Pathfinding Costs

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This posting showed up on the SL forum:

BlackMagi Darkwatch wrote:

So, I created a simple character using the new LL pathfinding functions and watched it merrily wander around – I won’t be leaving the object out though as my simple 1 prim cube had a LE of 15!  Not sure if the LE values are going to tweaked – I do hope so as I feel that is way too costly. 

All pathfinding characters have a fixed physics weight of 15. Adding prims will not cause this weight to go up and the weight is not affected by the physics shape type parameter. Streaming and script costs are computed are for any other object and the total land impact remains the max of all weights. So yes, a simple 1 prim cube has a LI of 15, but a much more complex character may still only have a LI of 15 (unless dominated by streaming or scripts, in which case the physics weight is irrelevant).

Falcon Linden

So, there is a surprising cost to the AI Characters. At least it surprised me.

The Lindens have been gearing the SL system to associate costs with the resources used. From outside the Lab we have no way to know if the cost is equitable or not. Fortunately SL runs from a free market and users are free to use AI Characters or not. That won’t make the entitlement folks happy, but that’s life.

Adding Prims to Control Navmesh – Click Enlarge

I have a 2-prim and 1-sculpty AI Character. My edit panel shows it as 1 object and 3 Land Impact. I can’t get the More Info to show the Physics cost. That is probably and issue with the development viewer.

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Exodus Viewer Release Beta 8 (12.08.09b) Review

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Exodus has new version of their viewer out. If you like Exodus, this is a must have update. I think that this release is labeled a Beta as they plan to quickly provide a main release with the New Pathfinding Tools. I am guessing they are just waiting on the Lab to OK it. Or may be there is some last minute Havok Licensing stuff going on. So, the tools may already be programmed in.

Exodus Viewer – Exodus Preferences

It gets confusing which version is a test version and which is a production release version. The idea with production releases is they are feature stable and intended for primary use by Second Life™ residents. Production viewers only have approved features. Test or Beta viewers can have whatever feature set a developer is experimenting with. This release had some of the experimental features taken out, like the Mesh Deformer. So, I find the Beta designation a bit odd, but it makes a sort of sense.

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Pathfinding Meeting Week 32

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Thursday we had a meeting with Lorca, Falcon, and Stinson Linden. We got some questions answered. Motor Loon had a good whine about Pathfinding, the keyword being good.

Performance

The Lindens have a couple of days of stats to look at now. The result is the average performance of the grid has not changed. This means that while most regions are NOT optimized, they are not pulling down performance.

Pathfinding User Group

The Process

Falcon pulled up the Pathfinding code and explained what the code is doing in English. What he said follows.

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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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HTML HUD’s

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About a year ago Kelly Linden debuted HTML HUD’s. See: #SL Server Update Week 34 for my first mention of HTML HUD’s in 2011. We have not seen many of these being used. The advantage of HTML HUD’s the reduction in scripts and prims needed to make a working interface.

Darien Caldwell is one of the creative types making such HUD’s. He has pointed out that these JIRA’s are a problem:

VWR-29448 – HTML (Shared Media) HUD objects exhibit Unintuitive Focus and Control Behavior. This is about how the HUD’s work and look within the viewer. Most floated in the viewer go transparent when they lose focus. We know that we have to shift focus to the panel, by clicking it, before we can click buttons in the Panel. HTML HUD’s do not go transparent when losing focus. This means we click buttons in them, probably expecting something to happen, and nothing happens. That nothing is deceiving. The first click shifts focus. A second click will activate the button.

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#SL Server News Week 32

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There isn’t a lot of news yet this week. I think everyone knows that Pathfinding rolled out to the main channel. You can find most of the information about Pathfinding in the SL Wiki: Second Life Pathfinding  Category. The new Pathfinding Tools are in the Beta Viewer.

It is unclear, at least to me, when those tools will roll into the production release viewer. There is no estimate when the third party viewers (TPV) will have all the tools. I expect the Linden and TPV’s to catch up this month.

Server Scripting August 2012

Simon noted Tuesday that the crash rate for Pathfinding (PF) regions had jumped up after the roll out. But, it seemed to be stabilizing and coming down. I suppose when one adds 5 times more regions the possibility of finding problems goes up five-fold too. Whatever, as of the time of the meeting the Lab was only collecting data and watching the system.

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