El Mariachi 0 Posted November 5, 2009 allie's instructions are great for starting a basic network, but I still have a lot of questions and I felt that the other thread kind of walked away from that. So here's what I would like to know: 1. Networks in general. How does a network function, is it just some sort of data the AI calls upon to know how to stick to a road? Does a 'network' have to be a single road? For instance, If I created a road out of straight part of "Network A" and then double click somewhere else in the map and select straight part of "Network A" again, will this screw up AI pathfinding or does it even matter? 2. Crossroads I think I really screwed up my road network. I added 'crossroads' (the kr t's and kr x's in roads 2) as my 'special pieces'. After looking through the menus again, I think I made a mistake. Should I make a crossroads first by adding a terminator to the previous network, and then adding a keypart of a new network as a crossroad? What exactly does the generate terminator function do? Does it just tell visitor that the network is ending or does it also place the terminator road part in the editor as well? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
prowler.wolf 0 Posted November 6, 2009 T's and X's are special parts, I'm not too familiar with crossroads and have never used them Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Snake Man 407 Posted November 6, 2009 How does a network function, is it just some sort of data the AI calls upon to know how to stick to a road? If AI finds a road object, it tries to use it when traveling on careless/safe mode. Does a 'network' have to be a single road? I believe the "network" is just visitor 3 editing term, its meaningless in-game. WrpTool has networks also (in a way), but they have absolutely no relations to in-game data. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
El Mariachi 0 Posted November 10, 2009 Thanks for the help. I'm making crossroads now without any care as to the network in general. I was thinking that each network was a specific part, and had to go to a specific place, end in a specific place or the AI would get lost trying to go from Key Part of Main Road 1 to Main Road 2 when there's a few Main Road 1's on the map. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 46 Posted November 10, 2009 (edited) Hi guys! I've been using the "T"'s and "X"'s defined as "Crossroads" (because they're where roads cross :) ) - the only "Special Part" defined being the crosswalk/pedestrian crossing, and "konec" (??) being the only terminator... To lay a road, I've been starting by clicking the map and laying an initial keypart - usually a crossroads or konec part - then off you go - extending the road along Direction A or whatever... Once I hit about 50 parts or so, if I haven't reached a junction, I "Generate terminator"... (DON'T confuse this "terminator" with the "Konec end-of-road terminator part!)... this asks you what you'd like to use as the "terminator" - I select "Straight part" and that section of road network (for smoothing purposes), finishes there... (I do this because too many parts and "smoothing" takes forever, or occasionally doesn't finish at all)... Then, to carry on the road, I select that new "straight part, which is now a "keypart" and I carry the road on from "Direction A" as before... If you hit a point where you want say, a T junction, you generate a terminator again - select crossroads as the terminator part, and pick your junction part... Whether it's a left or right hand junction (or left AND right) depends on which end you attach to your previous piece... This T then becomes the keypart for a new network section - which you can expand in Direction A or B (or C, depending on which end you attached to the previous section) A genuine actual "end of road" situation gets a "Generate Terminator" too - with the real road-end "Konec" part being selected as the end/key/terminator part.... Does all of that make sense??? Seems to be working so far in my "binarised and ingame" tests, and the AI seem to recognise them as roads OK... Now if only I could work out "smoothing" - for me it seems to devastate the landscape into sawtooth jaggies on either side of the road - particularly with "coastal roads" - even on quite gentle inclines... hmmm... (PS - typed all this on the train with my shiney new go-anywhere minicomp, so I'm working from memory and may have got some of the terminology/names wrong - but hopefully the general idea makes sense... Essentially, BIS use the word "terminator" in two different contexts - as an "end of road terminator" = the Konec part... AND as a "end of this wee section - generate terminator" situation, where it may not actually be the physical end of the road, and any of the defined parts - but usually junctions of some kind - can be used)... (Secondary PS - Don't take ANY of this as official or gospel truth, by the way - I started with Allie's tutorial and just experimented a lot and this approach is what I've come up with so far... I could be totally wrong...) B Edited November 10, 2009 by Bushlurker ...added disclaimer in case I'm talking nonsense as usual :) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
digitalcenturion 20 Posted April 27, 2010 I am really sorry for necropost, but i think it was justified in this case. I'm just wondering how im supposed to know what roads should connect where in the different crossroads when setting them up, is there any naming convention? Why are there no X crossroads for Asfalt roads? I also dont get how to make two paralell T junctions unite to create a "grid"? Like so T -----???---------T--- I I I I Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shezan74 11 Posted April 28, 2010 Now if only I could work out "smoothing" - for me it seems to devastate the landscape into sawtooth jaggies on either side of the road - particularly with "coastal roads" - even on quite gentle inclines... hmmm... Jaggies appears to me too. I've tried several parameters but i didn't have any appreciable result. I'm actually using bulldozer tool to manually fix the roads... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MadMardigan409 10 Posted April 28, 2010 You guys are starting to scare me with these "jaggies". Is there no other way of smoothing the landscape other then by hand? I thought the terrain manipulation was a pain but I think the object placement phase is going to be a damn hoot. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shezan74 11 Posted April 28, 2010 You guys are starting to scare me with these "jaggies". Jaggies is a friend of Haggis. If you eat an Haggis and you're not ready to face this experience (and to know what there is inside of it) your hand will be transformed in a sawtooth and your bank account will be transferred to another multidimensional world. Bushlurker knows what i mean :D Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MadMardigan409 10 Posted April 28, 2010 I wiki'd haggis... I think I'll stick with the good old oscar mayer wieners lol :P I don't want to derail the thread topic but I'm wondering... -Is there one absolute way to place roads so the AI will recognize and use them? - -Whats the verdict on bridges, can they work for the AI? I simple yes or no will do, but if you would like to elaborate on the answer I would be grateful. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 46 Posted April 28, 2010 (edited) Haggis, huh? Aye weel (Oh well)... thats an old Scottish tradition, dating from the days when you ate anything you could get your hands on that hadn't already been plundered by the English... Haggis are fairly slow-moving, mainly because of the legs on one side being shorter than the other, so they're fairly easy to catch... Fortunately I have a culinary safety-net since, though I'm Scottish, my family are Italian... after three generations we're used to the weather (and the haggis-hunting) - but still remember how to cook proper food... :D Anyhow - someone better actually answer DigitalCenturions question, or Wolle will be along with his Mod-stick to ensure we Stay On Topic (and rightly so - it makes finding relevant answers via search much easier...)... I'm fairly convinced now that the entire road-tool - and the matching road sections - which we were given in the Visitor 3 package are a fairly recent addition, hustled together quickly in time for the tools release... On closer inspection of Chernarus and Utes (bearing in mind we don't know for sure what parts of the official islands were made in-house by BIS and what wasn't), I see no evidence whatsoever of crossroads or t-junctions being used at all... I also see a lot of roadparts being used regularly which simply don't work in the current road tool as we have it, which leads me to believe that this road tool wasn't actually used to produce the Arma 2 islands... This would explain why many pieces lack snap-points, why theres no T-junctions for the Primary "asf1" roadtype, etc - we got what was ready at the time... (This conclusion actually holds promise for the future... BIS frequently release stuff that's, shall we say "less than fully ready", but they also have a habit of fixing things afterwards, sooner or later... as I've said before, I wouldn't be totally surprised if theres an Update for the tools sometime in the future...) Pure speculation... in the meantime, we use what we have... is there any naming convention? Well, sortof... as far as I can figure... "kr_t_asf1_asf2" - for example, means... kr = crossroad/keypart piece t = T-junction asf1 = main road type (A thru to B) asf2 = "side" road type © "kr_x_asf1_asf3" kr = crossroad/keypart piece x = actual crossroads asf1 = main road type (A thru to B) asf3 = "side/cross" road type (C thru to D) There's many possible combinations - many of which are missing completely - the most obvious omission being any kind of asf1 to asf1 junction... I also dont get how to make two paralell T junctions unite to create a "grid"?Like so T -----???---------T--- I I I I I guess you just need to improvise... if you start at the bottom left of your example then you could head north with roadparts - then a T junction - attached by the "C" end... then extend the road via the "B" end to the east, then another T-junction, this time attach by the "A" end, then head south, extending the road via the "C" end... Does that make sense? If you have both the parallel roads in place already then you just need to fudge some sort of road section across from one to the other... one end could be extended out from a T junction in the regular way, the other end would just have to be matched up as best as possible... "Jaggies"... These are by far worst on roads angled SW to NE... it's a terrain vertex/road angle thing... If you're making a "fantasy island" it might be wise to bear that in mind when planning where roads will go. In my own case, Scotland was basically shaped fairly recently by major-league glacial action... the glaciers pushed boulders the size of small mountains around... these left lots of mountains - where the underlying rock was hard to wear down - and deep valleys (glens), where the underlying rock was softer... Geology lesson over... The end result (thanks, Mr IceAge! :mad:) is a country composed almost entirely of valleys in a SW to NE direction... the roads follow the valleys... need I say more? Extensive hand-tweaking in Visitor itself is the best solution I've come up with so far... exporting to smooth in an external prog like L3DT, then re-importing (big wait) works too, though it's hard to be precise, you end up overdoing it, you have to "smooth roads" again, and you end up back where you started... Patient Tweaking - weeks of it - is my only solution so far... (you get pretty good at it after a while) ;) Is there one absolute way to place roads so the AI will recognize and use them? I haven't found this to be too much of a problem... the AI know what a road is when they see one, and seem to follow them OK most of the time... Bridges can be problematic I guess... I've found that the AI will cross OK most of the time - they seem to recognise the bridge's roadway LOD and once they get on it, off they go across... through experimenting I've found that the main problem is that they insist on a strict numerical order... if you give your whole team an order to go to a point on the other side, for example - what happens is that they charge off towards the bridge - number 2 "in command", then they mill about at the start of the bridge - approaching, then turning away again... until number 2 gets his turn to approach - he gets into the roadway groove and off he goes across... This is followed by more milling around - approaching and shying away, until number 3 gets his turn - into the groove he goes and off he goes across - following 2... they'll do this for the whole group - and if you look closely as they cross a long bridge - you'll notice that, regardless of the formation they were at when they started out - they're now in column and ordered by number... Problems occur with mixed vehicle/infantry groups, and also with infantry groups as described above when one of the guys crossing - say, number 4, gets held up for some reason - the guy in front slows down or is a vehicle or whatever (remember - numerical order - even in mixed groups!)... At this point, much like land vehicle convoys, the guys behind start to bunch up - they've got some kind of AI routine inside them telling them to keep a certain distance... they can't back up - they can't go forward so... they mill about... this can "knock them out of the roadway groove", and once they're out of the groove - they often can't find their way back on - they fall into a "step back and forth" loop or something... Worse still is if number 4 actually falls OFF the bridge.... ALL the guys behind from 5 upwards are STILL FOLLOWING HIM... :D It can all get very messy... though, most of the time, they're OK... it's the "hesitating while actually crossing the bridge" issue that seems to screw things up sometimes... Theres a couple of pics of AI bridge-crossing experiments in my development pics photobucket... (some well old pics of early clutter experiments too - so no laughing please... ;)) B Edited April 28, 2010 by Bushlurker Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
digitalcenturion 20 Posted April 29, 2010 I dont get the roads in V3... 1) Should i use the ca\roads or ca\roads2 objects, and if i can use ca\roads where are the textures then? I can only find the roads2.pbo to unpack. 2) When using roads2 how can i transition between asf1, 2 and 3? 3)Why are there no t crossings for gravel, only mud? Confusing... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
