Pathfinding Object's upgrade?

[AnotherFreak]

I'm currently using Pathfinding Object - it's great,but still a little buggy (it sometimes crashes the application when no path towards the destination can be found). I wanted to ask if this object is still developed and upgraded? Is the creator still around? And will there be any upgrades to eliminate the crashing bug?

[Ross]

it was upgraded. Bugs about zones were fixed i think, i'm not sure about the bug you mentioned, but i have heard of it before. Try downloading the z33z pack again

[willy]

Would it be hard to make a path finding object that works kinda like the directional calculator: By simply selecting an object and set it's destination. Then the object finds a path to that point?

[Blizna]

Willy, thats absolutely different than how this object works. To make what are talking about you would have to implement to MMF some kind of grid and let MMF automatically to set cells to obstacles if any obstacle is overlapping. But why do that, if this object does the same? You only need to set manually where the obstacles are.

[vortex2]

I agree that can't work becuase of how the pathfinding algorithm works. The pathfinding algorithm uses the array to calculate the path to take. Without an array the best approach would be some kind of visibility graph but that wouldn't always yield the sortest path and it might even be more complicated to setup..

[willy]

yeah okay. I suppose its just me who's not to good at coding. But I still think there should be an easier way to make multiple objects find a path.

[vortex2]

I do not know of any besides visibility graphs and those would still require work to setup.

You have to think in terms of how does the computer know where an obstacle is and how does it know where it can move? The object would attempt to move in a straght line to the destination but if an obstacle is in the way then what does it do? To us the answer is to simply take a path around the obstacle but computers are very stupid machines. They have no concept of how to move around an obstacle or even how to move.

Let's say I had a room that was configured like this:

|------------------------------------|
|                    D               |
|                --------|           |
|                        |           |
|                        |           |
|--------------          ------------|
|             |          |           |
|             |                      |
|             |          |      S    |
|------------------------------------|

Say I wanted to find a path from S to D. How would I go about doing this? I can't just move in a straight line becuase S would cross walls on the way to D. I need to find a path through the walls that will lead me to D, but I also need to find the shortest path. Now if I was to just supply the location of the walls and say if you encounter a wall, move Right then S would move around the starting room in a constant loop.

Now a grid divides the moveable space into areas that can be marked to tell if the object has already been in that area. This allows us to find a path instead of circling around forever.

Now a visibility graph would work like this:

|------------------------------------|
|              o     D               |
|                --------|           |
|              o         |           |
|                        |           |
|--------------          ------------|
|             |          |           |
|             |          o           |
|             |          |      S    |
|------------------------------------|

The nodes denote possible routes. They are placed at junctions and as long as S can find a node then it can travel to that node and then be able to see another node. We can travel to the node in the starting room and then see the node that gives us a route out of the second "room". Then once we are at this node we an see the third node that shows us the hall where D is at. From the last node we have a clear line of sight to D.

Now lets say we move D somewhere else:

|------------------------------------|
|              o                     |
|                --------|           |
|              o     D   |           |
|                        |           |
|--------------          ------------|
|             |          |           |
|             |          o           |
|             |          |      S    |
|------------------------------------|

We could go from the first node, to the second, and then to D. The only thing we have to check is that there is a clear path to the node or to the destination point. As a limit we could also say that the object can't visit the previous node (to prevent an object from going back and forth between two nodes).

[willy]

Yeah, I do realize that path finding is advanced, but I was just hoping someone would make it just a little easier. Suppose I'll just study the path finding object until I know how to make multiple objects follow a path.

[uprize]

what about grid pathfinding?

the 'grid object' extension in MMF1.5 allowed pathfinding using a grid based system which was perfect for multiple objects. The only problem was that the source code was lost so it cannot be converted to MMF2.

Im sure that somebody would be able to create an extension for grid pathfinding?