Fun things to do with the Source Engine

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-12-03 10:08pm

What happens when you toss 90 Rebels VS 200 Combine Soliders and turn AI on?
See
http://www.fileplanet.com/files/140000/148018.shtml

Sorry to you folks who hate Fileplanet(IE no subscribers) but trust me this is an excellent video well worth the wait

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2004-12-03 11:24pm

Odd, the file isn't working for me. WMP says it needs another type of codec to play it....

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-12-03 11:48pm

Meh, I had hoped for something a little more epic, personally.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-12-04 12:50am

Shinova wrote:Meh, I had hoped for something a little more epic, personally.

Over two hundred buggers going at it is not enough?

Fine I'm learning the Source Engine just to redo that with a strider and about a thousand antlions happy?

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-12-04 01:04am

Fuck Fileplanet. The Battle for Middle Earth advertisement won't fucking leave the screen and let me start the download.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2004-12-04 02:47am

To being with, they just stood there and shot at each other. I suppose it's impressive that they held ranks if they actually have such group-tactics based AI, but it mostly just looks like they stood there and aimed. Also, it seems like it skipps a lot at the end.
Initally, it seems like the rebels are getting hammered. Then, you see one lauch a missile. A bunch of soldiers get blown around, but there's still more of them alive then there are rebels. Cut to a scene of Combine bidies strewn all over the ground. I'm confused.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-12-04 03:52am

Alan Bolte wrote:To being with, they just stood there and shot at each other.

According the forum posts on Hl.net when he did let them move around his computer craped out trying to calucate all of their AI thinking at the same time because each AI changes it behavior depending on who is close to them so he rooted all of them to even get the shot going

Also, it seems like it skipps a lot at the end.

Physics caculations tossed onto of AI plus rendering does not a happy CPU make

Initally, it seems like the rebels are getting hammered. Then, you see one lauch a missile. A bunch of soldiers get blown around, but there's still more of them alive then there are rebels. Cut to a scene of Combine bidies strewn all over the ground. I'm confused.

He ran it a bunch of times and gave the Rebels the Pulse Rifle(As you might or might know, the Pulse is far more deadly than the mp5 he gave the Combine)

The orgional point I wanted to make stands, What fun one can make with even basic knowledge in the Source Engine

That being said I'm going to try myself and see how many headcraps does it take to kill a strider

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2004-12-04 07:31am

Mr Bean wrote: He ran it a bunch of times and gave the Rebels the Pulse Rifle(As you might or might know, the Pulse is far more deadly than the mp5 he gave the Combine)

Isn't it an MP7?

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2004-12-04 07:44am

A heavily-modified MP7. They don't usually come with intergrated grenade launchers, ya know.

That reminds me- I'd kill for a Combine Civil Protection suit with gasmask, voice filter and BBGun.

Companion Cube · Post by **Companion Cube** » 2004-12-04 08:02am

That was pretty cool.

Now, where have I heard that music before?

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2004-12-04 05:42pm

According the forum posts on Hl.net when he did let them move around his computer craped out trying to calucate all of their AI thinking at the same time because each AI changes it behavior depending on who is close to them so he rooted all of them to even get the shot going

Which just tells me it's going to be a long, long time before we start getting mass-scale highly-intelligent AI's in video games. Sigh. Oh well. Maybe we'll get dedicated Artificial Intelligence PCIe add-in cards to supplement the video card and CPU.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2004-12-04 06:02pm

It continues to amaze me that, despite such increadible advances in processing power, there's still so little we can really do.

I wonder, however, just how much you could put into the AI of a turn-based game? That's at least a couple seconds per turn that even a fairly impatient gamer would tolerate letting his processor run.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2004-12-04 06:57pm

Alan Bolte wrote:It continues to amaze me that, despite such increadible advances in processing power, there's still so little we can really do.

It's called Windows.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-12-04 10:44pm

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:
Alan Bolte wrote:It continues to amaze me that, despite such increadible advances in processing power, there's still so little we can really do.
It's called Windows.

And it runs even crapper in the earily Linux hacks

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-12-04 10:52pm

Hrm...why, given how much spiffier the Overwatch is than the SMG, do the rebels kill not one Combine soldier with anything but rockets? Volley-firing Overwatch rifles should be mowing people down in droves.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-12-05 12:52am

SPOOFE wrote:Which just tells me it's going to be a long, long time before we start getting mass-scale highly-intelligent AI's in video games. Sigh. Oh well. Maybe we'll get dedicated Artificial Intelligence PCIe add-in cards to supplement the video card and CPU.

AI is a highly generalized problem, unfortunately, and not one that easily lends itself to such expansion cards like GPUs and sound processing.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-12-05 01:06am

And if you made an AI card, until and unless it became REQUIRED hardware, games would be hella harder for people with the card n, because their enemies would be acting with a more advanced AI system, for games that took advantage of it, unless the devs specifically dumbed down their advanced AI, which would defeat the entire purpose.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2004-12-05 06:49am

Eh. There'll eventually reach a point where graphics advancements will become secondary to AI advancements, is all I'm saying. When that happens, the hardware world will try to capitalize, even if it is just a watered-down second CPU.

Really, it's one thing to throw more and more shaders into a graphics engine, but if the presence of five or six highly-intelligent entities in a level makes the whole thing slog to a stand-still... well, we've just pinpointed the bottleneck. What good is SmartPixelAwesomeShader 55.1c if your game characters are still dumb as bricks?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-12-05 09:06am

SPOOFE wrote: Really, it's one thing to throw more and more shaders into a graphics engine, but if the presence of five or six highly-intelligent entities in a level makes the whole thing slog to a stand-still... well, we've just pinpointed the bottleneck. What good is SmartPixelAwesomeShader 55.1c if your game characters are still dumb as bricks?

Should be good enough for the Porn Industry at least

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2004-12-05 02:20pm

SPOOFE wrote:Eh. There'll eventually reach a point where graphics advancements will become secondary to AI advancements, is all I'm saying. When that happens, the hardware world will try to capitalize, even if it is just a watered-down second CPU.

Really, it's one thing to throw more and more shaders into a graphics engine, but if the presence of five or six highly-intelligent entities in a level makes the whole thing slog to a stand-still... well, we've just pinpointed the bottleneck. What good is SmartPixelAwesomeShader 55.1c if your game characters are still dumb as bricks?

I think it's just a side-effect of a period of fast advancement of graphic technologies and unusually slow advancement of CPUs in the last few years. I mean, my computer's almost three years old now, and it has an Athlon XP 1.6 GHz processor, which is equivalent to about 2GHz in a P4. Now for the same price as I bought that (it wasn't top of the line) you can get a ~3 GHz processor. A 33% jump in 3 years is not impressive at all. On the other hand, I also bought it with a GeForce 3, and for the same price you can now get a GeForce 6600 GT, which will blow my old GF3 so high out of the water it would make a tsunami when it comes back down.

I think that when Intel and AMD start cranking out their dual core procs, and quad core procs, and kilo core procs we'll see a push toward better AI, especially if graphics technologies start hitting diminishing returns.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-12-05 03:42pm

The problem isn't so much processing power, the problem is developing the AI algorithms to solve these problems. Simply throwing more CPU time at it isn't going to cut it.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-12-05 04:06pm

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote: I think it's just a side-effect of a period of fast advancement of graphic technologies and unusually slow advancement of CPUs in the last few years. I mean, my computer's almost three years old now, and it has an Athlon XP 1.6 GHz processor, which is equivalent to about 2GHz in a P4. Now for the same price as I bought that (it wasn't top of the line) you can get a ~3 GHz processor. A 33% jump in 3 years is not impressive at all. On the other hand, I also bought it with a GeForce 3, and for the same price you can now get a GeForce 6600 GT, which will blow my old GF3 so high out of the water it would make a tsunami when it comes back down.

I think that when Intel and AMD start cranking out their dual core procs, and quad core procs, and kilo core procs we'll see a push toward better AI, especially if graphics technologies start hitting diminishing returns.

Untill we also start parralising (kinda like the CELL processors in the PS3), its also going to be harder to have most of the stuff in the CPU.
Most sound is still done on the CPU, and it can take a nice % of CPU time, we don't need 4GHZ CPU's, we need moving all audio and graphics aside, and leave the CPU for essential tasks.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-12-05 04:08pm

Necessitating the use of *gasp* a Sound Card....wait, you're saying that's not a new concept?

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2004-12-05 04:24pm

I can't believe i wasted half an hour downloading that.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-12-05 04:41pm

I'm on a dialup. Save the complaining