Howz My Waypoint style?
 

i wanna see what u guys think... (it'z a beta wp)

de_egypt:
it's an excellent map for bots because it's so simple like de_dust an small


(i'll move everything to file base if u's approve :) and\or to my geocities\brinkster)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Just d/l'ed the WP file... now I gotta find the map...

/me goes to a map archive... stand by...

ok, just d/l'ing. Hmm... I hate that.
de_egypt = de_gypt = de_legato, as it seems >:(
Well, now I have 2 identical maps with different names, I fear...

Anyway, gonna try your WP today.

-= EDIT =-

Just had a look at it - so the map is NOT identical. It's another map by the same author, using the same textures and 80% of the layout of de_legato, but it's more like a remake with some slight changes.
Ok, the waypoints: There's much light and some shadow. Let's start with the good things:
- You are not too lazy to cover the entire map with WPs, that's very good.
- You try to make bots take use of some difficult routes - like going over that log near T start and jumping onto the other side... very nice!
This sounds like it's not much - but in fact, these are two key features a WP must have. Keep it up like that. The rest is fine-tuning (see below).

Now some of the points I didn't like:
- Too big radii in many places - bots will bump into walls. Take care of the WP radii in narrow passages, don't be afraid to decrease them to 16 or even 0, especially at doors / doorways / narrow gaps in a wall.
- You hardly used the apmd settings - I can tell because there are some "overlapping connections", i.e. it's not like this: A <=> B <=> C, but A is also directly connected with C and vice versa. It also makes jumps and ledges (that's when wrong connections can be drawn quite easily) much easier to WP if you lower the distance.
- You didn't pay sufficient attention to bad connections - in some (very few) places, connections cut corners too closely; in other places there are non-critical wrong connections up a crate ("non-critical" meaning that bots will get up there, but first bump into the crate). In some places, connections down from too big heights need to be erased - if bots followed these connections, they'd lose too much health.
- Your jumps are weird. In many cases, you have a crouch WP directly in fornt of a low wall / crate, then a jump (or even just a bidirectional connection) to a WP on top of the obstacle. Try placing the WP on top of the wall first, and then practise jumping directly up from a bigger distance. As soon as you've found a good position, place a WP there and now draw a jump connection from that WP to the one on top of the wall. Thus, bots won't have to bump into the wall and then struggle up but come running and jump smoothly up. Your jumps over obstacles are the same. Take the one near T start (through that arch and over the low wall): Just place one WP on each side of the arch, and then jump through it in one big leap, without landing on the wall. This will result in much faster and more elegant movement.
- Keep an eye on where you waypoint funky stuff like that camp WP on top of the palm tree near T start. This is a nice feature, but if you waypointed this one, then you should have waypointed the palm tree at one bomb spot as well. It's also reachable, and a surprising camp point at one bomb spot is much more important than one at T start, where hardly any action takes place.

The basis is already good, all it takes now is a good load of tweaking & tuning... and do get into the habit of using apmd settings and radius settings a lot! You may even consider turning connections to fully manual when waypointing ledges and jumps.

9_9 Gee, i hope I didn't discourage you. You're definitely on the right track, don't let this bit here get you down. Rather take it as a motivation to get even better - it can never hurt to have more good waypointers in the boat. If I expressed myself too badly, just PM me or ask right here - and I'm already looking forward to seeing the next version of this WP, btw! =)

-= EDIT 2 =-

Just had a look at it in game, and those jumps sure are strange. Many of the smaller inaccuracies don't show much in game. However, some jumps don't seem to work. The one from the gallery to that very high crate at one bomb spot, for example. Bots fall down there, and not just once in a while. Whenever you have difficult jumps or ledges or whatever, save your stuff, restart, add a bot and command him around in debuggoal mode. Make him try all the difficult stuff and see if it works.

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

hehe thanx...yeah i noticed that ocassionally the bump into walls but not that much in game...that jump onto the palm tree at t camp was just for fun co i accidetally landed there whilst i was trying to goto the water..same with the one further down on the tree :D
and they also don't seem to use that camp anyways :)

the jump onto the crate a the bomb spot from the window was unfinished so i just connected it with an outgoing coz i was wanting to test some other stuff
and the one on the opposite wall going through the wall actually works well ..they seem to not lose any health at some stages and others they will. much like humans ;)

hmm the a<->b<->c thing i thought that having a<->c wouldn't really matter
as it would just mean they would skip past b?


i have one question how can i make the t's go stright from their spawn throught the doors and up the ramp in the corridor....
i can neva get em to go that way :'( from round start

edit:
oh i did do it all manually no autowp
also i dont waypoint with bot(s) in game coz i tends to give me game crashes..so the only way i can is watch them during in game wp off...

i'll do an update today....=)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

I would not put any camp spots near a spawn area of an "attacking team"(T's on a DE_map or CT's on a CS_map, AS_map)

because one bot going from C to A and one bot going from A to B are going to get stuck on each other....theres more combinations for this problem to which increase its prbability of happening :) no real big deal tho. this stuff is fine tuning

make sure they die on the other route A LOT. or you can increase the danger_factor in the podbot.cfg

yeah....and watch those waypoint radii.....

place normal waypoinits in your "to camp" corner.....reduce the APMD to option 130....and place your camp start and end.....then increase the APMD back to whatever you want.......i personally am constantly switching APMD because i dont want to erase at all :) hehe

before they added the point add/del feature i managed to get a complete waypoint finished without opening the console to erase or add by simply haveing good control of this APMD feature. Its really great

Good Job dude.......once you perfect this map.......you will do the next one much better! keep it up :)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

hehe..i found so many mistakes in that one...8o

well fixed em added some new stuff.....

edit:
good newz: i found some of my really old wp like debridge =) so i'll update them too..so u should a few other maybe next week :)

fixed that jump onto crate at bomb site...works nicely althought sometime they don't make it..but most times they do...

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

It's always the same with waypoints: In game, most little inaccuracies aren't even noticeable. Take the thing with overlapping connections: It's just not the cleanest way to connect WPs and -as SoUlFaThEr said- increases the probability of bots getting stuck in each other slightly. My main objection against overlapping connections is that they clutter up the whole waypoint system and make it harder to spot from where to where bots can go. But in game you won't be able to tell if connections overlap or not if you haven't seen it with WP on.
About camp waypoints: Yes, F is right - first place all normal WPs you want, and then set apmd to a really low value before you finally place the camp WP in a corner or wherever. This will prevent the camp WP from having tons of (mostly overlapping) connections right through the room.
Another strategy to get terrorists along the ramp route is to place some important WPs there. Bots are programmed to check on these WPs every now and then, and if they go to the ramp to patrol an important WP, they can as well follow this passage towards map goal instead of taking all the way back to the "normal" passage. Besides, it can take ages until they have tried all alternatives. On one map, I didn't see bots use a certain route until the 12th round - but from that round on, they took it as often as others.
Ok, enough for now - I'll test your "beta2" today. ;)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

ahh i finally understand what sf was trying to say.....

thanx but i just delete all connections i don't like from each wp it'z nicer that way and makes certain that they work right..

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

=) Of course, that's up to you - whatever you like best. Everybody has a different way of working, everybody has a different waypointing style; and I think that's definitely positive.
Here, have a look at that. I rewaypointed 2 spots: The area right at T spawn (up to that wooden gate) and the passage over that log to the little camping area (from T spawn, through the gate, straight towards the stairs and then right over the log) to show how I like jumps and stuff. You'll see what I mean once you have WP on. Watch how smoothly bots can jump there and how little nodes you actually need... ;) and of course, there is not one connection more than necessary, as you will see. Don't overwrite your work with this one, just look at it and take it a little inspiration or whatever...

Oh, sh*t. I forgot you can't upload RARs here. Well, I just renamed it to ZIP, but it's still a RAR archive. Open with WinRAR and you ought to be fine... ;)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

cs_beersel....nice map

wp beta 1

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Muhahaha... nice package! cs_beersel.pvi, cs_beersel.pxp and... cs_beersel_f.pwf! Amusingly enough, the pwf you included is made by some bloke called >BKA< T Wrecks... never heard of him... :P
Seriously: You put the wrong pwf inside; you got my old beersel_f waypoint instead, which you obviously d/l'ed from here some time ago... ;)

Oh, btw, what happened to de_egypt? I'd like to see what you can come up with when you make a final... 'cuz you're definitely on a good way. 8D

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

whoops i thought i was careful when i packaged it :o
i haven't done anything to egypt yet coz i've been doing some other maps

de_snipeit5
cs_church2
cs_1701e (still tweaking it)

and i got exams in the next week and in 3 weeks :( but hopefully in a month i can put up a beta pack :)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Ah, ok. I didn't mean to rush you, take your time. Whenever you have something finished, I'll be glad to look at it. How about that cs_beersel? Have you fixed the d/l link already?
/Me rushing you... :D

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

no coz i'm at work right now... will be there later on tonite pacific time

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Hi! Im curious on this!! Ive searched the net and came up with de_egypt.bsp (1504828.) as_riverside.wad (1612640) and es_frantic.wad (670536)..
Unfortunatly the waypoints doesnt work... The bot are standing and jumping up to the walls.. Can you plz tell me wich map do I need? And where can I find it?

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

???:( What do you mean? You searched for this map de_egypt and found the bsp plus these two WAD files? Were they included in the zip? That's strange, because you don't even need them for that map. The archive I d/l'ed contained just the BSP and nothing else. (well, the txt that comes with the BSP, of course). You can get it here: http://www.csbanana.com/dl/dl.php?301
If you want your PODBots to be able to move on this map, you can take the beta WP Huntakillaz posted here - it has some bugs & errors, but it's a start. And as you have read, he'll be working on it (and I will keep nagging) until he got a good WP set finished.

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

oh great another mom! :'( :P

k here's 4 files in beta1 so far... (they all beta's)

de_snipeit5 b1
de_egypt b3
cs_1701e b2
cs_beersel b1

----next one's added later on----(don't nag me :), it'll probably be in a months time)
de_bridge
de_cityrush
cs_church2
cs_hive_apc

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Don't pull faces when I'm talking to you! And for christ's sake, look at me! Sheesh.. did you even wash your hands before you touched that keyboard? :P

Hmm... that looks good. You're doing exactly those maps I haven't done so far. If I can nag you into becoming an ace waypointer before driving you crazy, this could eventually make its way into a custom map WP pack #3 !

Ooooh, cs_hive_apc! That's a good one - there you can show what you are capable of... the balconies, the roof, the door button, the narrow interior, jump sequences, and most of all that padlocked door... 9_9

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

There are different de_egypt.bsp on the net... The first one I found was tho one in the quote and that one needed both thoose wad-files for to work.....
After some more searching I found de_egypt.bsp (4681676) and that one worked just fine!! Thanks for the tip... :)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Uuh, yes... Now you mention it, I think I remember having read something about naming trouble with de_egypt. Somehow the map was going to be renamed to de_gypt from some version on, but it was very confusing - especially since the map is actually nothing more than an early verison (or a modification) of de_legato. And de_legato is the only one around with this name. Maybe Lazy (the mapper) decided to choose a completely different name to end the confusion, and while he was at it, made some redesigns to improve gameplay... just speculation, of course.
Anyway, what matters is that you got it now, so you'll be able to play it - and maybe assist me in nagging poor Huntakillaz into tweaking his WP again and again... :D
(my sadistic vein is showing again...)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

i got an old one which i did and it worked really well....:) but it's got alot of errors still n i have to fix the camps...


ps: i just choose random maps that i dont have wp for and do em or if i like the map i'll redo the wp's....guess so far i've been lucky none of them have been done by u ;)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Yup, so far your choice has been remarkably lucky concerning possible double-waypointed maps.

Ok, now here's some detailed feedback on cs_beersel and de_egypt - I don't have the other two maps on my HD right now, so more on them later.
I included 20 screenies with text/suggestions/remarks for cs_beersel and 10 for de_egypt...

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

ooooooo nice style..i like it :)

as for de_egypt seems my brother 's been messing with it...i havent put in some of those wp' s 8o

cs_beersel.....hehe no hostage flags and camp tweaking are one of the last things i do so hence why a lot was missing or wronged...also it wasn't till after i submitted it that i found out while playing that i had left out places in adjusting the wp's like that room where the door camp u said n the room with the table....

coz what i do now is my brother goes round doing the waypointing and i go round adjusting em (or pretty much replacing all of them (de_egpyt):P) but i'm trying to make him better too...so some of cs_beersel was done by him...

i'll go change em....and the next upload i do will also contain cs_church2

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

o_O Does that mean we're gonna see "Hunta Bros." waypoints soon? :D

Uh, ok. Well, if you have similar styles, this way of working might, er... work. I hate tweaking existing WPs a lot. I'd rather do them all new - provided I have the time, of course. So ok, let's see how the next version turns out...

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

nah..it''l be just me (since right no i practically re wp everything he does... :P)
but i gonna let him do maps that arnt good for bots lie cs_rats n stuff
that'll get him to learn tricks of wpin :)

back to y i'm posting.....

i did some tweaks to de_egpyt (it's gotten alot better =) ) that little sniper place across the beam ...now alot of bots go there

re did that bomb site with that t pt'er that was on that box with the massive radius....i left the crouch goal wp's coz when in game bot's hid behind there and kinda do a suprise attack ... (got killed by that somany times :()

made a few more jumps off ledges..but here's where the downside of this comes ...bot lose a lot of hp to me 10 or less hp is acceptable.

most jumps they make it's possible to lose up to 5 but they seem to lose 15-25 coz they seem to go flying right over the ledge even though there's a wp on the ledge and there's no direct connection to the one on the ground...

so i'm asking whats a good way to make em do this right..

i know i can make them not jump off in the 1st place ..but it's advantageous for ct's a little life for a possible kill :)

if u want me to send u the latest one i can (filebase tonite)

after i fix these jumps and a few no clip wp's i think it'll be finalized
------------------------
cs_beersel is looking pretty good to now...though i'm still tweaking it.. fixed the stuff u said n more
------------------------

had time to look at the other maps?? ..don't rush if u don't.
de_snipeit5 has been changed a bit so don't bother if u do decide to...i'm having major ladder problems n am trying various work arounds to it.

----eagerly await u r feedbak-------

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Generally speaking, if you want the bots to spread more into a particular location, put more waypoints there. Alternatively, if you feel the bots take the same route too often, rarify the waypoints there.

The key is how much paths there are among all those wayoints. For example, in a small corridor, if you put waypoints like this:
then there will be only one path through all these waypoints. And as soon as ONE bot is killed around one of these waypoints, the WHOLE team won't take this route for a couple rounds. If you want this to happen less, arrange yourself so that there are more than one route in this corridor.
lol :D now the sketch is so screwed nobody can understand anything :D
well... I hope you see the point

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Don't worry; I understand it perfectly (I think). The second sketch is exactly the way I like to waypoint corridors - not a single line of waypoints, where all connections together form one long, almost straight line, but two parallel lines, with waypoints on one side placed exactly where there's a gap between two WPs on the other side. As a result, the connections form a bunch of triangles, so to speak... (hell, I suppose that was even worse than your sketch, PMB! :D ) Of course, inside a vent or something, this two-line pattern would be HIGHLY exaggerated... it should be reserved for wider corridors, of course - wide enough for 2 bots to pass each other without touching, that is.
Ok, now back to the actual topic: The solution to your jump problem in de_egypt is easy to explain, but maybe difficult to implement, because you need space. Ok, here's how you make them "land" on the wall first and THEN drop down:
Make the jump onto the top of those knee-high walls as long as possible, so that you barely reach the goal WP (jump goal, of course, not map goal). Try making them jump onto the wall in an angle that's more acute than the approx. 90° where you may have most of the jumps (I suspect). This makes it easier to have bots hit the top of the wall instead of jumping just over it. Make 'em jump up there in an angle of 30-45°; that ought to leave some headroom. (Gee, I hope I got you right and this acually explains a bit...)
How much HP loss is acceptable... well, I guess you could discuss about this topic for ages, and I don't think there is ONE solution. My "threshold" is 5 HP, unless it's a connection that can give a remarkable advantage and/or is likely to be taken few times and mostly a short time after round start, when all bots still have 100 HP. But this is just my philosophy in this respect, and there are hundreds of other possibilities. After all, I don't want you to clone my waypointing style in every respect. ;)
No, so far I haven't had time to look at the others. We had a very bad time @ work, but the coming week looks a lot better. I'm quite optimistic I'll have a chance to d/l, check and comment the other maps next week. :)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

@pmb what was u replying to? ???:(

@>BKA< T Wrecks thanx i'll try that...:) ...

oh and no worries...i probably have and new update for all the wp's by then =)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

I was just giving an advice related to waypoints... :)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

just a cute question........would it be possible to get a bot to do strafejumps :)

i had this idea about these jump maps(often full of strafe jumps or jumps where you must strafe to extend the distance you fly(even with double and triple strafes before you land!)

i could imagine making a jump map for bots........LOL and film a bot going through the map with the ease of a tru Pro........would be cool to see and even harder to waypoint :)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

..*update* seems i won't be doing anything this month, with exams and work..i dun have the time :(

but after that i got a 3 week break :D so hopefully i can get a 10 map final pack :) by the end of july.
--almost done----
de_snipeit5
cs_church2
cs_1701e
cs_beersel
de_egypt
cs_church2
--redo's---
de_bridge
de_cityrush
cs_hive_apc

actually my brother's done an excellent job on cs_gamma_assualt i haven't had a very good look but a brief look at it and i was impressed..he's getting to my standards faster than i goto where i am :P

porbably coz i learn't everything myself mostly..

anyways i taught him a few new things but most of it was doen well by him :)
....

so u'll probably see some from him too :D

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

lol, so we WILL have HuntaBros. waypoint releases. :D
And your choice is really remarkable. I waypointed cs_beersel and cs_hive_apc for PB 2.5, but the other ones I never did. Oh yes, and de_bridge. Maybe even for 2.6mm. I never released it, though, as it didn't convince me 100%. But the other ones... I didn't even FIND de_snipeit5 for d/l anywhere!

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

[Double posting on purpose, so that the new post gets noticed...]

Hi Huntakillaz! I know, I took much time, but I finally have some screenies from cs_1701e. You know, I'm currently doing pretty much the same for / with biohazerd87, and it's hard to be a "nanny" for two waypointers at once... :D

Ok, all particular comments and suggestions are in the screenies, as usual.

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

lol........i've already fixed those and more..i had problems deleting the lift wp's and trying to make ct's to go that way....(finally got 1 to go there :) but not very much)


i took what u told me on de egypt and applied it to all maps...so when i do my next release u should see very few errors :)

ps: the ct's don't come through those back doors coz of that button problem.

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Can't wait to see your next release... ;)

Ah, and if these doors in cs_1701e don't work, maybe the map could use a "treatment" with Austin's bsp editing tool? Like, a door button amputation? :D

Ok, looking forward to your next post. =)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

the next de_egypt with the pack will be final :D (so gimme any probs now :))

and the map de_snipeit5 (has alot of ladder bugs) and wp's (unfinished)

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Checked your de_egypt... you'll find all details in the well-known screenies I attached.
The general impression is: Yes. This is good stuff, and there isn't a single serious point left to criticise, just some minor thingies that still stand between you and total 1337ness... :D But seriously, you're on your way! You took your time, listened to the feedback you got, changed very much and found some really neat solutions. Do you remember how your first version looked? Wouldn't you agree that this WP set is now far better than before?
One interesting question now is: Can you come up with such a waypoint set entirely on your own, without 2 or 3 beta versions and feedback? Just from scratch to 1337 ? I think you can, seriously. Try it. If you don't succeed, no problem. But I think you are one of those guys who eventually WILL be capable of releasing real HQ stuff on their own. The potential is there, all it takes is a continuing commitment to maniacal thoroughness and some more routine & experience... if you do everything right, you'll always find things to change, to try out & to improve... your 50th map won't look the same as the 5th. My 50th map sure looked different from the first ones, and the ones I waypoint now are again something different... 8D

Oh, as short note about de_snipeit5: Those ladders are HORRIBLE! Not your ladder WPs, I mean the func_ladders this mapper made. He must have been a beginner. They're far too thick.
Try to make bots leave the ladder to the side (not forwards, which would get them on top of that thick func_ladder), and bots who want to go down maybe will fare best if they drop from the opposite wall to the ladder.

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

thnax dude :)

some stuff
screenshot:

1) bot's make it over so it's fine :P
4) i tried a similar on the tree at t base it doesn't work,they still can't jump to that normal thats currently there so i'm gonna leave it :)

5) in game those wp's work differently than it's made to be...they won't alwasy goto the top to camp :)

sometimes the bots go onto it but at that camp the move forward coz of the wall..so the end up hiding behind the pillars...wasn't my intention but turned out to be good :P

6) in game dangerfactors makes ct's go there anyways

10) was intentional ...i did it to ct's can come up behind T faster than going all the way round

well thats about it ..ill fix the few things and i still got 2 falls to create work arounds of :( and then its final :)..

ps: now i do em alot better first time.......u should see my 2.5 wp's they were so horrible 8o

these beta's helped me get from where i was to now....thanx T wrecks

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

ooo today i figured out how to get the bots through that underwater tunnel in de_bridge ..without dying all the time (one way though :( )

..they still do sometimes but most of them get through only going down by max 30 hp......:D

....i'm gonna try some other stuff to reduce it more ..... but that'll be later next week

if u wanna have a looksy tell me i'll upload it

and maybe u can give me a hint as well on how to do a low hp drop from the rocks on the t' side of the bridge currently i lose 50

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

Hey, it was fun to send back comments and stuff and see how you improved... work, but also fun. :) Glad you made such progress!

@de_egypt: Hehe, ok! I accept what you say. You know, it's not always easy for me to separate badly waypointed spots from those that are just waypointed in a way that's just radically different from my style... but your arguments sound sensible after all.

@de_bridge: Oh yeah, that underwater tunnel is hell. I once got it to work with less than 20 HP loss towards the bridge, but from the bridge into the tunnel? I think I've tried just about everything, and it never worked reliably enough - which is a pity, because it would be a nice possibility for the CTs to get behind the Ts' backs. But apparently something went wrong there (map-wise), there's some invisible barrier. :(
Low HP drop from the rocks on the T side of the bridge? Sorry, I don't know which place you mean - screenie? ;)

@old waypoints: I know EXACTLY what you mean. My "old" waypoints weren't even that old, but holy shit... I had a totally different style back then, and those bugs and errors - rraaahh! :D

Re: Howz My Waypoint style?
 

woot i now got them to go through with no damage or only get 1 drain of hp...
unless the go back in to that tunnel (yeah i got it as one way but ocassionally they would got the other way to the specified path ???:( )


//still ufinished as i got some bugs and bad connections :P