1:
Build an environment for your character. See above for tips.

Step 2:
Add the following AI BBs:
AU Level Settings - Level script
Create AI Entity -> Set Personal Parameters -> Test Agent - Character script

Set the Create AI Entity to an AI Bot. Review Person Param, should be fine though (they need to be relative to the character model). Might need to play with settings. Take note of originals incase you set them back. Most of these are for later.

Step 3:
Replace the following AI BBs:
Replace Test Agent with Create Graph Data - Character Script

Add the following general BBs:
Cloning Factory - level settings

Create Graph Data - set up the initial position, in the middle of the area works best. Set the referential to your character, and average number of nodes (will vary on size of room). The most important thing to set is the Graph Path. Set this in a directory without any extensions.
E.G. C:\VR\AI\graph_data
The result will be files named C:\VR\AI\graph_data*
Note: Initial position is based off of the charaters' starting position, so 0,0,0 means start where his default position is.
The value of the Personal Parameters will determine if your characters will wander correctly or not. Also, spawn like, 70 of them, it goes lots faster.

Let this run, it might take some time. During this time, the neon-green dots created are a mapping of the available nodes in the room, all of your character copies are exploring the room, trying to find all available nodes. When the graph goes blue, you've stopped exploring, and should see a huge complicated web of blue lines and green points. The character clones will run around the lines, removing some. This is currently doing an optimization process, to determine the most efficient graph from point A to B. This process is complete when the line is no longer changing, and the notification box says The GraphData generation is finished. This *should* write everything out to the path specified.

Pause the execution, then save to output files to the path, just in case.

Step 4: testing the graph data
Add the following BBs:
Edit Graph, Import Data - level script

Replace the following BBs:
Create Graph Data with Wander - character script

In Edit Graph, set the path to the graph data. Once you click OK, the graph data should load in as red lines attached to grey nodes. Set Import Data to Current AI Data. Go to Array Setup, and add a row, specifiy Graph Data (give it a name and the right path). This allows you to talk about the Graph Data. Check the Wander & Set Personal Parameters to see if it has the right graph data.

Click play and watch your character wander around.

Step 5: making a path
Add:
Edit PathWay - level script

In Edit Pathway, set the path to store the pathway and make sure the Loop box is X'd. Hit play and generate a pathway using 'A' to add points and 'D' to remove. Save CMO to write pathway to disk.

Make an entry in the Current AI data array so that you can talk about the path.

At this point, make sure all thigns are set, save and RELOAD, otherwise path isn't loaded correctly and will not be followed. Ensure Follow a pathway is set to the correct pathway. Run and see if it works right.