Walkabout Navigation Toolkit help thread

#21 Yep, you can have as many as you like providing they have different filenames. Moving between navmeshes may require some special logic, but if an AIPlayer is inside a navmesh they'll automatically try to use it.

#22 great! thanks for the quick reply. I could probably have a link between the two navmeshes perhaps, if this is built in, if not worth considering for the next release.

For now UAISK will take over any breaks between the two navmeshes.

#23 Unfortunately links only work on one navmesh - this is a Recast thing! I'll definitely add a note to make some better support for linking meshes - I'm very interested in this myself!

Having a secondary system take over when outside a navmesh is an excellent strategy. The UAISK in particular does well in open areas with obstacles - such as outdoors, avoiding rocks and trees and so on. There's no reason to use a full-on navmesh in these areas, it'd almost be a waste! But for indoors or multileveled environments you really need a more detailed solution - this is where navmeshes come in.

#24 Totally agree with you there. Thanks for the info. Keep up the good work, its a great solution that is not only a time saver, but a worthwhile addition to any project.

#25 Daniel, I'm just getting recovered from a fatal hard drive crash and will be back up and going soon. I want to purchase Walkabout, but your web page seems to be down for some reason!!!

Thanks....

#26 Hey Donnie - can you describe what happened when you tried to purchase Walkabout? The site appears to be up as far as the link to PayPal, but I can't test any further - PayPal won't let me pay myself! Someone else has managed to purchase Walkabout in the last couple of days, though.

#27 Daniel@ Looks like a great product, just had a couple questions which others likely will run into as well.

Since this is basically an "upgrade" from the free recast resource, can you include directions from upgrading from the resource -> your walkabout version?

Also, install the directions included in the ZIP were all geared towards 1.1 Final ... Not the last commercial (T3D1.2) or (MIT 2.0)recent GitHub releases ... so it wasn't as plug n play as the docs suggested.

To get it to compile even, had to add these (2) defines to the Release / Debug configurations in Visual Studio.
TORQUE_WALKABOUT_ENABLED
TORQUE_WALKABOUT_EXTRAS_ENABLED
(found by searching for the "unknown" functions)

Plus add a new filter "walkabout" and add the existing files, then add a sub-filter for "recast" and add those files.

Then it would compile the new source code.

Also removed T3D/nav and T3D/nav/recast (since I was upgrading) ...

To clean up the levels (from recast resource), it seems I need to remove the old nav paths and such ... But was nice to read that your walkabout removes the need for extra defined navpaths in the levels.

Its compiling now, but the editor for nav meshes isnt showing up -- so going to dig into it further and see what I may have missed.

NOTE: The issues above are likely going to affect anyone using a release post 1.1 Final ... although some of my issues may be a result my moving from recast resource to walkabout, so possibly self induced.

#28 Saw this on another post ... wanted to confirm I followed these steps as well.


Quick checklist:
Walkabout source files are in Engine/source/walkabout
walkabout.inc is in Tools/projectGenerator/modules
Added includeModule('walkabout'); to projectCode.conf
Ran generateProjects.bat


... and see a reference to loading the module. but when I opened the MSCV solution, it did not have walkabout included in it or the defines necessary to compile.
(since they are #ifdef in the source code, that only compile the code if defined)

#29 Hey Jeff! I'm travelling right now but I'll be able to help you properly in about 24 hours. Walkabout isn't an upgrade of the RR- it started that way but became a total rewrite at some point. I will make that more clear, but providing an 'upgrade' guide is a great idea. As for the defines, are they not included in walkabout.inc? I thought they were. Will check when I'm home! Just spent 24 hours in LAX... the floor here is not all that comfortable! :P

#30 Daniel@ Was there an updated / patch version or is the current R1P1?

Going to try again today, with a fresh copy from GitHub.

EDIT:
Progress - My mistake on the Tools/ProjectGenerator file placement ... see below for more literal directions.

Updated Install directions ...
1. Copy engine/source to <Install Dir>/Engine/ directory and select [Copy and Replace] for all items when prompted.
2. Copy game to <Install Dir>/My Project/<project>/game directory and select [Copy and Replace] for all items when prompted.
3. Copy Tools/projectGenerator/modules/walkabout.inc to <Install Dir>/Tools/projectGenerator/modules
4. co to <Install Dir>/My Project/<project> and run generateProjects.bat

EIDT:
Then it compiles but when I opened the solution in MSVS -- the walkabout and recast directories are not yet included. And the Navmesh doesnt show up in the editor.

Added them manually, to Configuration Properties -> C/C++ -> Preprocessor -> Definitions.

and now its compiling again

#31 Yep, the current version is R1P1. Okay, I'll try and repro what you're seeing. I've never had issues with the #define stuff. Which MSVC are you using? I've been using 2012 for a while, though that shouldn't be an issue. Does it work pretty much as expected when you add the defines by hand?

#32 Daniel@ Yeah it worked fine once I added the walkabout files to the project and added the #defines -- as above.

I still need to update the AI Player scripts from recast to walkabout methods ... but the levels load up in editor and I see the navigation editor now in the gui.

#33 Good news! I discovered a memory leak when building the navmesh that was causing crashes during large builds. It was literally a two-line change, but I'm very glad to be done with it!

So, I'm pleased to announce that the next patch will include support for huge navmeshes. I'm still working through some issues - rendering, especially, is a problem since Recast's debug rendering interface doesn't mesh very well with T3D's.

This is a 2048m terrain. Oh yeah.

Additionally, creating long paths will be an issue since Detour limits the length of the path (# of nodes, that is). Though that shouldn't be an issue until you ask for an incredibly long and complex path, and even then, you should be able to split that up using waypoints, which run multiple separate Detour pathing calls.

#34 Good news, Daniel. :)

#35 That's awesome! Can't wait to get my hands on that. Glad to hear it didn't involve some sort of major rewrite.

#36 Is your website down? was trying to look at it and it's throwing errors...

#37 What sort of errors? I just checked and it's working for me. What browser are you using?

#38 Chrome and IE both....

#39 Huh. If you don't mind me asking, what region are you connecting from? I'm wondering if it's an issue with your ISP or my host being in different countries and so on.

#40 California... I'll try from another ISP