botclip

[Tyrantworm]

i'm putting down some botclip and am wondering, if I cover the entrance to an area that I don't want bots to go, then I shouldn't have to put botclip in the actual area, correct?

also, if an area is only reached through a teleport, then if I bot clip in and around the teleport entry, I shouldn't have to botclip the area reached by the teleport, correct?

thanks

[Foo]

Seems about right, as long as there's really no way for a bot to get to the area, including spawning there. If there is, things might get fruity.

However, it would be simplest just to draw one or a couple of very large botclips over the entire area you want to keep from the bots. Big clip brushes = good. Even if they cross outside the hull (I think).

[Tyrantworm]

ok, so I have drilled into my head that brush overlap is very very bad. I guess I got that in the sense of not being a sloppy mapper.

you are saying that I can just draw big boxes of clip and all is fine. won't hurt compile times....somehow I got the idea that brush overlap increased compile times....not sure where I got that or if it's even true.

if i can indeed draw big clips, then that would be very very fine indeed.

[Foo]

It's definitely the case with regular clip brushes, in that when the level collision wossname (hull?) is compiled, having a big clip brush round a load of smaller brushes means they're totally discarded for the purposes of the clip hull, thus creating a smaller clip hull.

So I'm running with that and reasoning that the same is true of crafting the bot's clip hull. Not gospel though... probably best to ask one of the compiler/engine gurus, or run some small-scale test maps/compiles and watch the numbers closely for number of discarded brushes and total bot clip sizes...

[zZCastleZz]

i'm putting down some botclip and am wondering, if I cover the entrance to an area that I don't want bots to go, then I shouldn't have to put botclip in the actual area, correct?

also, if an area is only reached through a teleport, then if I bot clip in and around the teleport entry, I shouldn't have to botclip the area reached by the teleport, correct?

thanks

In quake 3 keep in mind that bot clip doesn't work exactly like clip brushes do for the player.

all bot clip does is designate volumes where the AAS files do not bother to calculate information on compile. Bot clip doesn't actually act as a clip brush that physically blocks bot movement. Rather what it will do is make it so bots don't ever need to think about what ever is with in the bot clip.

In other words placing a bot clip in the doorway wont necessarily cause a bot to never enter the area with in. While also dragging out a large bot clip volume covering an entire area would make it impossible for a bot to ever know how to navigate out of said room if he ever was somehow knocked in there.

Lol putting a thin bot clip in a doorway might only cause a bot to think he needs to just jump through it instead of walk. LOL pesky bots..

I'm not sure if placing a bot clip in a doorway would actually cause AAS compiler to thus ignore the connecting area provided that it is fully closed off from all other areas. however, My personal feelings are that bot clipping is mostly just for optimization and not something you will typically use for bot navigation.

If you use too much bot clipping you might find times where a bot finds himself stuck in a void of conscience with in a bot clip lol..

As far as overlapping brushes.
Do what you need to do, avoiding overlapping brushes is more or less contextual and situational. There are times when you want to keep things clean and there are times when you want to drag a large clip brush over an area.

While its ideal to strive for the cleanest level design you possibly can it also shouldn't hold you back from getting things done!

[obsidian]

botdonotenter?

[spookmineer]

Using bot clips is most efficient if you're actually making geometry simpler.

For human players it might be possible to rocketjump to the highest point in some arched hallway, for bots it's enough if this hallway is represented as a simple rectangular box.

With fairly complex geometry for normal brushes (collision for humans) it's enough to sort of clad all the complex geometry with bot clips. You (and bots) will not notice that all they "see" is a simple hallway, or a series of rectangular boxes to navigate through.

I ended up with bot clips in such a way, that all geometry was narrowed down to almost box-like chambers/rooms/atriums. If you make sure that the normal brushes don't stick through the bot clips (meaning, bots won't be able to see the normal brushes sticking out through the bot clips), compile (aas) time will be shorter, and game play will be a *lot* smoother.

Bots are stupid, they don't need to see the map the way humans do, all they need is a (sometimes somewhat smaller) map to navigate through.
Overlapping bot clips makes perfect sense, if they keep the map simple for bots.

[Tyrantworm]

well, the bot clip did what I wanted it to do. I have places in the map that bots just don't need to know about, so, I wanted the compiler to ignore these areas where the bots were concerned.

the botclip took my aas from 17mb to 6mb, so, that's a win for me.

the only issue i'm having now is, when I run the bot compiler, the map won't run, I get a hunk_allocatedtempmemory failed on: ****** error

the map will run fine when I don't compile for bots.

I may have to just chalk this one up to no bots.

it's a thinkin man's map anyhow, bots are nothing more than fodder.

[Magnus]

botdonotenter?

Yea that is what I was thinking. Actuall botclip will act like a concrete block or wall to bots.

Create a small room and place a wall of botclip all the way across the room from top to bottom and place 2 spawn points in the room and a RL.
Now shoot a rocket at the bots feet and blow it back towards the other side of the room and the bot will seem to hit an invisible wall when it makes contact with the botclip.
Place the second spawn point on the other side of the room and fill that half of the room with botclip and from what I have seen the bot will stand there as if stuck in place.

If you use botdonotenter in the same ways the bot will not try to go past the botdonotenter wall, but can get knocked through it and if they spawn or get inside a volume filled with botdonotenter they will navagate out of that brush.

I could be wrong, but I am fairly sure on this one.

Using bot clips is most efficient if you're actually making geometry simpler.

For human players it might be possible to rocketjump to the highest point in some arched hallway, for bots it's enough if this hallway is represented as a simple rectangular box.

With fairly complex geometry for normal brushes (collision for humans) it's enough to sort of clad all the complex geometry with bot clips. You (and bots) will not notice that all they "see" is a simple hallway, or a series of rectangular boxes to navigate through.

I ended up with bot clips in such a way, that all geometry was narrowed down to almost box-like chambers/rooms/atriums. If you make sure that the normal brushes don't stick through the bot clips (meaning, bots won't be able to see the normal brushes sticking out through the bot clips), compile (aas) time will be shorter, and game play will be a *lot* smoother.

Bots are stupid, they don't need to see the map the way humans do, all they need is a (sometimes somewhat smaller) map to navigate through.
Overlapping bot clips makes perfect sense, if they keep the map simple for bots.

Ahmen!