Argorha Pathfinding 0.3 in GOOF (GOOF binaries included)

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Argorha Pathfinding 0.3 in GOOF (GOOF binaries included)

Post by bibiteinfo »

The Argorha Pathfinding is aimed to find a path into the polygon soup without man intervention.

The GOOF binaries and the src for the Argorha pathfinding can be found there : http://sourceforge.net/project/platform ... _id=202941

The Argorha Pathfinding looks like this:
Image
Image


The main idea of this pathfinding is to put together all the areas where an actor can move. A freely movable area is called a sector. Having sectors is not sufficient; we need to know how to go trough from a sector to another sector. This is defined by portals. These sectors and portals are pre-processed in an editor and they will be used into a game to find the path of an NPC.

In the pictures, the red parts are the sectors and the blue parts are the portals. Once the sectors and portals are generated, we use an algorithm called A* to know where to move. The A* is made between the portals. At the end, a list of AStarNode is returned, from which the actor can move from. If you use just a list of distanced points to move your NPC, it will give the impression that your NPC is a robot. To counter that, in Argorha Pathfinding there are functions to calculate a path between portals: The cardinal splines and Bezier curves. Those functions make sure that the path is always into the sectors. In the pictures, the straight line is yellow, the Bezier curve is green and the cardinal spline is pink.

In GOOF, the pathfinding use a background thread to calculate the data. Perhaps, in GOOF there's a problem with threading; the engine is not threaded. The threading should be put in all GOOF, which it isn't actually. That said, it's working but there's random crash, so the GOOF pathfinding is not meant for production right now. Later it will. Now that it’s using Ogre 1.4.2 it’s way better than when it was under Ogre 1.2.

Due to the problem with threading, the release version is more unstable in term of pathfinding then the debug version. The release version sometimes stops calculating before it has ended or generate bad sectors.

If you wish to just use GOOF, you can deactivate the pathfinding in the options which will make the pathfinding not being used. That way, you won’t have to worry about crashes. The GOOF in the binaries has a lot of instabilities. Coming to my mind right now is painting is not working.


The license for Argorha Pathfinding is LGPL, the same as GOOF.

For more info about the design, you can watch those UML diagrams :
1) http://membres.lycos.fr/bibiteinfo/Imag ... inding.png
2) http://membres.lycos.fr/bibiteinfo/Imag ... inding.png
3) http://membres.lycos.fr/bibiteinfo/Imag ... inding.png

Explanation:
1) This is the main design for the Argorha pathfinding which could be used in any engines.
2) This is the design of pathfinding into GOOF.
3) The interaction between Argorha Pathfinding and GOOF.

Globally, you need to understand that there is the Argorha Pathfinding which do the algorithms and don't know anything about the engine and there is GOOF which uses Argorha Pathfinding to make the pathfinding into GOOF.

I’ve put an online documentation for the pathfinding. It can be found there: http://membres.lycos.fr/bibiteinfo/docPathfinding/

The algorithm is heavily based on this gamasutra article: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20020405/smith_01.htm

To make the source code working, you need to follow these instructions: http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/Ga ... stallation
The only difference is that the ogre version to be taken is v1.4.2

If you speak French, here's my final Cegep report, explaining how the pathfinding works.
http://membres.lycos.fr/fredericjoanis/

On my todo list I’ve got:
  • Hierarchical sectors/portals.
  • Objects between partitions
For the next points, I need to wait the next GOOF release.
  • Find and use systems such as doors, ladders, elevators, and teleports.
  • Animation and more organic paths
  • Advanced GOOF integration. Mouse Integration, UI…
  • Save and Load
  • Optimization
Note : Sometime when an object is insert, it calculate the neighbour partition. It’s something which is messed up in GOOF, I need to find why.

At last, I hope this is going to be useful to the community. It has been the topic of my internship in winter 2006. When I came back to the code I’ve made at that time, it was so messy I needed to start it all over. Imagine an AI code with calls to graphical engine at each 5 lines. That was almost the case. Now it’s a really cleaner solution. It’s my part time project from that winter until now. Enjoy.
Last edited by bibiteinfo on Sat Oct 20, 2007 6:10 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Falagard »

Nice work!

It's hard to see the cardinal lines in the pink colour you've chosen in those screenshots. Based on personal preference, I'd say the cardinal lines provide the "nicest" pathfinding result.

So, just to be clear (though I know the answer) you place some objects in the scene that are going to be static obstacles, and then run a process over them to pre-calculate the pathfinding data. This data will (eventually) be stored so when you want to determine the path between point A and point B, it'll search against the pre-calculated data very quickly.

Here's a tough question for you - do you have any thoughts on dynamic obstacles and how they might fit into this system? Sorry in advance for asking this nasty question :-)
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Post by bibiteinfo »

You are exactly right. All these pre-calculations are made against static objects. The portals and sectors are not static. Say during a shooting game, the player shoot the glass and jump from the second floor of the building. The game could dynamicly add a portal at the glass position to make sure that the NPC will follow the player.

For the cardinal splines, in the results I've seen so far gives the best and the worst results. The best in cases I've shown you, but the worst because sometimes it can make a loop in the trajectory. I'm still thinking about how to adjust this. Any idea is welcome.

I might do new screenshots with a better color than pink.

For the dynamic part I started to check openSteer which in combination to this pathfinding could make a really good job.

By the way, I want to thank you very much Falagard for all the time you explain me how your engine work and to give me ideas about the pathfinding. :D
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Post by tuan kuranes »

Very nice !

As you pointed out, hierarchical pathfind would give the best speed anyway.
But about fast A* and threading check intel contribution to this already very fast A* implementation (the whole page is a must read) :
http://www.geocities.com/jheyesjones/astar.html
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Post by RaptorAvis »

good job
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Post by bibiteinfo »

The project is now on SourceForge. http://sourceforge.net/projects/argorha/

Actually, I'm trying to make it work with SVN. Before that, I was working with TortoiseCVS on a school CVS. What I would like is to have an IDE integrated into Visual Studio 2005. I've downloaded the trial of PushOk. I did not manage to make it work. Maybe that the SVN is not set yet, SourceForge takes 6 to 24 hours to make it work.

Is there a free alternative for integrated IDE in VS?

Thank you Tuan for the link. That site already helped me to understand A* the first time I wrote my pathfinding. The other reference I really like for A* is the amit page. http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp/GameProgramming/

By the way, I've updated my A* to make it really faster. In my first write of that class, I didn't take time to have a good data structure, so it was an unsorted linked list to manage open nodes. Now I'm using a binary heap and a hash map; should be faster :D
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Post by tuan kuranes »

ankhsvn is the way to go http://ankhsvn.tigris.org/
Btw, on link exchange, a very interesting blog on AI programing and AI GPL library link here :
http://aigamedev.com/ (just suscribe to the mailing list to have access to the gameai++ source code.)
Another nice AI "library" is http://www.wordware.com/files/ai/ source code include flocking+pathfinding (
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Post by bibiteinfo »

Thank you Tuan for Ankh. I tried it and find that Ankh is trying to refresh every project in Visual Studio and I just need mine to be refreshed, making my visual studio freeze for about 1 minute at startup, which was kind of irritating.

I've finish implementing Hierarchical pathfinding. It seems to work, but I need to make more test. So here goes the screenshots :

Image
For this screenshot, it's the pathfinding at the base level, without hierarchy

Image
This is the high-level pathfinding. The line just shows between which points the lower-level pathfinding will calculate.

Image
This is the result of pathfinding at the lowest level, hierarchicaly. It's not as nice as the first screenshot, but the high-level zone is a bit tight, it should be bigger.

As asked, I've put a more visible color for cardinal splines, which is the only line for the first and last screenshot.

You can find the code and binaries on sourceforge. I've fixed some problems with threading, there's still remaining, but really crash less often. The problem in release mode has been solved.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/argorha
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Perhaps your binaries have been infected by a trojan...

Post by Brun°oO »

I've downloaded the binaries from sourceforge and my antivirus has found a trojan. Does anybody have experienced the same thing?
This is the log from my antivirus:
23/08/2007 10:45:58 SYSTEM 1648 Sign of "Win32:Ranky-FJ [Trj]" has been found in "...\ArgorhaPathfinding_02_bin\ArgorhaPathfinding\Samples\Common\bin\Debug\GOOFEdSystem_d.dll" file.
23/08/2007 10:46:17 SYSTEM 1648 Sign of "Win32:Ranky-FJ [Trj]" has been found in "...\ArgorhaPathfinding_02_bin\ArgorhaPathfinding\Samples\Common\bin\Release\Plugin_BSPSceneManager.dll" file.
23/08/2007 10:46:23 SYSTEM 1648 Sign of "Win32:Ranky-FJ [Trj]" has been found in "...\ArgorhaPathfinding_02_bin\ArgorhaPathfinding\Samples\Common\bin\Release\Plugin_CgProgramManager.dll" file.
23/08/2007 10:46:26 SYSTEM 1648 Sign of "Win32:Ranky-FJ [Trj]" has been found in "...\ArgorhaPathfinding_02_bin\ArgorhaPathfinding\Samples\Common\bin\Release\Plugin_PagingLandScapeSceneManager2.dll" file.
23/08/2007 10:46:28 SYSTEM 1648 Sign of "Win32:Ranky-FJ [Trj]" has been found in "...\ArgorhaPathfinding_02_bin\ArgorhaPathfinding\Samples\Common\bin\Release\RenderSystem_Direct3D9.dll" file.
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Post by bibiteinfo »

I've downloaded Antivir, scan my files and nothing showed up. I've ask a friend to scan it with AVG and same results. I would like to know which antivirus you're using, that could help me. The other posibility is that you might have a virus on your computer, but I don't want to take any chance to infect peoples, so I want to try the same thing as you did.

The really strange thing is that it's not the same files that are infected in release and debug, so it's clearly not coming from the code. It would mean that a virus add codes to a DLL?

Anyways I would really appreciate to have results of test to tell me if you found any virus in the downloaded files.
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Post by WaRHaWK »

bibiteinfo wrote:I've downloaded Antivir, scan my files and nothing showed up. I've ask a friend to scan it with AVG and same results. I would like to know which antivirus you're using, that could help me. The other posibility is that you might have a virus on your computer, but I don't want to take any chance to infect peoples, so I want to try the same thing as you did.

The really strange thing is that it's not the same files that are infected in release and debug, so it's clearly not coming from the code. It would mean that a virus add codes to a DLL?

Anyways I would really appreciate to have results of test to tell me if you found any virus in the downloaded files.
here are some scan services .... i think it would be easier...

http://virustotal.com/
http://www.virscan.org/
http://virusscan.jotti.org/


Best regard
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Post by RaptorAvis »

good work!

that is exactly what I planed to do;)

I believe i will spend time on it! esp. thanks to the source code.

but, as I know, GOOF is going to have a updated version based on the latest Ogre, don't know if you have any plan on this?
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Post by bibiteinfo »

Big thanks to you WaRHaWK for giving me those links, it made me found that Avast was the one who found Trojan in the DLL's. I've recompiled the DLL's and the problem is gone. So thank you Brun�oO too for poiting me out this issue.

@RaptorAvis With the src that I gave, it's meant to be used against Ogre v.1.4.2, so pretty much the latest release. The next GOOF release is way much more than just making compile it against Ogre new release. A lot of things have changed in the past year, it was supposed to have a release soon, but it get delayed since it's a lot of work for Falagard. He's doing a huge job on it.

Be sure that when the new GOOF is release, I'm gonna make it work against that version. :wink: In fact, I'm waiting that version to make cool things with the pathfinding such as having an actor moving around a really complex map. For me the ultimate is when I will see my actor in front of a building and I want it to go to the room 408, so you would click in the editor on the actor, select move and choose the final destination into the room 408. Then you would see the actor just moving inside the building, calling the elevator, waiting for it, going into the elevator, get out of the elevator at the 4th floor, going in front of the door, making the action to open the door and enter the room. With the existing code, i'm not far from this, I just need to be able to do the test case.

If you have any question with the code, don't hesitate to send me a PM or post it here.
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Post by RaptorAvis »

that sounds so interesting! I can't wait to see it;)

btw, I downloaded the binaries and tried it. to be honest, it is not straitforward for me to get started. I even have not succeeded in see the sectors and portals yet just because I don't know how to begin it as I have no experience with Goof before. I think a quick "getting started" would make it much easier!
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Post by bibiteinfo »

RaptorAvis wrote:that sounds so interesting! I can't wait to see it;)

btw, I downloaded the binaries and tried it. to be honest, it is not straitforward for me to get started. I even have not succeeded in see the sectors and portals yet just because I don't know how to begin it as I have no experience with Goof before. I think a quick "getting started" would make it much easier!
ok, I'm gonna do something like a Wiki about how to use GOOF or just a walktrough in a .txt

For the basic, you need to go at the top, in the combobox where it's written PagingLandscape Tool, choose ObjectTool. Now you have a new interface. In that interface, you need to move the floating window and you will see an insert object window. I always go in Test and use Athene, but if you fill courageous, you can try other models, but a lot of them have invalid bounding box, so it's gonna crash. Once the object is inserted, the sectors and portals are gonna be created in background, during your doing your things. Once it's calculated, it's showed. In release it's under 1 second on my computer, on debug it can take up to 5 seconds to appear.

Then when you have the sectors and portals generated, you go in the options at the top right under the exit menu. Scroll down and you will find the pathfinding options.

X Divide Factor : The actor size divided by this value in X, it's used to subdivide the box. 2 is the recommanded value.
Z Divide Factor : Same as X
Start Position : The place where the pathfinding is starting
End position : The place where the pathfinding is ending
Show S&P Level : Show the hierarchical Sectors and portals, level 0 is the base pathfinding, which is giving the real pathfinding.
Pathfinding Level Start : The label is cut fast on this one, but it's the first that you see. This is for the hierarchical pathfinding to know at which level you start calculating your stuff. In the binaries, there is only level 1 and level 0. By default, it's making an hierarchical pathfinding from level 1 to level 0. If you don't want any hierarchical pathfinding, you just have to put this value to 0 and the end value to 0.
Pathfinding Level End : Same thing as the Start, but it ends at that hierarchical level. This level is the one shown in the editor. At level 0, it's a cardinal spline, at higher level it's a straight line.
Pathfinding Activate : To activate and desactivate the pathfinding. It's just a workaround if you find that the pathfinding is making crash GOOF and want to place a lot of elements with the mind in peace.
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Post by Brun°oO »

it made me found that Avast was the one who found Trojan in the DLL's.
Sorry, i've omitted the name of my antivirus and yes, it's Avast!
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Post by Borrillis »

bibiteinfo wrote:Is there a free alternative for integrated IDE in VS?
Check out VisualSVN, they are offering free licenses to Open Source projects.
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Post by RaptorAvis »

the quick guide is helpful. I have been able to start it. and I have begun looking the code. thanks and good work!
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Post by jacmoe »

Excellent work, bibiteinfo! :D

Really looking forward to digging into the code - as I said in my PM to you, it is strikingly similar to Valve's approach.
Which is pretty cool, since you didn't know. :)
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Post by Brocan »

Excellent work!! :D
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Post by bibiteinfo »

I've finally compiled GOOF in a way that it's in the same state as it is in the CVS, this mean you can paint, save and load, etc.

The compilation is against Ogre V1.4.5.

I hope this helps some people using PLSM2 :)

Anyway does someone has used my pathfinding or plan to do it soon?

Here's the link to download the freshly compiled GOOF
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=202941
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Post by RaptorAvis »

that is great! I am always keeping an eye on this thread. I will definitely look into it more a little later. thanks for your great work!
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