@Soviet176 Yeah he is a good man indeed
You beat me to the punch here with my lazy brain lol but since I had already typed it out I'll basically just parrot what you posted and I suppose elaborate a bit
Quote: "What is meant by "The door must have a correctly named CSG punch"?"
It means that the CSG punch (the mesh that is used to cut the opening in the segment wall) must have it's name start with "door" or else it gets thrown out of the DAI pathfinding system. This is for any DAI and not only ths pack and is detailed in the addendium.rtf in your docs folder...
Getting Characters To Go Through Certain Doors
Now your new DarkAI character is following you almost everywhere, you may have noticed that they stop at certain door segments and proceed no further. This is the intended behaviour, and is the result of the way the stock doors have been designed. By default most stock doors will allow the character to pass though, but some doors will prevent entrance. If you are a designer of your own door segments, you must bear in mind that only doors that use a CSG punch mesh that starts with the four letters “door” will instruct the DarkAI obstacle system to recognise the segment as a door and allow characters to pass though. In the segment FPS file, here is an example of a correctly named CSG punch mesh which allows DarkAI to recognise this door:
partmode2 = 1
meshname2 = meshbank\scifi\scenery\doors\door_b\door_b_punch.x
It's a simple process. For example, I was able to make the metro theater lobby double-doors compliant in a couple minutes by renaming the punch and changing the segment .fps to suit.
Quote: "I noticed the AI scripts only work with V118 BETA7 and above. Will there be any legacy support for V117 AI?"
None will be provided. You can either use the older stock DAI scripts or edit the included ones to purge all the new fpi instructions. TF341 AI executes special maneuvers in combat such as backing to cover while laying down suppressive fire to discourage pursuit. That move in particular is not possible prior to B7 because of lack of new fpi commands for setting rotation angle and such.
Perhaps more important than legacy script support is that the models do not provide legacy hitbox support. Without the new pixel-perfect hit detection via the new limb feature, the characters have a larger than normal default hitbox area because they are exported in the T-pose at animation frame zero. This makes it all too easy to hit both enemies and allies alike and degrades gameplay.
Quote: "Are the character and weapon shaders this pack uses new or stock?"
They are new stock as of 1.17. The characters use a great ps2.0 shader made by bond1 called "skinning_norm_spec.fx". It's a great shader that has nice normalmapping and is capable of being very matte in appearance and supporting color spec maps. The weapons use the upgraded ps2.0 "bumpent.fx" which really isn't anything too special.
Quote: "Will any of the characters or weapons be released on the TGC store?"
No. There will be others which use the same animations but they will be different models. The sole exception is the M249 which was already in the store and drafted into the pack. The store listing will be updated to the new specifications and an alternate bonus version will be included in the download as compensation to those who already paid 450 points for it.
Quote: "How much can we purchase the biped files for? It could be a great way to breathe new life into older characters."
Currently they are not for side-sale although you can probably rerig in fragmotion though it would not be as easy as having the biped. After the pack has had a chance to do its thing for a while I will reconsider the option.
Quote: "Can you upload a video showing how the enemy AI and ally AI work?"
I will try to do that next week. My HDDs are all pretty much maxed right now and I need to figure out what to toss or keep. All I can really say is that the default AI is designed to be drag and drop friendly with enemies putting up a good fight and allies (once discovered) will follow the player around without any input as long as the player doesn't leave them in the dust. They're designed to behave more like equals rather than subordinates so if you do something crazy don't expect them to follow you to their death. I find it works pretty well if the designer wants to reign in the tendency of players running through a map in 30 seconds. There are included some alternate Main AI for patrolling waypoints and there are six factions pre-set in the appear scripts. There are additional AI scripts in development do be included with the post-1.18 update and I will likely start putting some of those through a beta process next week. They will include better tuned hit detection reactions, use audio effects and an have alternate version for more loyal allies who will follow the player against their better judgement.
