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Monster Behaivor (first version)
Posted By: goranDate: 10/1/05 9:35 a.m.

In Response To: Secrets. (RyokoTK)

:Monsters in marathon can be tricky to understand at first, but when you get a hang of it, nothing seems easier.

Rule 1: A monster is in a sleep state until you activate it.

All monsters you place in maps needs to be activated somehow before they can go and attack the player. We're gonna deal with different ways of activating monsters. When you place a monster you'll see a monster placement window. You have a couple of options here:

Deaf: if unchecked the monster will activate by hearing a sound from the player or other aliens.
Blind: if unchecked the monster will activate when it sees the player.

Activated by (drop down meny): Here you can choose to make the monster only respond to either "the player", "nearest hostile", goal, or randomly. It's easy to misinterpret this as activated by on "all levels". It does only refer to sight, visual activation.

Visual activation

A monster has a visual arc of 180 degrees, which is much more than you and me have. Humans has a visual arc of 90 degrees. (if you have ever picked up a hypervision in marathon you know how a monster sees the world). In physics you can decide monsters visual range. More on that later. When the player enters the monsters visual range and its arc of vision it will activate.

Sound activation

A monster hears everything no matter how far away the sound comes from. It's good to remember. When a sound is heard either from the player or by other aliens this alien will activate.
A thing that awed me is that all aliens makes an unhearable sound when they activate.

eg. A hunter who sees the player and activates will activate all monsters that aren't deaf.

sound travel from one polygon to another polygon in the speed of lighting. It's crucial to understand this, so read it twice. Sound travel from one polygon to another polygon, like a chain reaction, and it goes very very very fast. Imagine waterloo waterpark (m2 intro level). Imagine that you make a sound with your pistol. Imagine that the sound travels throught the map from polygon to polygon and makes every polygon it touch blue, and full of sound.

Hit activation

Aliens that are hurt by projectiles or melee weapons will activate.

PROBLEM

What is the point of having monsters activate by sound if a sound can travel from polygon to polygon all over the map. You'd activate all no-deaf monsters at the same time. (still this doesn't happen in some maps I have played, what's up?)

Rule 2: Zoneborder polygons blocks sounds and signals.

If you go to the "view" menu and choose "polygon types" you'll get up a nice window with different polygon types. Platform, hill, zoneborders, visible monster trigger, item impassable etc etc.

From here you can choose any polygon type and apply it to your polygons. It's nice to know this when we work with zoneborders. If you remember my sound explaination above, I said that the sound travels from polygon to polygon and colors them blue and fills them with sound. A zoneborder polygon, is a polygon that is immune to this. The sound can't color it blue and fill it with sound, neither can it cross the polygon. A zoneborder blocks sounds!

This means you can create areas "zones" with your zoneborders. Enclosed areas, where sound cannot escape from. Eg. If you have a hall with three entrances and you want the sound to stay in this hall, you'd mark all entrances as zoneborders.

Triggered activation

Among the polygontypes you'll find two trigger polygons. Visibile- and invisible monster trigger.
If you apply this to a polygon it will send out a signal when the player step on it. This signal behaves like sound, but it is not a sound, it's still a signal.

A signal will spread and activate any monster it comes in contact with, no matter what. The only thing that can stop the signal is zoneborders.

visibible monster trigger - activates visible monsters
invisible monster trigger - activates invisible monsters and monsters that teleports in.

-------------------

Ok now we know how to activate monsters. It's time to make them behave right. Monster behaivor boils down to physics and polygon construction.

First we'll tackle how monster move around in maps. A monster will, when activated, make a path towards the player. This path is made by crossing the middle of as few lines as possible until it's at the same polygon as the player. Then it will go right for the player, lol.

Take notice that a monster doesn't take the shortest way messaured in real distance, but in number of lines.

Can a monster way of moving cause troubles in maps? Yes it can. Cheap polygon construction may cause problems. If a monster moves along walls or in other weird ways take a look at that area in forge. What path is the monster making? How can you change the path? You have to flex your brain muscels yourself on this one.

hastur illustrates this well!

*** tips ***
If you want to place monster on ledges or pillars, and also want them to be able to shoot from that location, they must have at least two polygons to move around on.
*** tips ***

Now lets head over to anvil and check out the physic model. There's two things we're interrested in. "Behaivor settings" and "physical constants".

You have a nifty help icon in the top right corner. Clicking on it will allow help bubbles. These help bubbles explain everything with ease, so I am not gonna bother with explaining what all options do. Discover it yourself!

Instead I'll talk more about how a monster behaves in maps. In "physical constants" you'll find visual range, dark visual range, and intelligence. These three are important for an alien's ability to track down the player.

When a monster is activated it will make a path towards the player's current polygon. On it's way toward that location the alien will scan it's surrounding with its visual range to keep track of the players position. If the player moves, it will change its path congruently. The same works with sounds. If the player makes a sound, the alien will change its path to that location.

The monster decides new direction with its ears and eyes so to speak.

When the player steps out of the monsters visual range, the monster will use its intelligence to keep track of the player. (intelligence= number of polygons (like a range) a monster can use to keep track of the player when he's out of sight).

If the player steps out of the visual range, and the intelligence range, and don't make a sound, the monster will go where it last spotted the player. When it arrives, it will wander around randomly looking for the player.

In other words, if you want a stupid monster, give it a visual range of 0 and an intelligence of 0.

-------------------------------------------------

Monsters affected by goal.

Sometimes you want to control where a monsters makes its path to, maybe a special place. If a monster is activated by goal (see top), it will make a path towards a goal polygon when it's activated. When it reach the goal polygon it will wander around randomly or teleport out (if that flag is checked).

A goal affected alien do still scan its surroundings with its ears and eyes. If it sees/hears anything suspicious, it will abandom it's goal path and go for whatever caught its attention.
Sight and sound of friends will not bother these aliens of course.

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Pre-2004 Posts

Replies:

What makes a nice map?TDJ 9/29/05 7:41 a.m.
     Re: What makes a nice map?RyokoTK 9/29/05 12:39 p.m.
     Re: What makes a nice map?C Lund 9/30/05 12:18 a.m.
           Re: What makes a nice map?Forrest of B.org 9/30/05 6:34 a.m.
                 Re: What makes a nice map?RyokoTK 9/30/05 7:11 a.m.
                       Applying weapons to maps.RyokoTK 9/30/05 9:05 a.m.
                             Appropriate platform usage.RyokoTK 9/30/05 9:36 a.m.
                                   Lighting.RyokoTK 9/30/05 9:50 a.m.
                                         How to use monsters.RyokoTK 9/30/05 10:07 a.m.
                                               Secrets.RyokoTK 9/30/05 8:29 p.m.
                                                     Monster Behaivor (first version)goran 10/1/05 9:35 a.m.
                                                           Re: Monster Behaivor (first version)RyokoTK 10/1/05 9:57 a.m.
                                                                 Re: Monster Behaivor (first version)goran 10/1/05 10:20 a.m.
                                                           Re: Monster Behaivor (first version)Steve Levinson 10/1/05 7:03 p.m.
                                                                 Re: Monster Behaivor (first version)goran 10/1/05 10:52 p.m.
                                                                       Wow-A compliment from Goran for unsolicited advice *NM*Steve Levinson 10/2/05 6:40 a.m.
                                                                             Maybe his life depended on it... *NM*D-M.A. 10/2/05 6:59 a.m.
                                                                                   Re: Maybe his life depended on it...goran 10/2/05 11:28 a.m.
                                                                                         IMO, we're looking to deeply into this... *NM*Blake37 10/2/05 2:17 p.m.
                                                                                         Re: Maybe his life depended on it...D-M.A. 10/2/05 6:49 p.m.
                                                                                               Re: Maybe his life depended on it...RyokoTK 10/2/05 7:02 p.m.
                                                                                                     Re: Maybe his life depended on it...D-M.A. 10/2/05 7:10 p.m.
                                                                                                           Re: Maybe his life depended on it...Steve Levinson 10/2/05 7:27 p.m.
                                                                                               true if Steve=DMAgoran 10/2/05 10:24 p.m.
                                                                                                     Re: true if Steve=DMAD-M.A. 10/3/05 8:28 a.m.
                                                                                                           gorans experince of uagoran 10/3/05 2:41 p.m.
                                                                                                                 Re: gorans experince of uaForrest of B.org 10/3/05 3:08 p.m.
                                                                                                                 Re: gorans experince of uaD-M.A. 10/3/05 6:43 p.m.
                                                                                                                 Re: gorans experince of uaSteve Levinson 10/4/05 4:38 a.m.
                                                                                                                       Re: gorans experince of uagoran 10/4/05 6:34 a.m.
                                                                                                                             Re: gorans experince of uaD-M.A. 10/4/05 10:27 a.m.
                                                                                                                                   Re: gorans experince of uaNick Hoad 10/4/05 10:59 a.m.
                                                                                                                                         Re: gorans experince of uagoran 10/4/05 12:21 p.m.
                                                                                                                                   Re: gorans experince of uagoran 10/4/05 12:05 p.m.
                                                                                                                                         I actually agree & perhaps misinterpreted you *NM*Steve Levinson 10/4/05 12:46 p.m.
                                                                                                                             Re: gorans experince of uaSteve Levinson 10/4/05 11:23 a.m.
                                                                                                                                   Re: gorans experince of uaSimon/team Sigma 10/4/05 12:20 p.m.
                                                                                                                                         True, and horribly off topic, but fun ;) *NM*Steve Levinson 10/4/05 12:47 p.m.
                                                                                                                                               Re: True, and horribly off topic, but fun ;)Simon/team Sigma 10/4/05 1:31 p.m.
                                                                                                                                                     Taken at face value - no offense taken at all *NM*Steve Levinson 10/4/05 3:21 p.m.
                                                                                                                                         Re: gorans experince of uaD-M.A. 10/4/05 7:15 p.m.
                                                                                                                                               Re: gorans experince of uaForrest of B.org 10/4/05 7:34 p.m.
                                                                                                                                                     Re: gorans experince of uaBlake37 10/5/05 9:54 a.m.
                                                                                                                                                           Re: gorans experince of uaForrest of B.org 10/5/05 10:54 a.m.
                                                                                                                                                                 Re: gorans experince of uaBlake37 10/5/05 3:37 p.m.
                                                                                                                                                                       Re: gorans experince of uaForrest of B.org 10/5/05 6:40 p.m.
                                                                                                                                                                             Re: gorans experince of uaBlake37 10/6/05 12:22 p.m.
                                                                 Re: Monster Behaivor (first version)goran 10/2/05 11:08 a.m.
                                                                       Re: Monster Behaivor (first version)Steve Levinson 10/2/05 7:35 p.m.
                                         Transitional lighting.RyokoTK 9/30/05 10:40 a.m.
                                         lighting goran style (basics)goran 9/30/05 10:47 a.m.
                                         Re: Lighting.treellama 10/1/05 3:47 a.m.
                       Re: What makes a nice map?C Lund 9/30/05 12:30 p.m.
                             Re: What makes a nice map?RyokoTK 9/30/05 4:54 p.m.
                                   Re: What makes a nice map?Steve Levinson 9/30/05 9:33 p.m.
                                         Re: What makes a nice map?RyokoTK 10/1/05 3:50 a.m.
                                   Re: What makes a nice map?C Lund 9/30/05 11:30 p.m.

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