Object Blocking LOS System - Updated 17 Dec 2009

[Cozmo]

ObjectBlock-LosMod.rar Updated, I messed up the module file


I am very excited because I think I have cracked Object Blocking LOS.

As a break from tradition I will show the video first.
NOTE: I suggest full screen



Ok, now you have watched the video, some info about the system.

This version I am releasing to public is very general and simple.
Units will be revealed if they are un-obscured in a 360 degree angle around your squads.

I am in the process of making another version, but that will only be released in my mod (gotta keep something exclusive no :P).

This version will have directional detection on single and small man squads (1 -2) so they can only detect units that are in the direction they are facing, so a sniper prone in a bush wont reveal a squad that are running behind him on the edge of LOS.

It will also have dual directional detection on tanks (the way it is facing and the way the turret is facing)

One last thing is sound awareness, this is mainly vs tanks, if there is only a hedge between some men and a tank, Those men could probably hear the tank, so a vehicle icon will be shown on the mini map, like tank awareness for the PE.


ok, on to the files that are attached to the bottom of this post.

If you just want to test out the system then the file called "ObjectBlocking-losMod.rar" is what you need, it is a clean mod that just has this system on it for you to test.

The second one ("ObjectBlocking-losMacro.rar") is so you can install the system into a mod you are making, it has macro's and all the scar in it.
With this version make sure you read all the info about what each macro does, and how to use it. As a general piece of advice I would install this system as one of the last things you put in your mod to limit chances of you messing something up when you are making more changes to the various bits of your mod.

All the scar is un-encrypted so you can see how things work and I think the macros are also a good example of how you can get macros to do almost anything. There are also quite few useful misc functions I have made, only the ones needed in this system are there, but if you want the rest tell me.


Of course this is still very early in development, any feed back you can give from playing around with it will be very welcomed. If you do use this in your mod, just credit me. If you want to edit the system feel free, but no matter how much you edit it, you still used my system as a base, so again credit.

That is all, Btw I take no responsibility if the macro's somehow mess your mod up, make a backup before you run them :P.

[tskross]

A.W.E.S.O.M.E

so would it theoretically be possible to eliminate FOW altogether and use your LOS system?

[Cozmo]

yea, but I would use fow as a visual way to show the range of units... but yes it would be very easily possible.

However, lack of visual reference is not often a good thing.

[Lethal Dosage]

So your cracked the issues? Great!

Sadly i can't watch the video, but this is definately an achievement! Congrats!

[Cozmo]

why not, any when I get my good pc running I will make a Hi-res version.

[Lethal Dosage]

Unfortuantly i'm stuck on 32k dialup, which gives me a download speed of approximately 3k per second. Sadly WiFi broadband isn't all that great and still expensive in my area, as is cable internet.

But i'm definately going to try this and see for myself just how great this is. True LoS is something i always wanted for CoH, since it came out... especially since i moved onto CoH from Blitzkrieg.

[Cozmo]

Same, I like Men Of War, but it is just not as polished as CoH. I hope to bring CoH as close to a realistic RTS as I can, this system is a HUGE part of it, I am so happy.

[DemoSS]

cozmoisme, great work! Just one question: what about the low objects (wooden fences etc)? They are block the LOS too? I haven't seen the video yet (low-speed connection), so, maybe there is an answer in it..

[Halftrack]

Wow! Marcus, this isnt just awesome, this is fantastic, to say the least.

I agree the FoW should be kept as a visual guideline for sight, but combined
its the ultimate tool to make the game realistic.

gonna test that out asap.

[WangTangManPro]

gekauft!

i mean i'll take it
.
.
.



btw GOOD JOB

[Cozmo]

cozmoisme, great work! Just one question: what about the low objects (wooden fences etc)? They are block the LOS too? I haven't seen the video yet (low-speed connection), so, maybe there is an answer in it..

No fences don't, basically, if men can't shoot through it/over it they can't see through it.

[Cozmo]

This might to better in the ammo box, can a mod move it please.

[Bowkers]

I'd already tagged this to be moved on, but I was clearly distracted..Sorry, moved.

[Cozmo]

, thanks.

[GzaDrunkGenius]

now this is what i'm talking about
the music was really bad tough ...

[Cozmo]

New Hi-res video is up.

[Khorney]

nice job on the vid!

are you going to make it so units can hide in buildings?

[Cozmo]

yup and I got a whole system planned that includes storming buildings.

[Khorney]

storming buildings? now that i'm interested in

[Cozmo]

I have a general plan in my head, we shall see if it actually works when i start looking at it.

[burtondrummerNY]

If you can get storming buildings, I will love you.

[Cozmo]

As always the actual way it works will be hacky as fuck, but if it is stable then it doesn't really matter . ps, anybody actually interested in how I do this system (Object blocking) .

[Khorney]

i am interested in how you get units to be 'invisible' but still visible to the player.

this would be very useful to me in OMG - i would like to make something still visible in game (to both players) but untargetable without changing the units armour class

[Cozmo]

problem is the squad AI can still target them, you need to change armour type to stop automatic attacking of units.

[DemoSS]

I'm interested too.. Also I like your idea to storming buildings. And what do you think about hiding in the buildings?

[Halftrack]

Storming buildings would be the cream on the cake.

But BTT:

What about smoke ? Is this sight blocking , tooo ? That would give
smoke grenades the tactical advantage it was designed for.

[Celution]

It is awesome mate! Keep on the good work!

[Cozmo]

Storming buildings would be the cream on the cake.

But BTT:

What about smoke ? Is this sight blocking , tooo ? That would give
smoke grenades the tactical advantage it was designed for.

I was just thinking about that this morning, I would love it to but I also don't want the units to stop firing. They would keep firing even tho they couldn't see them.

I guess I could use my last known position system...

storming buildings would happen one of two ways: 1. the units already in the building are hiding and the "stormers" don;t know they are there and will be ambushed.

2. The stormers know the enemy is there and are storming.

This will pretty much only be scar calculations based on the unit types, who was ambushed, vet, man count etc. I will use scar to fire off weapon sounds etc. then the losers will either retreat out of the building or be wiped out.

if there is only like a sniper hiding in the building then the un aware enemy may not even find him. of course unless he fires or tries to leave, Then that would be based on his vet and pure luck.

[Lethal Dosage]

Ok, Storming Buildings would be great, and your second suggestion would be the best way to go, for uncamouflaged units, while units in camo would remain hidden inside the building until they reveal themselves.

It would be great if smoke did act as a vision block to the units on the ground, i really hope you can get it to work the way you would like. BTW, does terrain effect their sight? For example does a ridge or cliff above the unit block their vision, or sitting on top of said ridge/cliff greatly enhance their vision.

[Cozmo]

1. with the storming buildings I was just out lining the possible scenarios that would lead to a fight in a building. Not possible ways to implement it

2. I know smoke would be awesome and I defiantly want to somehow do that...

3. Not really possible for the extra vision being on top, but if the cliff has shot blockers on it then the people on top wont be able to see the people at the bottom and vice versa (I work on the fact, if you can shoot it you can see it).

And because Height is not really very well mapped into the engine I don't think there is a way I can use it... in fact there I even spotted a tiny flaw: If you shot block your cliff to stop units shooting up and down them the LOS will also be blocked...

I could just use the ingame options in tuning to make elevation increase the real LOS (the ring) and my system would be able to expand with it. But I don't think there is a way to make people on top of cliffs invisible to people below cliffs.

[Cozmo]

It is always good to think about stuff when going to bed, because I thought about this: It is possible to get both the difference in flat plain between two units and the difference in vertical plain, now I could add a calculation that if the ratio between the two was very high, (aka low flat distance, large height distance <-- relatively to each other, that is why a ratio would be used) I could hide and show them accordingly.

Now the cliffs giving extra sight might be hard because we would only want it to effect the direction the cliff is facing, not inland too... anybody gets any brainwaves, shout.

[huetti07]

Is the AI seeing your men or is it as blind as you when your units are out of sight?

Maybe increase the sight to the direction, the unit can't move ->towards the clive

[Cozmo]

When you are out of sight the AI cannot shoot you because all invisible units have a non targetable armour type.

However the AI always knows where you are even in FOW, that is why in skirmish they always seem to manage to sneak through backcappers, the know where your units are and the range they can see.

[Muad'Dib]

I tried this out with Blitzkrieg and got a Fatal AI Execution when I start a skirmish game. The game loads but crashes the very second the game starts. Any suggestions on how I can get this going with Blitzkrieg?

[Cozmo]

I have never tried it with blitzkrieg, that is a very heavily edited mod... The macro version was mainly for modders to add it to their mods, the release of blitzkrieg may not be suitable to add it to, But I will look into it after I have fixed the small issue with team weapons crashing it.

[huetti07]

I tried the mod version of it, and i have also fatal error

[Cozmo]

There is a known bug with Weapon teams which I will sort in due course. If it wasn't a weapon team any info about the error would be helpful.

[huetti07]

The error occured one time, after enemy MG42 team has been build.
Another time, the error was at the start of the match, and i think, because of the British emplacements, because they also are some kind of weapon teams, aren't they?

[Cozmo]

maybe, I will do some testing after Christmas.

[Lethal Dosage]

British emplacements do have weapon teams or crewed weapons spawn inside them when their completed, so they would also count.

[Cozmo]

yea, I will be fixing this when I get to doing the version that will in be my mod.

[huetti07]

I dont want to annoy, but is there a progress with this?

[huetti07]

Hi, have you found a solution for your mod?
Maybe I can help, finding the problem...

[Copernicus]

Halftrack kindly asked me to have a look at this system and the crashes caused by team weapons. Certain entries for certain EBPs (that is: all EBPs not found in ebps\races\..., thus team weapon EBPs aren't registered as well) are missing in systemconst.scar (Data\Scar\objectblocking-los\systemconst.scar). The solution is rather simple:

  target = 
  {
    -- Cozmo's code is missing the EBPs of team weapons
    -- Just add every team weapon to this table (see the next entry for an example-entry) to prevent the game from crashing.
    -- -cope.
    ["ebps/gameplay/props/m1917_30cal_hmg"] = 
    {
      base = [[tp_deftarget]],
    },

-cope.

[hnunez]

Its wonderful to have found a solution to the problem that was crashing the code, its also fanstastic to have the solution posted now i can finally implement a crash-free LOS script,thank you this will make my life much easier.

btw- whats been up with cozmo i havent seen any updates on his work recently and he hasnt posted around the forum for a while.

[Halftrack]

I mailed with cozmo some time ago already, he quit modding CoH...sadly.

[huetti07]

So I was right

[Ninja117]

I have stopped developing anything to do with CoH... all my files relating to it have been deleted.

Marcus

i can confirm this :'(

[Celution]

Veterans leave or get less active, it's unfortunately true. Examples are Cozmo, $_TEXAS_$, Average Joe, Panzer Jager and more.

[Jaffar]

@hnunez - You can up your veterency status in my mind by posting the new Data\Scar\objectblocking-los\systemconst.scar file after you update it :-)