Dynamic AI Project[Navigation Released]

maddox just look at the reviews for the author's other product advanced fantasy ai that programmers did and that should give you all the answer you need.

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/3192

from what i now see there is nothing dynamic or ai or navigation about it. i dont think its a-star at all. you get better i think with unity indie or for free. its a bunch of waypoints that you set. the grid as far as i can see is ignored. you have to put all sort of colliders, portals, to help them and even with all of them it still a mess with them getting stuck, falling off, you name it that you dont want them to do they do, you name everything you want them to do they dont on their own. also if you put some object in front of them that you tagged as a dynamic obstacle they run into it and do not adjust their path and keep on running into it and that is the end of them if you jump on something there is no portal for them to get to they start running endlessly in circles and if you get in their way either you are bounced into the sky way up in the air or shoved aside, but u one thing you dont see is them adjusting their paths and going around you and if they cant get to to their waypoint cause youve blocked it its the end of them cause they freeze and even if you later open it up its game over.. worse you also have to put like these portal like in doorways and where you want them jumping up and down on. and make things as obstacles, so much for the grid and put lots of collision objects to create a sort of path in addition to the other colliders that objects may have and even with all that and more that you must do the bots are brain dead they run into things, get stuck, run in circles endlessly. its all smoke and mirrors lots of videos and screenshots to things that you dont get. you dont get those scenes to check out for yourself. see my post. sure you get one scene and you can try it. but its hardcoded. and you dont get the source code to see if there is any there there. so far its dont look at the man behind the curtain. so just move along there is nothing to see and save your hard earned money for some other asset cause even at 100% off this one is all smoke and mirrors and slight of hand. oh yeah and unity store tos says no refund!

here some images bot runs right into moving cube cause he does not adjust path and it thrown way into air ends up on block that there is no portal to and from ground and just stops moving all together
http://imgur.com/EOlLKR3

by the way we dont get this scene, im using his demo

here are some of bots getting stuck on dynamic obstacle that i moved in front of them and that they even though had the whole length of the outside wade points to adjust the path back in they didnt

http://imgur.com/TRtfAET

and here is bot getting stuck running in circles cause i jumped on a block that there is no portal to.

again its the authors obstacle demo, we dont have access to it. i mean once you look behind the magic curtain u see what it is even though we are not given access to the source code to the dll where all the magic happens we can figure it out by the waypoints, collision boxes, portals, ect we have to put. and we can imagine that they are not in most places and easily break it.

http://imgur.com/Vppl6at

actually if you look in the asset store some nice ones dirt cheap. i have a long list i looked at. this one being one of them. so i guess this goes in the valuable lesson category, be weary when they dont give you the source code and where they have lots of nice videos and screenshots but you dont get access to most of them. note to self, gotta look at that manifest that unity shows more closely.

 

re: stuck on top of stairs

if you look you will see that he's using colliders in a number of places, including the stairs, to help it along. i would guess u need to adjust that collider on the top of the stairs and the ai players until it works.

look at tutorial for portals w both sides open
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/159725-Dynamic-AI-Project-Help-Page

u can get clue from stairs or doorways where there is a portal

 

more problems with latest release

delete grid throws bunch of exceptions

and does not delete the grid and worse create grid does nothing!

what you have to do is disable the portals, delete the grid, then create it and finally enable the portals back (hope that works cause there is 0 documentation on this and the tutorial well its out of date)

lets hope author now moves to clean some of the issues with the new release, update the tutorials and release all the scenes that the did and shows of in the many videos, screenshots and tutorial, etc.

 

@im. I think you are having some misunderstandings about these packages. Hundreds of people now use these packages without trouble. You have only had these for a few days and are abusing these forum pages.

You need to carefully follow all the tutorials and make sure to read all the documentation necessary. I would be happy to help you through step by step, but theres just no way I'm going to try and answer every single question you just asked on here. They are very unproffessional and are all first impression and most incorrect and extreme assumptions.

Give this a few more days with the assistance of documentation and tutorials and if you are still having trouble, PM me with all you problems in point form. Otherwise, if you don't have the patience to learn 3 different advanced packages you just purchased, ask for a refund from the asset store.

 

Hey MaDDoX. Well the main difference is the ability to have any shape of obstacle that can be moved completely dynamically, as well as one of the first infinitely multi-layer grid systems. So you could have a 10 story building with moving obstacles fully navigable. As well the grids can take on very high resolutions and build extremely fast.

 

so i and others don't waste countless hours playing post / pm tag. all asking basically the same questions and you basically giving us all the the same answers. just make a release where the demo scene actually runs as in the webdemo. and please include all the demo scenes from all the tutorials, demos, screenshots, videos. ect. why have me and others recreate those when you already have them. i certainly want / could use them, i bet others would like them too. just put them in the release. so why make me rewrite all that work you did and have me and others pm you a billion time each time i or anyone else runs into a wall. also throw some /// c# documentation in for the dll or better release the source code. as i pointed out there is no there there just magic. just save us all the trouble and that way its maintainable, so that problems like the bots going in circles and getting stuck all over the place, and falling off, and even when they just stop moving etc can be fixed. everybody knows its basically simple hardcoded logic using grid, waypoints, portals and colliders to help it along. i mean if other a* / waypoint assets that are half the price can include all their source code, can come fully documented and supported, and can include all the demo scenes to their tutorials, web demos and videos. i just dont see the reason this one that is double the price has to be in some dll without any source code, undocumented and only include a single broken demo scene. people buy yours for the videos and screenshots. so please go fix the giant swords, the terrain, etc errors that prevent the only demo scene from running, better release the demo scenes for all videos, demos, tutorials, etc, document the dll apis, update/complete the tutorials, fix the bugs that i and other have reported like with the bots running in circles, getting stuck all over the place, falling off, or just stop moving so that i can update my reviews and rating.

 

I agree with the point of including all the demos in the package to get a better feeling for the navigation system. Especially advanced stuff should be demoed in order to help see the whole picture and scope of this asset without testing all possible combinations for parameters yourself. Additionally, I would like to suggest several different examples for different games. RTS, action, adventure etc games all need their own grids. Advanced mechanics like switching between grids should also be demoed.

So far, the support of brilliantgames has been splendid, but all pms sent between us could have been avoided with the above suggested demos.

Something else: Do you have any news on the Dynamic AI part of this project?

 

I missed the $25 sale, will there be another one? As a student I'm always happy to grab the assets as cheap as possible. I know that you also need to earn your money but maybe you can also understand me

 

Hi Brilliantgames,
Still using Dynamic navigation in my RTS game which was working just fine...right upto when I updated Unity to version 4.3. Every time I press the Destroy grid button I get a memory crash.

https://picasaweb.google.com/103926984188882932241/Uploads#5950675805438809938

Any ideas how to fix this?

I'm using a rather large grid at 750, cube size 2.
In unity version 4.0.1 and below it destroyed it just fine.
Also smaller grids also work fine, but seems that anything above 600 seems to crash it for me.

Hope you can help.

Cheers
Rob

 

Hmm, that is strange. I will look into it.

 

Lately when changing grid settings it freezes unity editor, sadly.
4.3.1
Gets up to 50% CPU(I guess it loads one core fully)
I think it is possible to wait, but easier to just kill process. here are grid settings:

Changing almost ANY setting will most likely cause freezing. Without creating grid or anything

 

Hey there! I've been trying to figure out how to change the AI (follower)'s speed. There's a variable named Path Speed but that doesn't seem to do much of a change. Help please.

 

Greetings,
I am wondering if this asset is what I am seeking. I have a 3d scene (house or apartment, with lots of furniture you can jump on or go under). You play a small cat. What I am seeking is a pathfinder for when I click on a location, that will move the cat automatically. If its under furniture, to move the cat under. If you click on a dresser, the cat would need to jump on a chair nearby then jump on the dresser automatically.

Would this asset permit me to do that? I am a novice game designer, so my skill set is not very advanced, thus why such a pathing system is beyond my skills and I am seeking an asset to do it.

Sincerely,
VarrickCW

 

Was trying to see if this was any better than the builtin navigation stuff at handling enormous terrains. It's a 10km terrain, so very few assets work. Was hoping this one would, but even with a tiny grid of 200 with cube size of 1, Grid.Update is taking 100ms every frame all by itself, drops to 10 FPS even on my gaming rig. I've gotta be doing something horribly wrong, but just can't figure out what.

 

Are you creating a new grid every frame? Also, make sure grid debugs are turned off. Its expensive drawing thousands of debug lines to thousands of other points..

 

I don't think I'm creating a grid every frame unless there's a default setting which makes it do that. I just dropped a Grid component on an object in my scene.
It's also not drawing debug lines.
At the moment I have a custom-rolled solution with points of visibility around buildings, which as you can imagine is not great for large outdoor scenes, would be nice to get this working.

 

Well I can't really tell you whats happening till I have more info. But I'm going to repeat. Are you sure you don't have 'debug show connections' or 'debug show nonwalkable'? The grid by itself should not touch performance, it only affects memory.

 

Hm, I was absolutely certain I had that disabled.
Just re-added the grid and made sure it was disabled, and it seems to run fine. After re-enabling that option, it sinks back down in performance.
Feeling just a little stupid now. TBH I didn't expect it to consume any resources on that whatsoever since Gizmos are disabled in Game view, although I suppose it's not using OnDrawGizmos then?

 

Hey!
Sorry if this has already been asked! Is it possible for this system to load/ unload grids and the connections between them? For example if I'm loading in prefabs for certain areas of an environment - could I put a pre-calculated grid in that prefab and have it added into the existing grids?

Thanks!
Myles

 

Just imported the project to the default directories and started implementing it into my AI system. Whenever there's a grid assigned, GridPosition.Update and Navigator.Update throw nullreferenceexceptions. When they're not assigned in the editor, no errors are thrown. Probably missing something simple, but without the source, it's a bit harder to debug (hint hint), so I figured I'd ask here in case it's a simple fix.

Also, would you be willing to have the initial grid generation detect only static objects? Shouldn't be too hard to implement, depending on how you're generating it now.

Edit:
Just loaded up the tutorial scene. Upon loading, the console's bombarded with nullreferenceexceptions (http://puu.sh/8l3ZS.png ), and all of the NPCs stand still, now throwing an ungodly amount of nullreferenceexceptions.

Edit 2:
Also, when I attach the included AIMove script as a test, the navigator moves to and circles around (0, 0, 0), not the target position (nor the center of the grid, positioned at (-10, 9, 11)). It circles around as if there were an obstacle blocking it's target, however, nothing is there and the grid is walkable.
http://puu.sh/8l4xz.png
The selected position is the target, and the dude is circling around the wind zone (wind zone is obviously insignificant, it was already placed at (0, 0, 0), so served as a good reference location).

DynamicObstacles throw nullreferenceexceptions in update as well.

Edit 3:
Also, the navigator ignores walkability and seems to simply lerp to (0, 0, 0).

 

Is there a way to designate "rough" terrain where the cost of movement is higher?

 

Any response to my previous question? Seeing as it's been two weeks, and it hasn't worked in any way, shape, or form in a new project or an existing project...

 

Sorry on vacation ATM so its been difficult to find time to support all my products.

No not currently. You can do interesting things with portals though. Try messing around with them, portals connect any 2 nodes you want to connect, so you can force them to prefer going certain routes because they see the direct connection as only 2 nodes, which is a short path.

It could be a number of problems. Null reference is only thrown if the navigator or target is either outside the grid, or his target does not have a grid position script attached.

Spinning around can be caused by a few things. The most likely cause is the check the distance to change node setting(Sorry can't remember the exact name of the variable off the top of my head I'm in Mexico). This controls the required distance from his current node target in which he proceeds to the next target node and can vary depending on the scale of your world and how high the characters center axis is off the ground. Other possible causes are if his target does not have a grid position script attached or his grid position script is disabled.

Note: Always check for the blue line that indicates which grid node he has detected as his closests walkable node.

 

I'll double check, but I'm about 80% sure that neither the navigator nor target were outside of the grid, and I had a grid position component on both of them. But If it is indeed user error, than why was the sample scene throwing the same exception for all objects? Surely they were set up correctly.

 

It's coming up on two months since I asked my question, without a single word from the developer. This is literally the worst support I've had on anything, ever.

Thank you, brilliantgames, for taking my money for a broken product. You're awesome. </sarcasm>

 

No need for negativity here. Can you please send me a PM with more screenshots and details. I cannot guess and speculate based on the amount of information provided. Thank you.

 

Hi, this looks like it could be exactly what I am looking for. However, I am working on a 2D top down game using Unity's 2D Physics and I want to make sure this will be compatible before I buy. Will this navigation solution work with Physics2D? If not does the source code come with the asset so that I could make it compatible?

 

I've set up the fantasy ai as indicated for the dynamic navigation set up a grid and my charectors insist on running off the screen rather than following the patrol points.... So I set up a blank project with only the two packages in it and started messing only with the prefabs and no other scripts or objects present. I set up a grid and I got a prefab blue guard ai running between two patrol points - so far so good. I set up an identical ai by duplication following the 2 target nodes in reverse order... So far so good... I drop a player in the scene set up as indicated for dynamic navigation ... Ok so far... Now it gets wierd - I change the team of one of the ais to "2" from 1. team one ai attacks and team 2 ignores team one and continues to walk the target nodes. I switch the team of the player to team 2 and without changing anything else and now the team 2 guard attacks and team 1 ignores!!!! I remove all traces of the grid and set up with only fantasy ai and the ais continue to walk the target nodes regardless of not having a grid and behave exactly the same way. I switch team 2 to a 3. And add two more target nodes. And make the guards walk them in reverse order. And the ais ignore each other and walk the nodes bumping into each other as thy pass. I move the player close to them and they both attack the player I attack them and kill them and move away. Both respawn and instead of ignoring each other they attack each other. I restart and they go back to ignoring each other. I restart bout this time I switch my player team to team one and now team one attacks and team 3 ignores. What is up????

 

I get crashes at destroy grid as well. Most recent version of unity free.

 

@brilliantgames

Hi there, bought this over the weekend. It's great thanks!

Is there a way i can pass a vector3 into the 'AIMove' instead of a Transform Object for the target destination.

 

Hi, I am looking around at pathfinding solutions, and wanted to know how well this would work for my game. First, I am generating the terrain at runtime; it looks like this supports runtime navigation mesh generation, is this correct?
Second, terrain movement costs will be a big and diverse aspect of my game, does this support movement cost based on a runtime provided 2d 'move cost map'?
Third, some units will occupy multiple 'squares', can this handle units that occupy multiple squares at once?
Forth, it looks like there is no way for units to path 'smoothly' such that the grid layout isn't noticeable. Is there any way around this?

 

Hello, I'm considering a switch to it from RAIN AI, because as it turned out, RAIN is unsuitable for my project. However I'd like to ask few questions.

- Is it being developed anymore?
- If so, does it support creating whole navmesh at runtime (my game is using custom level editor from which levels will be loaded into Unity at runtime (in almost empty scene aside of Player, light, level exit, load manager and code that controls level's logic once it starts).
- Is it really completely dynamic? Level designer will be able to add/remove objects as the level progresses (actually disable/enable renderers and colliders, but this is a detail) and I want AI to react accordingly.
- How hard is to make it so enemies won't jump off the cliffs, but still will be able to jump of from short obstacles (jumping off the roof vs. jumping off the table)?
- How hard is to make enemies that would jump over small obstacles (both holes and obstacles of small height)?
- How hard is it to make flying enemies?
- Does it work with Unity5?

 

I have two questions I haven't seen answered yet.
1st. does this work for click to move player controlled characters or only AI controlled ones? In the videos I couldn't really tell how they were being controlled and it all looked AI driven. If they can be player controlled then maybe an example showing several quick bursts of movement instead of one long showy journey would convey that better.
2nd. can I use this to walk on top of an AI driven character ala shadow of colossus or monster hunter?
The game I'm making needs both of these features.