Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

Heres a thread for questions, comments, suggestions, and also a place where I can show off some of the latest work on Fritz. :)




Heres a small .avi movie of the new movement code that I'm working on ATM. Hopefully the bots will be getting stuck a LOT less now. This movie shows me down beside a MG42, which is blocking a medic bot from healing me, and how the medic bot figures out how to get to me anyhow. He then revives me as he's jumping over me, pops me a health pack, and then turns and runs off to fight some incoming enemies. Theres still a lot of work to do yet on this code, but its looking better every day, and they move pretty much like humans do (at least I think so :) ).

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

More progress today..........


In RtCW, you spawn with a limited amount of ammo, and there is no way to get more ammo, except from someone playing the LT class. A good human LT playing on a server will often drop ammo packs around the spawn area, so teammates can grab some as soon as they spawn.

So does Fritz. :)

In this .avi - I demonstrate his ability to lay down packs in a spawn area intelligently, and also another example of his teamwork: when I kill the bot, then revive him, he thanks me, and pops me some ammo for my trouble. Another good trait of a goodh human player, tho 80% of pub players don't understand that! :P

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

Also - be sure to check out my .plan file, which is at the top of this forum. Tho it doesn't show up in the "new posts" search, its being updated fairly often. This thread is a good place to discuss whats in that .plan file. :)

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

You've already finished the movement code ??? o_O
that's what eating all my time !!!

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

Heh, well - its probably NEVER going to be 100% perfect, hence the "for now" line in my .plan file, but yes - it works well, is realistic, and handles what I need it to do, so its done...... for now. :) ;) :D

Trust me, it wasn't easy - what I've incorporated into Fritz has been my experience over the last 5 years playing with bots, AI, and the Quake series of engines. ;)

Also, I think it may be simpler in RTCW than in HL - I don't have to do a bunch of sanity checks to make sure the bot isn't moving in a way that a client can't, because Fritz's movement is treated just like a clients in the game; so you won't see floating bots in RtCW, which is something I've seen in HL.

I REALLY wish you had access to RtCW - I'd like to hear your thoughts on how Fritz moves and behaves. :(

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

Some more movies. Recently I got the panzer into the game, and its looking pretty good. :)


Here are two movies - panzer1 is where I jump out from behind a wall, and jump back, the bot fires the rocket down at the ground where he saw me last, in the hopes of splash killing me - which he does! :D You see my brains splatter all over the map.

In Panzer2, I'm playing a game of cat and mouse: the first rocket nearly kills me, but I heal myself. He chases me down and finishes me off with the 2nd rocket.

The panzer and flamethrower will be fully supported this release. I'm not sure about the sniper yet - thats a bit more complex on a lot of levels, but it will be added in time.

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

One of the skills of the LT class is its ability to call airstrikes: it throws out a smoke cannister, and an airstrike comes a few seconds later. Its a powerful weapon, and can be used to flush out enemies, or kill a bunch in an area.


In this movie, Fritz uses it to cut me off in this room with pillars. Blocked by his air strike, I run right into his trap. :)

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

oooohhhh Your FPS is really bad!!

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

I can't help to be constantly impressed by your progress, Mal. It's as if you were coding for Fritz all day almost everyday !

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

Thats because of the way I make movies. Heres how its done:

1. I record a normal demo. Here, I'm getting normal frames with no problems.

2. I playback the demo, and while doing so, turn on Wolf's CL_AVIDEMO feature, which has it taking about 15-20 screenshots a SECOND! This is why you see the hurt on my frames - the computer is REALLY busy creating those shots. BTW: the best setting is CL_AVIDEMO 15, which is 15 frames per second. You can do more, but its not really needed.

3. I take those screenshots and use a program to combine them into an .avi movie. I use the "pjBmp2Avi" program, which lets you pick whatever codec you want to use, and how you want to compress it. I compress them pretty hard, to keep the filesize down, which is why they look fuzzy.


Playing normally, with the settings turned up fairly high, and 10 or so bots on a map, playing on a P3, 866, I never dip below 60 FPS. :)
Needless to say, keeping these bots fast is very important to me, since I have an older system - if I wasn't careful, I wouldn't be able to play them myself. :(

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

yes amazing work in such little time.. it's been just a little under a month since you've said you broke the bot :D

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

Heres another movie of a feature I just got in today - the bots use nades now!! :D

In this movie, I'm fighting an axis bot who has a panzer. For those who don't know, in RtCW the panzer is a rocket launcher that can only be fired every 20 seconds or so, normally. After you've fired, your left with your pistol, knife, and grenades until you can shoot again. Smart usage of your grenades and pistol in this weak state (between panzer recharges) is critical to staying alive!

At the start of the movie, the bot blasts me around a corner with his panzer, then chases me. He tosses a nade around the corner then another in my face when he sees me again. Once visible, he uses his pistol, until I round another corner, in which case the nade comes out again and around the corner it goes!

Note that I'm in god mode this whole time, which is why hes not hurting me (else I would have been killed several times over!).

Nade support is still very new, and theres a lot of work to do yet, but its a start. :)

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

Nice work,

Any idea when you will be putting out the next release? ;)

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

I've decided Sept 15 (two weeks from today) - gives me enough time to work on a few things Fritz needs, and plenty of time to debug and look for problems (of which there are a few yet).

Mark your calendar. :)

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

Thanks to "The Ghost" Fritz also has a pretty sharp looking new look and UI. :)


Heres a pic of the main screen.


Special thanks to The Ghost for taking the time to create the new UI.

Cheers!

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

I thought it already looked like that?

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

I just made a few changes, wanted to keep the file size small.

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

There are more changes than just the main screen. A lot of it you have to actually see for yourself to appreciate - some new things: new console, credit screen, menu backgrounds, etc, etc. Some things were changed, others just reskinned or recolored to fit a theme for Fritzbot.

Also - I've added a few new features to the menus that will make starting a fritzbot game easy: the game will scan thru your maps, only showing CP maps, and only those CP maps that the bots have paths for, a few clicks and your in the game. :)

It looks really nice - sorta dark, yet simple.

Heres a pic of the default Wolf menu for reference.

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

Heres another movie. This one shows something I just added today: the bot's ability to detect grenades in the world, and airstrikes, and move away from them to a safe position.

In this movie, I toss grenades at Fritz, and he simply moves away until he reaches a safe distance. Then I toss an airstrike at him. As you can see - the airstrike has a lot wider damage radius, so Fritz moves a lot farther from it then he did the grenades. And he understands how a grenade works: if I had tossed it behind a wall, or in front of someone else, he wouldn't have worried about it.

Its not perfect - but it works. :)

Theres a lot of work to do to make it more "realistic" - they see and hear them a little too well, as well as balance it for the skills, but its a start.

Fritz WON'T be able to "see" artillery strikes in this version - those are a different beast altogether. ;)

Re: Fritz Phase Two Progress Thread
 

More progress made every day.....


One of the things I didn't like about the last version, was that if the bot realized it was low on health or ammo, it would call out for more, but it would never be smart enough to go up to a LT or MEDIC to get those supplies.

I've seen this on pub servers with humans too - some n00b screaming he needs ammo, and your behind him chasing him desperatly trying to give him some, and he just keeps running away!

Well, Fritz isn't a n00b anymore (at least on high skills)! :P He "sees" your class now, and if your someone he needs supplies from, he MAY decide to go up to you and bugger you for some! :D

Hes pretty smart about it too - he'll look around the area while you resupply him, to make sure no enemies are sneaking up on the both of you. One of the greatest n00b mistakes humans often make, is that while your resupplying them, they blankly stare at you and don't notice the enemy sneaking up to kill you both! >:(

The last version of Fritz was weak in that sense too - it was easy to catch two bots resupplying each other and kill them both because they would both be so focused on what they were doing.

Not anymore. :) ;)


Heres the skill layout:

Low skill: your average n00b. Screams for everything, isn't bright enough to get it! :) You'll have to chase him down to resupply him.

Medium skill: smarter. Knows your class and will get ammo from you. Not very aware of whats going on around it while getting supplies tho.

Hard Skill: Very aware, very smart about getting supplies and following your ass around.



On a general note - a lot of the skill based differences aren't really in effect yet. Theres a good reason for this - for one, I think its easier to make a really smart bot at first, then dumb it down for the different skills. Two, since Fritz is still new, and people still don't know what its capable of yet, it'd be annoying for someone to play with only a skill 1 Fritz bot, then assume the bot sucks, instead of trying all skill levels before judging. So for now, Fritz will play at its best for the most part (there are differences in the skills, don't worry tho!).

Next version (after the one thats due this Sept 15), I'm going to work on creating "characters". For example: bots with a low sense of teamwork may not give ammo/health as much as a bot with high teamwork, some bots may be cowards, others Rambos, etc, etc.