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Pathfinding in C&C 4

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Found this interesting post on the CommandCom blog about pathfinding in C&C 4, and how it should be improved in C&C 4.

 

C&C4 Pathfinding

Posted on Thursday August 27, 2009 at 11:48AM by freezy

 

Hello everyone :o

 

Did you know the coolest thing about C&C4 pathfinding already? No? Here I have a nice animated picture which makes you understand EVERYTHING!

 

pathfindingcnc.gif

 

Simple, isn't it? At least the Devs explained it that way :o

 

For those who didn't understand: In C&C3 and RA3 the Art Layer, on which all the objectives (buildings, units) were moving, had a different angle than the pathfinding layer (45° difference). Because of that every unit had to move around the sharp edges in their path, which often caused problems next to buildings. Here is a graphic that explains this issue in RA3:

 

pathfindingra31.jpg

 

In C&C4 both layers have identical angels, according to the Developers. So we now hope that all those pathfinding issues are gone forever :o

This info was brought to you by www.united-forum.de, germany's award winning C&C message boards. Check them out!

PS: Thanks for the awesome sponsoring, Acer and Logitech =)

http://www.ea.com/blogs/commandcom/cc4-pathfinding

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I'll believe it when I see it. So many games have pathfinding issues its just a staple of the genre. :P

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What were they thinking with C&C3 and RA3 though? Anyone can see that having opposing angles would be a problem.

Rather than a problem that needed to be fixed, it should have never been a problem from the start...

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I don't really understand the depth of this thing (the really technical stuff), but I'm happy to hear that such issues will be gone in C&C4.

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Erg yea, i remember when i looked into the path finding in Generals, messy...

 

Though from who i have spoke to who went to CommandCOM, they noticed a lot of improvment.

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I sure hope so, squad system or not, pathfinder bugs can really bug the game reviewers, especially I remember RA3 got a lower rating from one of them who criticize the pathfinder problems instead of shut the **** up and enjoy the game.

 

Overall, if I were the dev team, I rather be safe than sorry to still use individual infantry units rather than squads. You may never know squads can create new pathfinder problems which you thought it's gone forever. You can never be too careful, accidents can happen.

Edited by Silverthorn

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You may never know squads can create new pathfinder problems which you thought it's gone forever. You can never be too careful, accidents can happen.

Even if infantry squads' pathfinding worked perfectly, I wouldn't want them. Squads are stupid. If you fixed absolutely everything that made squads stupid, what you'd get would be individual infantry.

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Why did they have this 45 degree difference in the first place?

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Well, in C&C3 they didn't have the 45 degree difference (I think...), because they didn't have the cell grid yet for the buildings. However, full free "3d" pathfinding was very challenging. For RA3, they simplified it a lot by putting the buildings on a grid. However, the building grid is not aligned with the unit pathfinding, which gives weird graphics glitches.

Now, in C&C4, pathfinding will be less challenging because there will be fewer units (pop cap) and fewer "complicated" areas with many buildings (what we saw at CommandCOM, there weren't buildings yet). Anyway, I personally still had a unit who didn't go where I sent him without a little encouragement. But I didn't notice any graphical glitches in the pre-alpha.

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