Howz My Waypoint style?

[Huntkillaz]

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)

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

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.

[Huntkillaz]

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
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....

[SoUlFaThEr]

Originally Posted by Huntkillaz

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
and they also don't seem to use that camp anyways

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)

Originally Posted by Huntkillaz

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?

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

Originally Posted by Huntkillaz

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

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

[Huntkillaz]

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...

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

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.

[Huntkillaz]

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..

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

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...

[Huntkillaz]

cs_beersel....nice map

wp beta 1

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

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...
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