huge translation warning. Any ideas?

[Fidcal]

Got multiple warnings during an alert while test playing. I am in an unreachable area and a test builder AI is throwing stuff at me.

 

huge translation for clip model 0 on entity 811 'atdm:ai_citywatch_6'

 

This guy is miles away in the city. I am upstairs in the manor outside the city with many closed doors and visportals between here and there.

[Fidcal]

More testing. I'm testing an AI can get through a narrow door. I stand to one side, put on my lantern, push a lever so the door opens but I can't be seen by the test builder AI stood on the other side.

 

Clear console. In game I move in front of the doorway and the builder comes through to attack.

 

Hit Esc, tilde. Console flooded with

 

huge translation for clip model 0 on entity 811 'atdm:ai_citywatch_6'

 

This is a Dark Mod issue clearly. I'll await comments before putting this on bugtracker. It might indicate false propagation of alerts far afield. And believe, there are many many closed doors and fully working visportals between this AI and the warning one.

 

BTW After a minute I get loads of AI come charging in including the noble lady. Why is she investigating? Shouldn't she be running the other way?

 

I fly outside and find the far gate open. Talk about information highway. Word spreads in a millisecond in this town.

 

I'm inclined to review the sound_loss on doors but even so, it's hard to see how that alone could spread the alert right to the city.

[grayman]

I don't know anything about what's going on here, but from looking at the code, it looks like there are tests for huge translations of clip models. Translations are done to answer proximity or pathing questions. A huge translation is defined as one where the translation distance > 4096.

 

In the code just prior to where your error message is written to the console, there's an assertion statement that's commented out. It looks like at one point the coders were using this assertion to raise a red flag if any huge translations were attempted.

 

Someone with more history with this will have to provide an answer.

 

Or ... if you don't get a timely response, you could PM me the map with steps on how to reproduce this, and I'll look at what's going on when this occurs.

[Springheel]

BTW After a minute I get loads of AI come charging in including the noble lady. Why is she investigating? Shouldn't she be running the other way?

 

Hmm, interesting. This brings to mind an experience I had testing my own map, where I made a commotion, a single guard spotted me, and suddenly five or six other guards, from the other side of the map arrived. There's no way they should have been alerted by the shout of a single guard. I assumed there must be some undiscovered leak or something, but I don't believe so. I've had guards in a really big room ignore another guard shouting, let alone with several visportals and doors in between.

[Fidcal]

OK, thanks grayman. I'll wait till tomorrow then pm you a url.

[stumpy]

is'nt model 0 the worldspawn, that means there isn't a leak and any AI near worldspawn would get the AI alert signal.

according to worldspawn inherited props it has outdoor_propmodel value 0

Edited January 7, 2011 by stumpy

[Fidcal]

I suspect there are two issues here. One is that alerts are being spread too far and too quickly. The other is maybe this particular AI is clipping worldspawn - perhaps because he was on extreme interleaved thinking and presumably that gets turned off when he is alerted. Or does it? So perhaps some adjustment clipped him into a wall. Whatever it is, it may be fortuitous if as in this case it definitely reveals an alert being passed almost instantly to the farthest end of a big FM. If this can be cracked it might greatly improve performance during alerts.

[Tels]

Yeah, that makes almost sense. What if an AI hurts itself on worldspawn, then passes that alert around? But shouldn't the propagation that not travel that far, anyway? Or are the other AI testing their distance to the alert-cause, not the AI that reports it?

[Fidcal]

Well I was thinking the translate error was incidental and the result of the AI being alerted.

 

As far as the alert being 'correct'; consider: I am in a back room of a large mansion. A single AI sees me and seemingly instantly that alert is carried through a closed door, down stairs through 4 or 5 closed visportals around various corridors, through an outer closed door into the grounds of the mansion. It then is carried outside the outer walls into the open area beyond. I wouldn't expect the front gate guards here to know about the alert for a minute or two. It then travels through a large closed heavy wooden gateway and along several alleys and streets all with closed visportals until it reaches a city watch at the other end of the town. Yet he has some kind of reaction within a millisecond of the AI in the backroom alerting.

 

The AI alert propagation represents sound so a loud commotion might be heard half a mile away within a couple of seconds. But for gameplay I think we should make the speed of sound much slower and the sound loss much greater. Problem is that it is transferred from AI to AI so the sound loss is cancelled out. So really only the speed of propagation needs reducing if possible.

 

Anyway, we now have a repeatable incident in captivity to use as a test map. I'll upload that later.

 

Ironically we also sometimes see an AI who does not react at all to another AI frantically searching for an intruder across the room.

[Fidcal]

Well I can repeat the error indefinitely in my main install game folder. I copied this game folder, just deleted some obvious junk like gamesaves, screenshots, a misc folder with backups. Then entered the map name in currentfm.txt and launched this via tdmlauncher. In the console I enter map etc and it runs as normal but when I alert the AI there is no subsequent stream of this warning.

 

I need to do more testing to try to copy it. I'll copy it all again I think and change nothing then test via tdmlauncher.

[Baddcog]

Are the close and far guards the same type? Would it be possible that the alert isn't travelling by sound or distance, but by hiearchy?

 

ie: one city watch guard is alerted, all city watch guards go alert? But nearby civilians dont, due to different hiearchy?

[Fidcal]

Don't know but I'd expect them all to alert the same.

[ocn]

Maybe sometimes the AI is recycled, instead of being a separate entity... Two models, but same AI- same reactions:wacko: Yes... I know, get out more often.