Yes, ppoints store X,Y and Z. That's why you can do pathing using ONLY the ppoints without having the 3d zone geometry.
In "real eq", a wide open IIRC, was defined by dropping ppoints to create a bounding polygon, inside of which is adefined as a wide open. For the emu, I think it should be kept simpler, and instaed be done by simlpy defining a rectangle. IE #path add wideopen 100,100 500,500
As I stated earlier, wideopens should NOT be used to cover areas with any noticeable variance in Z axis because it will not be able to properly handle the pathing. That is a responsability of the person pathign the zone.
As for choosing points... routes are calculated in real-time, nearest adjacent poiint which moves the mob closer to the target point, takign into account conntections between groups.
Now, again, this is how EQ does it, but if you have suggestions for a better way, there is nothing preventing that from being done. Like I said.. no one was really happy with the pathign we used in EQ.. It sucked, had lots of problems, and dropped the burden of pathing on the developer. But it workd, it was low on resources, and it was easy to leave in.
|