ACTUAL smart jumping actors

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TXTX
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ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by TXTX »

Just a small wad i made to demonstrate some of the work that's going into a mod release later.
Adds jumping AI to doom's zombie monsters so that they will jump (almost) like a player would.

This isn't just a mod where monsters randomly jump for no reason, they KNOW when to jump onto or off of ledges without advanced coding.
By use of a small forgotten flag (+CANJUMP) i found while digging through code it can allow monsters to jump and know when to jump. They can also jump onto or off of bridges, monsters, or other platforms.

They use the canjump flag while in thier see state by toggling it on and off randomly, this is to circumvent a problem with the flag where if its left on they will never walk near ledges that are too high without getting stuck. Turning the flag off and on gets rid of this glitch. Also their jump may end abruptly and fall without hitting the peak of their jump, also a small glitch where turning off the jump flag while jumping will cause this.

Currently this flag appears to only use the floatspeed variable to determine the actor's jumping height.

Unrelated Note: Maybe further support for CANJUMP and JUMPDOWN can be added in through use of a JumpHeight/LedgeHeight addition to actors?

EDIT: WHOOPS! Wrong file was uploaded. Working file is now available.

Added to even more monsters and thier jump has been increased a bit to match the player.
Now includes a sample map and also showcases the JUMPDOWN flag which allows actors to jump off of ledges when an enemy is near.
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JumpDoom2.wad
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Last edited by TXTX on Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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TXTX
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Re: ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by TXTX »

Accidentally uploaded the wrong file for the monsters. The new jumpdoom file is the correct one now. Give me a break i just woke up. :lol:
Last edited by TXTX on Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Nash
 
 
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Re: ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by Nash »

They just jump randomly on the spot in Doom 2 MAP01? Is there a better map to see this work as intended?
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TXTX
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Re: ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by TXTX »

Was thinking that myself, I will upload a simple map in a few minutes to better demonstrate it.
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TXTX
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Re: ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by TXTX »

Sample map done, jumps added to more monsters, and also includes the JUMPDOWN flag on demons to show its use too.
rayburn
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Re: ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by rayburn »

This actually looks so much fun wtf
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Re: ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by rayburn »

One problem that seems to go with this is they start to "twitch" on the corners of ledges if those are too high for them to step down from.
Gotta invent a way to work around this, maybe avoid changing the flag at random and make it deterministic instead, since it looks pretty dumb.
Vid: https://youtu.be/UDe7qp3rIec

Other than that, I really like this, thank you so much @TXTX! But I don't understand if +JUMPDOWN is needed at all, since they seem to be able to step off ledges without it as well.

PS. Yeah, I know I am necroposting, just surprised this topic doesn't have more replies, this is a fun thing to play with.
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kalensar
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Re: ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by kalensar »

rayburn wrote:One problem that seems to go with this is they start to "twitch" on the corners of ledges if those are too high for them to step down from.
Gotta invent a way to work around this, maybe avoid changing the flag at random and make it deterministic instead, since it looks pretty dumb.
Vid: https://youtu.be/UDe7qp3rIec

Other than that, I really like this, thank you so much @TXTX! But I don't understand if +JUMPDOWN is needed at all, since they seem to be able to step off ledges without it as well.

PS. Yeah, I know I am necroposting, just surprised this topic doesn't have more replies, this is a fun thing to play with.

This is definitely a cool piece of ZDoom/ Decorate history that I didn't know about either. But after playing around with it I can see why it was tossed into the dustbin of deprecation. The AI can't handle it properly. This mechanic has been rebuilt in a different fashion in NTMAI for Imps and Pinkys. I've played around with Jumping type mechanics as well, but in the end it is a really hard mechanic to get working properly in Doom engine.
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Re: ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by rayburn »

I don't really need the jump. I need monster to be able to "climb" small cliffs/ledges when chasing the player.
It seems JUMPDOWN + MaxDropOffHeight is already able to deal with it stepping down from cliffs without the CANJUMP flag. But I want it to also be able to go up.
Also can't get the above to work without twitching, unless FloatSpeed is a big enough value. But there is always a bigger cliff. Trying to disable/enable canjump based on distance doesn't work for me too =\

UPD. Nvm. MaxStepHeight value takes care of that. No twitching. Case closed.
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TXTX
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Re: ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by TXTX »

Been a long time since I did this short mod.

It is pretty limited as it is right now, but I'd like to think that I've improved on it by allowing actors to jump upwards like players instead of using that old flag in newer mods.
rayburn wrote:One problem that seems to go with this is they start to "twitch" on the corners of ledges if those are too high for them to step down from.
Gotta invent a way to work around this, maybe avoid changing the flag at random and make it deterministic instead, since it looks pretty dumb.
Vid: https://youtu.be/UDe7qp3rIec

Other than that, I really like this, thank you so much @TXTX! But I don't understand if +JUMPDOWN is needed at all, since they seem to be able to step off ledges without it as well.

PS. Yeah, I know I am necroposting, just surprised this topic doesn't have more replies, this is a fun thing to play with.
+JUMPDOWN allows monsters to jump off deep ledges which is kind of like MaxDropOffHeight, but they only drop off if chasing an enemy thats close and at a lower height. They wont drop off at all with only that flag if they dont need to, like wandering around.

+CANJUMP is kind of like a hacky way of trying to get them to jump like a player? It was clunky if anything. I wouldn't personally use it anymore.
rayburn wrote:I don't really need the jump. I need monster to be able to "climb" small cliffs/ledges when chasing the player.
It seems JUMPDOWN + MaxDropOffHeight is already able to deal with it stepping down from cliffs without the CANJUMP flag. But I want it to also be able to go up.
Also can't get the above to work without twitching, unless FloatSpeed is a big enough value. But there is always a bigger cliff. Trying to disable/enable canjump based on distance doesn't work for me too =\

UPD. Nvm. MaxStepHeight value takes care of that. No twitching. Case closed.
Glad you got it working, MaxStepHeight works if you dont mind seeing them teleport up ledges. They don't technically jump.

Sorry about not responding earlier, super busy atm.
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Re: ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by Ermac »

This is really nice idea. I was looking for something like this to make monsters more aggressive and chasing down through all kinds of stairs.
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Re: ACTUAL smart jumping actors

Post by kalensar »

Ermac wrote:This is really nice idea. I was looking for something like this to make monsters more aggressive and chasing down through all kinds of stairs.
Theres a few mods that do this already, NTMAI and one I built called SMEXUNMON. They are more modern and less graphically buggy. If you want the better full gameplay mod then I highly suggest NTMAI.

My own called SMEXUNMON (Smart Extreme Unhindered Monsters) comes in a variety of flavors and is just a monster pack built to be used with weapons only mods.

Basically until this feature gets better resloved, the CANJUMP tag most specifically, there are alternatives that are leaps and bounds better.

Now that I know this tag exists I might try to screw around with it in an updated version of one of my monster mods to see if it can be used better.
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