Sandboxes

Most of the sandboxes in the main grid are now running the Pathfinding version of the server software. Some are reporting an unusually high crash rate for the sandboxes.

There is a rumor that causing collisions in a PF enabled sandbox will crash the region.

Simon Linden has said they have a number of crash fixes in the coming releases.

So Cute

Pathfinding Navmesh

The Lindens are at work changing how the Navmesh is edited. Your viewer will now consider the Navmesh unfrozen… thawed… meaning it is editable. Just the Navmesh around the avatar. The change rolled out to the Beta PF regions, I think in the main grid AGNI.

Mæstro Linden describes it, “Basically, the new design is… you’re always in ‘unfrozen’ mode for the region your avatar is standing in. This means that you can edit objects contributing to the nav mesh in the local region, but can’t edit objects that contribute to the nav mesh in adjacent regions (unless you fly over to them).

This will allow people to edit just as they always have. So, they could build a wall or house and if I understand correctly, never have to deal with the Navmesh. It would automatically adjust for what they add or change. They could choose to work directly with the Navmesh, but they would not HAVE TO thaw and freeze the Navmesh to edit things.

During editing the Navmesh will be out of date. Sometime after editing is concluded the Navmesh will automatically update. One can edit the Navmesh and trigger a refresh of the Navmesh manually. Until the Navmesh updates changes made will not affect the AI Character paths.

Falcon Linden says the automatic rebuild will be on a very long delay. Manual re-baking of the Navmesh is preferred.

Lorca Linden says, “…residents will have a button show up letting them manually trigger a regeneration whenever the nav-mesh has been changed for a region.”

I’m not sure where all the buttons will show up. As it is possible to use just the Build Panel to set a cube on the Navmesh and block a path, setting a cube could change the Navmesh. I understand the button will be like the Stand Button ones sees after they sit.

Pathfinding Templates

Lorca Linden announced, “We are going to release PF script templates from all creatures in the wilderness as well as the script templates for our master rezzer system.

The master rezzer system is REALLY cool. It monitors sim performance and modulates the number of Pathfinding characters rezzed in response to that performance (basically it decreases the number of characters when lots of Resis come into a region). It allowed us to roughly double the # of Pathfinding creatures we could put in a low pop region in the wilderness.