First of all: read Michal Marcinkowski's Mapmaker Manual, the basics are explained quite well.
Waypointing isn't that difficult, you just have to understand a few things:
When a bot hits a waypoint it performs the action that is defined in the next waypoint connected to the one he met (if there are more than one connected, he chooses randomly). But if he doesn't hit the next waypoint he keeps performing that action until he hits another waypoint or until he hits a wall he can't climb. The bot won't do anything to get to the waypoint connected to the first one! He just performs the action you defined. What do we do to make sure that the bot gets to the next waypoint? This image shows it (means I am too lazy to explain it [:D] )
[IMAGE]
If he misses the one connected to the first one (referring to the image) it doesn't matter because he will hit one of the other ones and then perform the next action. (And if you get what I mean then you know what you have to do that he reaches the point where he is told to stop flying: put another line of points above and below the third point and connect them to the next waypoint (not in the image))
(Why I didn't put them directly above each other: If the bot hits one of the higher waypoints he doesn't need to fly that far, that's why I put them further to the third waypoint)
Another hint: you can tell them do do nothing, too (useful if you just want them to use the momentum they have (when flying or jumping) so that they don't go too far, but keep their direction. BUT: when telling them to do nothing you absolutely HAVE TO make sure they hit another waypoint, or they will stand around doing nothing)
The rest is trial and error: construct your waypoints -> add a bot in the same team as yours, watch him, if he doesn't hit a waypoint -> put in another waypoint -> watch -> put waypoints in -> watch -> put waypoints in -> and so on... and that IS time consuming, I can tell you [:D]
But if the bot isn't jumping or flying you don't need that many waypoints, usually one waypoint after another fits that situation quite well (but as always: try it with a bot and he will show you if you did anything wrong :) )
Here are two screenshots to inspire you:
[IMAGE]

[IMAGE]
A few words on the secound screenshot: The bot has to jump out of a hole in the ground, a task that even some humans don't seem to master [;)] . OK, what happens if he falls in the hole: either he directly hits one of the points leading to a jump point (yellow line) or he gets in one of the corners where he hits one of the points telling him to walk in the middle (resulting in hitting one of the yellow line waypoints) either way he'll jump up and hit one of the grey line waypoints (flying waypoints) and then he simply flies up and hits one of the walk right waypoints and he walks right and lands on the right side of the hole. (I tried it: the bot always gets out of the hole with one jump!)

The screenshots are taken from a map I'm working on at the moment. You'll be able to download it here in a few days..... maybe a few more [:D]

BTW: Yes this is my first post on this board and I'm quite new to soldat, but I like that game so much I just want to become part of the community somehow :)

What you have done here will work, yes that is true but, it is not good form and is very wasteful of the limited amount of waypoints allowed in a map. The point is not to try and take into account every single path a bot may take during his trip into that hole or every path he might take on his flight. The key is to as accurately as possible try and get the bot to the point you want him to reach and let the bot do the rest of the work. When I first started pathing I attempted this same approach and as you will soon realize there are not unlimited waypoints. You will run out and when you do about half way through this pathing scheme you will have to go back and start deleting waypoints. Since you will have placed 500 of them (the limit) You now have to go back and delete each one and reset it to a new command. Waypoints remember what they last were set to for the life of the map. Gets a bit tedious trust me on that.

So, to fix this I suggest instead of trying to make the bot jump out of the hole at every waypoint he encounters, direct the bot to one side or the other of the hole and have the bot jump out in only one spot. To the left or to the right depending on which way you want the bot to continue. If the bot gets distracted and falls back into the hole then he will just follow the waypoints back to the right or the left and jump again until he gets out of the hole.

The flight might work some of the time. But I suggest instead during the flight of the bot to where ever he is going in the above picture, instead of the 15 or 20 waypoints you have make sure the bot hits the first waypoint telling him to fly. Once he is in flight, he will continue until he runs out of fuel so at a set point tell him to stop flying and let the bot be effected by gravity. Make sure he is guiding himself with a right waypoint. He will eventually hit the ground in a right arc. If you want to make sure he hits a certain spot on the ground place a few waypoints along this arc. There is no way to path for every possible path a bot may take once he is falling it will just drive you crazy pathing. Example: If he sees an enemy he may start flying again or start going left. The key like I have said before is to try and get the bot to his destination but not over path for it he will eventually make it to the spot you want him to go to if you have ensured there are no barren spots in the map. By this I mean places where you have absolutely no paths. If the bots drops from the intended flight path he will hit the pathing below him and he will continue on foot to his destination, or you could have him attempt to fly again... Just make sure you don?t go back to wasting your waypoints if you want him to fly again.

Also, just a little hint to making sure a bot hits a waypoint.
Be sure your map is compiled before doing this. Poly = Polygon
1) Place a Poly over top of the waypoint you are unsure of
2) Save the map without compiling.
3) Play the map with a few bots on the map.
4) Walk over to the poly that is covering the waypoint and observe what the bots do
5) The poly will be non-solid, the bot will ignore it and pass through the poly
6) You should be able to easily tell if the bot is hitting the waypoint or not.
7) If he is not exit the game, go back to the map editor and move the poly and the waypoint.
8) Wash, rinse and repeat as necessary :)

Look forward to seeing your completed map.

quote:Originally posted by ArcWolf
What you have done here will work, yes that is true but, it is not good form and is very wasteful of the limited amount of waypoints allowed in a map.
True, I may have overdone it a little :) but I still think it's no waste to put 3 or 4 waypoints around the intendet one.

quote:You will run out and when you do about half way through this pathing scheme you will have to go back and start deleting waypoints. Since you will have placed 500 of them (the limit) You now have to go back and delete each one and reset it to a new command. Waypoints remember what they last were set to for the life of the map. Gets a bit tedious trust me on that.
Well, I could be wrong, but I remember it beeing easy to delete the additional points, as long as you don't touch the original path.


quote:So, to fix this I suggest instead of trying to make the bot jump out of the hole at every waypoint he encounters, direct the bot to one side or the other of the hole and have the bot jump out in only one spot. To the left or to the right depending on which way you want the bot to continue. If the bot gets distracted and falls back into the hole then he will just follow the waypoints back to the right or the left and jump again until he gets out of the hole.
I tried that in first place. The bot needed 4 or 5 attemts to come out of the hole (which is deadly in a ctf map). If you run out of waypoints, you may as well delete the hole (design your map around the bot). You may be right with the flying thing (especially taking your very useful hint with the walkthrough polys into account) : you don't need that many waypoints, if the bot gets distracted he won't follow the path anyway, but at coming out of a hole I don't see any other possibility (the bot has a momentum, making it impossible for him to hit the next point(after the jump) from both directions)


quote:The flight might work some of the time. But I suggest instead during the flight of the bot to where ever he is going in the above picture, instead of the 15 or 20 waypoints you have make sure the bot hits the first waypoint telling him to fly.
Yeah you're right, I have to admit [:D] My method is just for the lazy ones :)
quote:Also, just a little hint to making sure a bot hits a waypoint.
Be sure your map is compiled before doing this. Poly = Polygon
1) Place a Poly over top of the waypoint you are unsure of
2) Save the map without compiling.
3) Play the map with a few bots on the map.
4) Walk over to the poly that is covering the waypoint and observe what the bots do
5) The poly will be non-solid, the bot will ignore it and pass through the poly
6) You should be able to easily tell if the bot is hitting the waypoint or not.
7) If he is not exit the game, go back to the map editor and move the poly and the waypoint.
8) Wash, rinse and repeat as necessary :)
That is ONE USEFUL hint!!

quote:Look forward to seeing your completed map.
Look no further, I thought I might as well just release it :)
I'll post the link to it in a minute (want to keep map related discussions out of this thread)

Ok here is the link to the topic I posted my map in: http://archive.forums.soldat.pl/topic.php?topic_id=1016

quote:If you run out of waypoints, you may as well delete the hole (design your map around the bot).

Exactly!! About time someone else says this :) God knows how long I have. Bot friendly maps mean just that, BOTS WORK on them :) Human only maps, bots might work but not good or not at all. I've pathed for many a map and quite few of those maps should be categorized as HUMAN ONLY ... Let me tell you from experience, design your maps around what you know a bot can do and the bot pathing will NEVER let you down.

quote:Originally posted by ArcWolf
What you have done here will work, yes that is true but, it is not good form and is very wasteful of the limited amount of waypoints allowed in a map. The point is not to try and take into account every single path a bot may take during his trip into that hole or every path he might take on his flight. The key is to as accurately as possible try and get the bot to the point you want him to reach and let the bot do the rest of the work. When I first started pathing I attempted this same approach and as you will soon realize there are not unlimited waypoints. You will run out and when you do about half way through this pathing scheme you will have to go back and start deleting waypoints. Since you will have placed 500 of them (the limit) You now have to go back and delete each one and reset it to a new command. Waypoints remember what they last were set to for the life of the map. Gets a bit tedious trust me on that.

So, to fix this I suggest instead of trying to make the bot jump out of the hole at every waypoint he encounters, direct the bot to one side or the other of the hole and have the bot jump out in only one spot. To the left or to the right depending on which way you want the bot to continue. If the bot gets distracted and falls back into the hole then he will just follow the waypoints back to the right or the left and jump again until he gets out of the hole.

The flight might work some of the time. But I suggest instead during the flight of the bot to where ever he is going in the above picture, instead of the 15 or 20 waypoints you have make sure the bot hits the first waypoint telling him to fly. Once he is in flight, he will continue until he runs out of fuel so at a set point tell him to stop flying and let the bot be effected by gravity. Make sure he is guiding himself with a right waypoint. He will eventually hit the ground in a right arc. If you want to make sure he hits a certain spot on the ground place a few waypoints along this arc. There is no way to path for every possible path a bot may take once he is falling it will just drive you crazy pathing. Example: If he sees an enemy he may start flying again or start going left. The key like I have said before is to try and get the bot to his destination but not over path for it he will eventually make it to the spot you want him to go to if you have ensured there are no barren spots in the map. By this I mean places where you have absolutely no paths. If the bots drops from the intended flight path he will hit the pathing below him and he will continue on foot to his destination, or you could have him attempt to fly again... Just make sure you don?t go back to wasting your waypoints if you want him to fly again.

Also, just a little hint to making sure a bot hits a waypoint.
Be sure your map is compiled before doing this. Poly = Polygon
1) Place a Poly over top of the waypoint you are unsure of
2) Save the map without compiling.
3) Play the map with a few bots on the map.
4) Walk over to the poly that is covering the waypoint and observe what the bots do
5) The poly will be non-solid, the bot will ignore it and pass through the poly
6) You should be able to easily tell if the bot is hitting the waypoint or not.
7) If he is not exit the game, go back to the map editor and move the poly and the waypoint.
8) Wash, rinse and repeat as necessary :)

Look forward to seeing your completed map.



oh my god! did anybody ever seen such a huge post?
hm... anyway i think that's not the best possibility to make waypoints. it's too much work you know. you just have to think about what could go wrong. i.e. where could the bot go where there are no waypoints. you must check the places out and put some wp there so that the bots wouldn't stuck in there. although i must say i've used this method once myself but only for some fly-way-points. and i didn't use soooo much of them. but if you like it... do it that way.

i sortof (as in i thought of it without this) invented something v simmilar to the later 'polygon' waypoint checking, but i use scenery instead. And this method DOES work fine as long as you spend a little time making sure its well adjusted, and as well as using less waypoints the bot paths are generally better (at least in my exp)

um, thanks a lot arcwolf & paranoid, i didnt know sooooo many things!
now i can get a good map done & post it!