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AI reacting to doors opening or closing.


Professor Paul1290

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Right now guards don't react much to doors being opened and closed. That kind of makes sense in most cases as doors opening and closing in a building with people walking around in it happens so often it probably wouldn't be worth investigating by itself unless they were REALLY paranoid.

However, sometimes the AI seems a bit too oblivious to this, especially when they are alone and someone clearly does not come through.

 

Trying to fix that in an ideal way would probably be a real pain in the ass and due to the great number of things that would make an opening door either suspicious or ordinary. Even if it could be done, it may be rather unbalancing in missions that were made assuming that the AI didn't have that ability, and in that case you might have to add yet another thing for mappers to worry about.

 

On the other hand, TDM does give us a lot of control when it comes to doors. We can open doors partially and we can listen through them fairly easily, and leaning to either side and forward allows us to open doors from a variety of angles. With that I think having the AI have a rather mild reaction to doors being opened by the player wouldn't be too disruptive.

 

 

Perhaps if a nearby door is opened by the player the AI should "hear" the door opening, but their reaction should be delayed by a few seconds and they should only briefly look over at the door before going back to what they were doing.

If there's a few seconds of delay on this, then the player has time to move out of sight before they turned to look, and it seems reasonable that a door opening nearby is only suspicious if nobody is heard or seen going through it after that amount of time. At the same time, the AI at least do something so it doesn't seem like they're completely oblivious.

 

 

As far as balance goes, I don't recall many reasonable situations that would be truly broken by this. Again, we can open doors partially and we can do so from many angles.

If you're going into the guard's room and the door is well lit, you can still go through safely as you can just open the door partially, wait until after the AI briefly looks over and dismisses it when he sees nobody, then go right in as you would before. You just wouldn't be able to open it up and go right in right away.

If you're exiting the guard's room through a well lit door the time between you actually opening the door and going through would be very brief and should fall within the short delay the guard takes to turn and look at the door you used to exit. Either that or if you don't feel safe you can open the door and retreat back into hiding before proceeding through.

If there are guards on both sides and the door is well lit then all you need is somewhere to hide from the guard in your current room immediately after opening the door. This can be done whether you stay in your current room after opening or go through immediately after opening, you just need to find cover from the guard in the room you end up in when the delay is up and he looks over at the door.

 

The only case I can think of at the moment where this may truly block the player would be if both sides of the door were well lit, there were guards on both sides, they were positioned far enough away from the door and centered enough so the door couldn't act as a barrier on either side (remember, you can hide behind an open door from someone in the same room if they're off to the side of it), and there were no other usable safe spots or barriers available near the doorway. However, that situation would have to be so bad that I would argue it would probably make sense if you were caught trying to go through it that way.

 

Of course there could be other scenarios, though I don't recall any at the moment.

Edited by Professor Paul1290
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I suppose you could fake this. Door triggers a small radius alarm entity. Door is opened, alarm entity alerts everyone at close proximity. Will look daft when an AI opens a door and alerts his buddy, though. Can the mapper adjust the level alert entity alerts AI? If it was very mild it could be okay. Door nearby opens, stop and stare, carry on patrol.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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As Sotha said, would be nice if the mapper could adjust this seeing as there may be doors which should not bE open. Like a door the AI is guarding to a trophy room, for instance. Would also be nice if there were an arg for door angle such that, if the door is opened beyond such and such angle, then the AI goes in to the chosen alarm state. Could be a default for this angle arg like 30deg, so if not set it would work in the basic state. The mapper has to set door open arc for special doors already so this would be a nice control point.

 

If the alarm state were just initiated from the door open/close sound propagation this wouldn't work obviously. Though if the guard hears a door close on a door that shouldn't be open, one might think his curiosity would be roused. Though you'd think with door angle args that could be controlled by the mapper via scripting. If the door (which should never be opened) goes to any angle other than starting angle and then returns to start angle, then AI alert. Or something similar.

Edited by Lux
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I've already thought about this matter as it appears strange to me, too, that ai does not react to opening doors at all.

 

Basically there are two ways to create a reaction from the ai.

 

(I) The door could emit a stim which causes nearby ai to turn towards the door or do whatever else is suppossed. This would obviously only work with a modified ai. Via a spawnarg on the door and the ai mappers could adjust how important the door is and how sensible single ai's are to opening doors.

 

(II) The door could, as Sotha suggested, emit a propagated sound alarming the ai. Mappers could adjust the alert via the kind of sound they choose or simply create an own one. Obviously the sound should either only be emitted if the player opens the door or, if an ai does so, it's effect has to be negated via script once the ai behind the door sees an ai coming through the door.

 

Both approaches would not influence current FM's.

 

In the second approach the *noise* of the door would decide upon the ai's reaction. If the sound is quite low-volumed, the ai only turns towards the door. If it is louder, the ai may investigate the door.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

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As Sotha said, would be nice if the mapper could adjust this seeing as there may be doors which should not bE open.

There is a "shouldBeClosed" spawnarg on doors.

Wouldn't it make the game too hard if you you alert the guards everytime you open a door, guys?

Mappers may only use this on doors in areas that are high security. But your right generally. I thought about giving the player the ability to slowly open the door. Will see if I can work this out.

 

Either way: This would be more something mappers can choose to use or not, and similar to nokill noKO objectives, they may not be appropiate for general use, but could add some tension to special cases.

 

Just imagine a bank mission with tons of loot in it. The player woulod expect the guards to be very sensible, wouldn't he?

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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Something else on this. The player can "open" a door and then stop/start it but having a way to open a door slowly and softly/quietly would go along with this behavior and be more realistic and negate sound alarms for better "level of difficulty" balance. That was one thing I really liked about TDS was that once your frobbed a door you could roll the mouse wheel to control its open close behavior exactly. It also had a great 'feel' to it and was quiet. Could be a second option for the open anim where normal right-clicking frobs the door normally but middle mouse clicking (or any keybind) and then rolling the mouse wheel after middle mouse click frob would allow silence and greater frob control.

 

EDIT: hmm, that wasn't TDS... can't recall now its been so long. Maybe splinter cell or.. some game allowed you to do that and I loved it and always wished it was an option in all stealth games. Best method I'd ever encountered in a stealth game for door control. Yeah I think it was SC as you could peek under, bash, open, or open slowly. Clearly we don't need a bash and we already have open. Having an additional key bind for Open Slowly and then linking control to the mouse wheel behavior would be amazing.

Edited by Lux
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Silently opening a door via the mouse wheel was possible in Ravenshield.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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The possibilities to change the button behaviour via scripting is rather limited. What I thought about was this approach:

  • If the player stands while frobbing a door, the door opens/closes normally
  • If the player crouches while frobbing a door, the door can be silently opened closed

I think this fits the neccessarities, as if the player wants to be undetected he will crouch anyways, and if he needs to open a door fast, like for example when he is fleeing, he will stand anyways.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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If the door opens/closes slower that would at least give the player tIME to stop it where he wants it. Currently you have to swing the door back and forth, back and forth trying to stop it in the place you desire. Its like a mini game, and its just opening a door. If you were crouched and it moved slower then that would give you time to catch it where you want it. It is one of the very few things that I find annoying but only some times. At least you can stop the door. More fine grained control for me at least is desireable and makes everything more "I'm a master thief, I'm in control".

 

The wheel rolling thing is just a dream anyway. It just makes it feel like you have your fingers on the door and you are in such control which personally as a player, I find the most immersive and liberating.

Edited by Lux
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Silently opening a door via the mouse wheel was possible in Ravenshield.

 

Maybe that was it. I did play that quite a bit back in the days. Made you feel like an operator. I just recall it being the *best* door mechanic I'd ever encountered.

 

EDIT: We have everything else. Quality and control of player movement. Frob with rotate, distance, and activate (which is underutilized by mappers in my opinion, such an excellent mechanic -- Old Habits had some in the Attic/door blocked by boxes thing and I always love when I get to do things like that as a player). Jump, mount, grab/mount. The door control thing is really the only thing in my mind when playing FMs that makes the experience feel "a little" clumbsy. Its not bad, what we have currently, though refinement would be welcome. Maybe I'll ask Santa for mouse scroll door movement for Christmas this year :D

Edited by Lux
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Wouldn't it make the game too hard if you you alert the guards everytime you open a door, guys?

 

If it isn't a full on stop, walk over, and investigate then I don't think it would. As I've mentioned above, as long as they don't walk over and investigate the area immediately (which honestly wouldn't make sense in most cases anyway) then currently the game gives us sufficient means to deal with it even in most "worst case scenarios".

 

Sure there are some outlier scenarios where it would be too hard, but unless I'm missing something they would have to be very stacked against the player in a way that I don't recall happening in any of the current missions.

 

The possibilities to change the button behaviour via scripting is rather limited. What I thought about was this approach:

  • If the player stands while frobbing a door, the door opens/closes normally
  • If the player crouches while frobbing a door, the door can be silently opened closed

I think this fits the neccessarities, as if the player wants to be undetected he will crouch anyways, and if he needs to open a door fast, like for example when he is fleeing, he will stand anyways.

 

I really like this!

 

AI noticing opening doors is already in 2.0.

 

Wow, that pretty much takes care of it I guess!

 

I should probably pay more attention to the bugtracker next time. :laugh:

Edited by Professor Paul1290
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that he really liked the suggestion of changing between default opening and silent opening via stand/crouch.

I'll see that I can provide a test map.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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I hope that it isn't truly silent. Some sound should play but it should be very very soft but audible to the player. Like jumping 10' down off crates or a ledge and you crouch mid-air and there's no sound when you land. There should be sOMe sound, but very soft, IMO. Just some feedback for the player to hear otherwise its immersion breaking.

 

Definitely can't wait for 2.0 and the AI improvements though.

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Its not bad, what we have currently, though refinement would be welcome. Maybe I'll ask Santa for mouse scroll door movement for Christmas this year

 

Someone was working on such a system a while ago. I'm not much in favour of changing the method based on whether you're standing/crouching though.

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Its only issue is that you could only do one while in a certain stance. Then instead of having to swing the door in and out repeatedly to get it where you wanted you'd have to change your stance and then change it back again if you wanted the opposite door action.

 

I agree that its best to give the player the tools and let them see fit how to utilize them.

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It's just very non-intuitive to me. There's nothing about crouching or not that has anything to do with opening doors.

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It's just very non-intuitive to me. There's nothing about crouching or not that has anything to do with opening doors.

 

If we were to add some kind of mouse wheel control, it would need to be compatible with the current behavior somehow.

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Another possibility would be to tack the frobbing-endurance into consideration. A short frob (like *click*) opens/closes the door normally while keeping the frob button pressed gives you full control.

 

Unfortunately I didn't found the time to work on this yesterday evening, hopefully today.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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If right-click frobbing (or whatever you have frob bound to) stays the same and a key bind is added for the new mouse scroll-wheel door open option, provided it works with current doors, how would that affect current behavior?

 

I should think that once the new key-bind is pressed, a secondary frob function is enacted where-by there is a check for a moveable door object and if valid, the mouse wheel is given control of the door angle adjust assigning any present door angle to a variable which the mouse wheel is now in control of incrementing/decrementing up to the doors current max/min angle settings. If the door reaches either the max or min of its angle setting, the frob control is relinquished and the door is left open(max)/closed(min), or if the key-bind is pressed a second time the frob control is relinquished leaving the door at whatever angle it was when the key-bind was pressed again.

 

This shouldn't affect any current door objects or require any model/entity modifications because it uses current properties for all moveable doors.

 

Of course I say this with no understanding of the current systems in place. Wouldn't it be nice if things were as simple as they seem :\

Edited by Lux
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Just make two new possible key binds in the options: open slowly and close slowly. Then the player can choose which keys he / she likes or setup the mouse scroll for it. No crouching and click frobbing confusion anymore ^_^

"Einen giftigen Trank aus Kräutern und Wurzeln für die närrischen Städter wollen wir brauen." - Text aus einem verlassenen Heidenlager

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How about the "slow walk" speed? (is that what it's called?)

 

Maybe holding the "slow walk" key could slow door opening and closing, which might fit more intuitively than crouching.

 

Also, if you're holding "slow walk" then you're not going to keep pace with the door very well anyway unless you are towards the hinge side. If doors opened slowly when you're walking slowly then it would sort of match your speed better, so it would makes sense as you'd be able to more naturally follow the door as it swings into the room.

 

Actually, if you wanted to it could make sense do this with run as well. If doors opened faster while you held run then that would make the door match your desired movement speed better.

Edited by Professor Paul1290
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