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GameDev: Arena

Kevin Hawkins · 2004-02-04T09:24:37

Our next contest is quickly approaching its start date, but before we actually kick this one off, we're going to let you review the rules and give us feedback in case there is anything we may have missed or needs to be explained in better detail. The next contest is called "GameDev: Arena". The idea will be to develop a bot AI to fight in deathmatch battles against other bots. The last bot standing at the end of the double elimination tournament is the winner. Bots will be programmed in C++ using a predefined bot template provided to you by GameDev.net through a "bot generator". Bots are compiled as DLL's, which are loaded and executed by the GameDev: Arena core executable. The interface specifics will be available at the start of the contest. Please note that we anticipate this to be a difficult contest. Entrants will probably not be able to program their bot AI using "traditional" AI techniques. Please review the rules at http://www.gamedev.net/community/contest/gdarena/ and post any feedback you have here. Do not email us. We will not reply to any emails about the contest. Kevin "Khawk" Hawkins CEO and News Director, GameDev.netSoftware Engineer, Raydon CorporationAuthor, OpenGL Game Programming Contributing author, Game Development: Tricks of the Trade , "Using the UML in Game Development" Developer Diary

GameDev: Arena Contests

Started by khawk July 06, 2003 03:39 PM

538 comments, last by khawk 20 years, 5 months ago

khawk

3,752

Author

July 14, 2003 11:58 AM

quote: Original post by d000hg
khawk:
So you plan to have a series of contests? Like an annual thing?

Eventually.. depending on how this goes.

quote:
Can we perhaps enter 2 bots, one in each category?

No. One bot, one category, one entrant.

quote:
If you are distributing the arena .exe does that mean two of us can challenge each others bots for practice - then people can give away as many secrets as they wish in return for info on other bots?

Yes.

quote:
I like the idea of a specific forum for this BTW

I''m considering this as well, since it looks like this thing is going to get bigger than I anticipated.

Admin for GameDev.net.

khawk

3,752

Author

July 14, 2003 12:01 PM

quote: Original post by Hedos
Wow... Can''t believe it work on my sitty video card...
I have a p3 733mhz, 384 sdram, S3 Savage 2000

The only problem is that it work correctly ONLY when I maximize the window, otherwise, everything is flashing...

But there is a bug, when the windows is maximized, I can no more see the time and the HP :I guess it would be easy to fix Kevin ?

edit: Everything was correct even in the normal window size when I reopened it !
Nice job!

btw, Bots are stupids !!

Last bug I just noticed, the bots can be bugged in a tree, he can try to move in any direction but he is locked :\

[edited by - Hedos on July 14, 2003 12:14:15 PM]

I think the flashing is related to the massive slowdown defect that a few others are experiencing. I''m going to try out some other techniques in the algorithms.

As for the bot getting stuck, you''re right. They need to completely turn away from an object to get unstuck. That''s why your bots should avoid obstacles at all costs.. they''re sticky.

Also, the original idea was to keep the size of the window at 800x600 at all times, but then I figured it would be nice to change it. The only problem is that the text in the window is positioned for the 800x600 size window.. but, this can be fixed.

Admin for GameDev.net.

khawk

3,752

Author

July 14, 2003 12:05 PM

quote: Original post by drslush
Ouch, the demo doesn''t work too well on my comp. It does work, well enough to see what the bots do, but I get some major flicker. Strange thing is, the flicker isn''t the standard v-sync flicker, because it only affects the terrain (not the trees or rocks or anything, just the floor), and it is all over the place.

My system: 1 Ghz, 128 Megs, TNT2

I think it''s the TNT2. I can''t confirm that right now, but I''m pretty sure that''s the problem. Well, it''s not the problem.. the code is the problem.. but I can make a workaround.

quote:
I was going to try and get a screenshot of the wierd flicker (not sure if it is possible though), but the program crashed when one bot came into the other''s FOV.

I''m not sure about this crash. It could be because of the text that comes up when one bot sees another ("I see him!"). I''d need you to give me more information on what was happening and what you saw.

quote:
Another comment: The FOV is triangle shaped. Shouldn''t it be more like a pie slice? Is this just how it is drawn, or is it really what the bot can see?

It really is a pie slice, but the triangle is easier to draw. You''ll notice that a bot can actually see beyond the back edge of the triangle.

Admin for GameDev.net.

Anonymous

July 14, 2003 12:36 PM

When both bots move or they are shooting, strange flickering can be seen on my computer. Here is image of it:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/gnigga/flickering.jpg

It can be seen clearly but it doesn''t appear in every frame. It seems like a huge polygon clipping stuff out but who knows. Game is perfectly "playable" still, because it doens''t do that every frame and usually it isn''t that big only 1/4 of screen or so. It can be driver issue or something like that too... I am not sure.

PS. I am not whining or complaying just reporting couple bugs: #1: If you press Go (or F5) two times it crashes, this shouldn''t be hard to fix. #2: Players can run throught rocks.

PPS. Hey come on ppl. Kevin didn''t say his bots would be smart they are there just for test purposes.

My PC:

AMD XP1700+
512mb DDR
GF 2 mx 400 64mb
nVidia Detonators: 30.82

khawk

3,752

Author

July 14, 2003 12:53 PM

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
When both bots move or they are shooting, strange flickering can be seen on my computer. Here is image of it:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/gnigga/flickering.jpg

It can be seen clearly but it doesn''t appear in every frame. It seems like a huge polygon clipping stuff out but who knows. Game is perfectly "playable" still, because it doens''t do that every frame and usually it isn''t that big only 1/4 of screen or so. It can be driver issue or something like that too... I am not sure.

Thanks for the SS. I know exactly what that is, and unfortunately, I haven''t been able to track it down. In fact, the defect is because I''m using someone else''s MD3 code, and it turns out that the code is, well.. a complete P.O.S. Hence the reason for the occasional crash on exit and this flashing that you are seeing here. Actually, the flashing you are seeing is one of the bot''s weapon. It won''t hurt anything in terms of gameplay.. it''s just annoying.

quote:
PS. I am not whining or complaying just reporting couple bugs: #1: If you press Go (or F5) two times it crashes, this shouldn''t be hard to fix. #2: Players can run throught rocks.

1. Yes, easily fixable.
2. It''s strange everyone is reporting this since I never had that problem, but I''ll check it out.

Admin for GameDev.net.

khawk

3,752

Author

July 14, 2003 01:00 PM

quote: Original post by ToohrVyk
My grief with the current executable is that it is way too big for my 1024x768 LCD monitor, so if I want to see the bot''s health I have to drag it up high (if I resize it, it fits my screen but the text lines overwrite each other : their height is constant, but their vertical separation decreases). Could you make the initial size 800x600, or at least read it from an INI?

ToohrVyk

The initial size should be 800x600, but it sounds like I''m going to need to modify how this is done anyway.

Admin for GameDev.net.

Anonymous

July 14, 2003 01:12 PM

quote: Original post by Khawk
quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
When both bots move or they are shooting, strange flickering can be seen on my computer. Here is image of it:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/gnigga/flickering.jpg

It can be seen clearly but it doesn''t appear in every frame. It seems like a huge polygon clipping stuff out but who knows. Game is perfectly "playable" still, because it doens''t do that every frame and usually it isn''t that big only 1/4 of screen or so. It can be driver issue or something like that too... I am not sure.

Thanks for the SS. I know exactly what that is, and unfortunately, I haven''t been able to track it down. In fact, the defect is because I''m using someone else''s MD3 code, and it turns out that the code is, well.. a complete P.O.S. Hence the reason for the occasional crash on exit and this flashing that you are seeing here. Actually, the flashing you are seeing is one of the bot''s weapon. It won''t hurt anything in terms of gameplay.. it''s just annoying.

quote:
PS. I am not whining or complaying just reporting couple bugs: #1: If you press Go (or F5) two times it crashes, this shouldn''t be hard to fix. #2: Players can run throught rocks.

1. Yes, easily fixable.
2. It''s strange everyone is reporting this since I never had that problem, but I''ll check it out.

I am that AP and I think that I know how to fix that flickering, and best thing about this is that you only have to change some numbers in media/models/samjai/animation.cfg.

Here is how to fix it:

Change these lines:

136 6 0 15 // TORSO_ATTACK (MUST NOT CHANGE -- hand animation is synced to this)
142 6 0 15 // TORSO_ATTACK2 (MUST NOT CHANGE -- hand animation is synced to this)

Into these:

136 0 0 0 // TORSO_ATTACK (MUST NOT CHANGE -- hand animation is synced to this)
142 0 0 0 // TORSO_ATTACK2 (MUST NOT CHANGE -- hand animation is synced to this)

and vòla no flickering but occasionally one can see weapon disappearing/appearing suddenly but that is FAR less annoying(not annoying at all I would say).

PS. This competition sounds like a good idea, keep on going Khawk

khawk

3,752

Author

July 14, 2003 01:30 PM

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
I am that AP and I think that I know how to fix that flickering, and best thing about this is that you only have to change some numbers in media/models/samjai/animation.cfg.

Here is how to fix it:

Change these lines:

136 6 0 15 // TORSO_ATTACK (MUST NOT CHANGE -- hand animation is synced to this)
142 6 0 15 // TORSO_ATTACK2 (MUST NOT CHANGE -- hand animation is synced to this)

Into these:

136 0 0 0 // TORSO_ATTACK (MUST NOT CHANGE -- hand animation is synced to this)
142 0 0 0 // TORSO_ATTACK2 (MUST NOT CHANGE -- hand animation is synced to this)

and vòla no flickering but occasionally one can see weapon disappearing/appearing suddenly but that is FAR less annoying(not annoying at all I would say).

PS. This competition sounds like a good idea, keep on going Khawk

Oh very cool.. I hope that fixes it.

Admin for GameDev.net.

eighty

220

July 14, 2003 01:59 PM

Neat.

I do think the bots are a little unnecessarily stupid though. Just running in a random direction every two seconds is what should be expected from a purposely silly bot. Oh well. No issue.

Some issues: The bots run painlessly straight through the grey rocks. The brown rocks take a few seconds to penetrate. Both are called Kevin, should they be?

It runs okay. The menu is a little sluggish and it takes a short while to start and shut down the program. I''ve a P3 1GHz, GeForce 2. There should be a restart option, so that you won''t have to exit and start the program again.

khawk

3,752

Author

July 14, 2003 02:03 PM

quote: Original post by eighty
Neat.

I do think the bots are a little unnecessarily stupid though. Just running in a random direction every two seconds is what should be expected from a purposely silly bot. Oh well. No issue.

Well these bots'' main purpose was to test functionality of the core interface and to make sure the dynamics of the arena worked properly. They are by no means intelligent, and they were never meant to be.

quote:
Some issues: The bots run painlessly straight through the grey rocks. The brown rocks take a few seconds to penetrate. Both are called Kevin, should they be?

Apparently something was broken when I built the downloadable exe, but I''ll fix the rock issue. The bots shouldn''t be running through them. Now that I type this, I think I know what it is.

Both bots are called Kevin. In fact, both bots you see are using the TestPlayer.dll (which registers a bot named "Kevin"), so they execute the same code.

quote:
It runs okay. The menu is a little sluggish and it takes a short while to start and shut down the program. I''ve a P3 1GHz, GeForce 2. There should be a restart option, so that you won''t have to exit and start the program again.

I''m not going to put a restart in there.. I never included that in the design, so it''s something for the future.

Admin for GameDev.net.