Experimental Code: Stop mobs hopping when pathing - FindBestZ tweaks

[Derision]

Just in case anyone was curious what the MAP files actually contain, during my work on this I wrote a little Visual C++ 8.0 / OpenGL app so I could visualise it (3D geometry is not really my thing).

The image below shows the triangles contained in the dreadlands.map file, looking from the tunnel to Firiona Vie out across the zone (the box in the middle is Karnor Castle).

The text shows the X,Y,Z position you are viewing from, along with the Node (bounding box). The next line shows some info about the bounding box and finally the BestZ, i.e. the elevation of the ground at the X,Y position you are at.

The app is not user friendly (need to hard code the path to the zone file as well as the X,Y,Z position you want to look from, otherwise I would have posted the code for that too.

Nice work!!

[moydock]

Very nice, does this also fix mobs going under the world while attempting to path over hills? If so, you are my hero! If not, still very nice .

[Diuretic]

Aye, this is fascinating work! The problem's obviously less easy to solve than I originally thought.

Thanks again for the eye opener.

[Derision]

Originally Posted by moydock

Does this also fix mobs going under the world while attempting to path over hills?

I hope so, however I can't say for sure that it fixes all such occurrences as I only checked a limited number of mobs in a limited number of zones.

If you can give me some specific examples of where this occurs, I can check those out for you.

[Zandig]

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!

I've wanted to see some solid work on this for quite a while.
Excellent job.

Now we need some Windows binaries

[Derision]

Originally Posted by Zandig

Now we need some Windows binaries

I have yet to have any feedback from anyone who has actually said they have compiled and tried this code. If I find time over the weekend, I'll install the necessary software on a Windows box to make some binaries for you to try it out.

[KLS]

Do you have any idea where the crash in question occurs in the code?

Corrupt or not there's probably safe-checks that can be put in place to prevent it if we know where it's at.

[Rogean]

Http://www.rogean.com/Zone-BestZ.exe

Haven't tested it myself. Test it out and let me know how it works out. If it looks good I'll commit to code.