June 28, 1999

I finally have started tuning the AI (and fixing other loose ends). Rapid but endless iterations of adjusting aiming accuracy, tactics selection, bandaging timing, reloading primary and secondary weapons or not, etc. Redoing a fight until I understand why a team or bot makes that wrong decision, and finally fixing it: headache being replaced by (receiving) head shots.

Hopefully, all tuning and testing will be done this week. After that, it's still not a perfect CGF 1.0 bot, but a beta good enough to provide some limited fun. (See the May 17 update below for info on the limitations - doors have now been postponed in the favor of breakable glass -, and the list of features for all the details).

Anyway, I'll take coming Monday, July 5, off from work to try to construct a release and write documentation. Expect a release on Wednesday, July 7.

William

June 24, 1999

The bad news: I am not able to provide you a beta by June 28 (the best guess from May for a release date). I am hunting down a transient but major error occurring in software gfx mode when using the shotgun.
In addition, the bot weapon aiming under ActionQ2 proves to be quite different from weapon aiming for Q2: I now need to worry about the bot's view angles to have them operate the weapons just like you do, so all whistles and bells work: laser sight, zooming, muzzle climbing, burst mode, less accurate while on the move.
Without reliable bots that know how to handle their weapon the Action way, there's no such thing as a beta.

I would feel bad about this delay if I wasn't spending just about every minute of my spare time on it. After this weekend, I'll give you better guess for a release date.

Above some development shots, illustrating the ongoing work on weapon handling. At these short distances, the bots prefer to aim for the head (and at larger distances, they prefer to aim for the stomach to increase the chances of hitting their target).
In using the M4 on full auto, the bots anticipate muzzle climbing / kick back by aiming the first shot(s) low. At low skill settings, the bot won't be capable to control muzzle climbing (see the picture on the left), whereas the high skill bot demonstrates sufficient skill (and saves half his clip for other purposes). I need to get more serious about wearing kevlar...

Some good news as well. Get accustomed to 'zooming' and 'unzooming' your sniper rifle solely when really necessary. The familiar sound when you zoom is familiar to the bots as well; it will help them find you :)
Because sound is that important in Action, the bots now can hear and classify about any movement, weapon or environment sounds. They use it to locate targets they lost track of, or to select a location to keep an eye on. Your slippers and silencer will be just as valuable as in normal Action Quake2.

With respect to breakable glass, I was told that one of the first maps for AQ2, office3 by A-Team's Cail, does include breakable glass.
I gave the level a quick shotgun treatment. Plenty of windows to break, but it seems that not every window was built correctly in that map: not all windows can be broken.

William

p.s. Cube and I are aware that a few IE5 users experience lock ups when accessing this site. Though we cannot reproduce the problem ourselves (we both use IE5 as our default browser), we're performing changes 'behind the scenes' to identify the source of troubles.
If you experienced problems as well, but can now access this front page, let us know as soon as possible.

June 13, 1999

While I'm hunting down some "interesting" stack overflows in CGF/AQ2, there's something to enjoy for you as well.

The last two weeks, the bots and I were a bit in need of a break from ordinary programming and debugging. It was time for something more exciting:

Yep, that's breakable glass. Due to the design of Quake2, you won't enjoy this in internet multi-player games, but it definitely makes sense for games against bots or on a fast LAN. And, alas, I'm not aware of any AQ2 maps featuring breakable glass yet (all shots were recorded on a test map created by tekminus - see below).

The breaking of glass is integrated with our favourite AQ2 features such as jump kicks, grenade blasts, knifes, and team play rounds. More information, including details, source code, a Win32 server dll, a small demonstration map, and instructions how to add breakable glass to your new or existing maps is available here.

There's no need to inform the A-team, Fireblade or Zucchini about this; they already know. It is being considered for AQ2 1.52 (and "off" by default, of course).

I'll be off for most of the coming week (bizz trip). Have fun.

William

June 8, 1999

The CGF bots may be able to do complex things, but launching them via mission files requires us to do even more complicated things. Or so it seemed...

Ross "JoeSatch" Norton set out to do his part of the teamwork behind CGF: a beta of his no-nonsense CGF launcher now camps on our desktops, and helps us browsing through the missions, adjusting some settings, and launching us into the action.

His launcher will be part of the upcoming CGF release. Remember to give him a break if you notice his on-line keyboard skills have suffered...

William

June 1, 1999

It has taken some effort to get the bots to understand how to patrol a map. But now, the effort is theirs: it's fun to put in three patrolling teams, and to see which one comes out alive.


The bots string out pretty good while on the move, and carefully scan their surroundings. You won't catch more than one of them defenselessly on a ladder at the same time, unless the point man thinks the roof and surroundings are safe. They try to regroup just before moving around the corner. However, they don't use strafing.

While the bot fire teams do have a systematic way of patrolling a map (or a specific part of the map, such as the inside of a building, if the script says so), they are clever enough to vary their route. In addition, they update their patrol route to include locations where they lost track of a target: if you manage to get away from them, they won't forget to look for you :)

I've received some concerned mails about the 'demo' character (see below) of the first CGF release; 'Demo' sounded too much like a free preview of a commercial product.
Don't worry: the first release has a 'demo' character for one single reason: I'm not convinced I'll be able to put in all planned functionality in time. Just like ActionQ2 itself, CGF will be available for free.

Thanks very much for all the 'shooting range' offers. The shooting range I couldn't find is 'targ', created by Dr.Bob and you can download that map (and learn about AQ2 1.1 weapon accuracy) at his site. In addition, tekminus constructed a few custom maps to test some special bot behavior. You'll read (and see) about it in the next update.

William

May 18, 1999

Here it is: my best guess for the first CGF release is Monday, June 28. It will be a 'demo' version, limited to a select number of maps, and accompanied by a select number of missions.
If I need to drop planned features (see the list) to make the planned date, I'll do so.
The major things yet to be done are full integration with the Action Quake2 code base, including weapons/ammo handling and the use of doors.
Major system crashes, or negative advice from the A-Team and testers may force me to change that date, of course :(


The fire team patrolling is almost complete, and resulted in the screen shots above (actual bot performance may look less convincing at times - I picked the best shots of course). I 'just' need to add the 'patrol into engaging' transition, and make sure the fire team will include spotted target positions into their patrol route.

I could use some help from the map makers amongst you in tuning the bot's weapon handling: I'd like to have a simple 'firing range' map, where I can have the bots fire at a target wall with bullet holes enabled. That'll help in establishing the correct muzzle climb compensation and aiming errors for the bots.
A couple of months ago, screen shots from such maps did appear in one of the many weapon accuracy discussions.
If anyone knows where to get that map, or is able to create such a map at short notice (preferably a short range and long range one), please let me know (but don't mail the map itself).

Also, thanks for all the concerned mails. Yes, the bots are very much alive and improving. The lack of updates was caused by me being away for almost 3 weeks (biztrip and some mountain biking as well).
Finally, a small correction of the previous news: Timm 'timm' Stokke, map maker of 'jungle1' and 'teamjungle' fame, and CGF (and Gladiator) tester as well is not one of Bot Epidemic's web masters, but of late bot site Metropolis, and one of telefragged's bot board moderators.

William

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