Pathfinding

Pathfinding Vehicle Fixes

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There are some interesting threads appearing in the SL Forum.  Most of the most outraged are people that don’t follow events or know the history of history of Second Life™. There are a few us trying to help those people. But, if they keep their heads buried in what they are doing and only in their primary interests, we can’t do much for them.

If you’re reading this blog and/or Inara’s Living in the Modem World, you are pretty well informed. I think we provide more news than you can get from the SL Forum and Blog. This morning I saw Inara’s: Pathfinding overview. It is a good overview/summary of Pathfinding.

The Problem People

Many of the vehicle makers have used a hack to create lower Land Impact vehicles and to get around other limits. Now they are crying about vehicles using those hacks being broke. I guess they did not include a script updating process either. I use DCS2 and UCE game meters and they send me a new boxed meter whenever they have updates. It is an easy process for them and me.

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Second Life Pathfinding Performance

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I’m seeing a load of misinformation on Pathfinding performance. Back in May I wrote an article getting into Pathfinding (PF) performance. See: #SL Pathfinding Update Week 20. Scroll down and read the section on The Size of the Problem.

Navmesh w/X-Ray Enabled

PF has several different aspects. One could break it into two main parts. One is the part where PF figures out where everything is in the region and how to treat it, as what are obstacles and where are the paths. This is a slow and calculation intense process. But, it really only has to run at region start up, when a region’s ground topology changes, or things are built on the ground. It is sort of an initialization process.

Another part is when PF has to find what has moved, like a door opening. Things like a door that cut across paths are called cuts. PF has to find things that move and ‘cut’ the Navigation Mesh mostly referred to as Navmesh. The cut calc’s are very fast. They only need to revise the previously calculated Navmesh.

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Pathfinding Update Week 29

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I’ve put coverage of Pathfinding in several updates this week (29). This post has some of the unique items less related to other topics.

My First Pathfinding Bot (March)

Vehicles

Right now the main Pathfinding concern is how vehicles work with the new Havok Physics Engine version. Depending on who one asks, they work well or not at all. So, far that seems to be a matter of whether the vehicle is built well or not. I know saying ‘well’ is an over simplification.

The concern is not really with Pathfinding. It is Havok. But, Pathfinding precipitates the change from height maps to terrain mesh. That change is breaking some content…

The Lab does not resist breaking what they consider poorly made content, at least not in all cases. This seems to be one of those cases.

One of the big problems with vehicles and the new Havok is the use of collision surfaces made from sculpties and tori. Using either for the physical items in a vehicle is going to fail.

Report vehicle problems in PF regions in the PathBug project, so the right Lindens will see it.

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#SL Vehicle Problems

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This roll out of the Pathfinding code has caused a number of people problems. The wackadoodles are ranting in the forum. Those helping fix the problem are adding to the JIRA’s and creating new JIRA items. The forum thread is an exercise in ignorant arrogance by entitlement types… they are basically demanding: it’s a problem, you fix it. The Lindens have been looking for problem vehicles for weeks now. They need specific examples to learn what is wrong. Once they know they can create a fix, workaround, or explain what the problem is.

If one cannot provide specific steps for reproducing the problem, the Lindens can’t fix it. The vehicles they are using and testing work. So, if one is not going to provide specifics then please specify which hand you want them to wave in the air.

The thread is a good example for why Lindens tend to avoid conversing with residents.

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#SecondLife News Week 26

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The Lab is doing a bit of server update dance this week. The roll outs took longer than past roll outs on Tuesday, or that is the rumor from some people’s subjective experience. New roll out tools are being used. They will be optimized and get faster as time passes. One of the new features, if I understand correctly, is the ability to update the server’s operating system and roll out a new simulator package too.

Server Scripting User Group

So, this week we get new operating systems and simulator updates.

Magnum Release Channel

This channel was to get the Pathfinding package. Actually it did. BUT… there were problems with the package. So, it was rolled back and the Pre-rendered Avatar Textures package was rolled to the Magnum channel.

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Pathfinding Week 25

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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.

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