3D World altering A* star path finding and AI with Minecraft like graphics.

Game Engine Works in Progress and Game Demos
1

Hopefully the title lures people in xD.

Anyway, Hello.

I am Fred and this is my game:

Example.PNG984×695 533 KB

Playlist: Path finding, overview of game, battles and other brief comments.

####BE SURE TO SKIM THROUGH THE PLAYLIST.####

It features:
3D World altering A* star path finding and AI
Block type world, can add/remove blocks
My own textures ( oh gawd )
Some kind of battle system
and stuff i have forgotten

Started it a year back as my 3rd game and then stalled it for reasons.
Created it to be an environment where I can tinker with creating artificial intelligence.
I plan to make it a village management style game. ( gather resources, build, defend/attack etc)
I wrapped it up enough to be presentable. (sadly not user friendly yet)

Ok, being casual aside.
The aim of this project was for me to determine whether I would be suitable to be a programmer and/or game maker.
This game has filled me with a lot of passion, but I still doubt if my skills will be enough to succeed.
The question is, what do you guys think?

(yeah, i didn’t care much for the textures at first)
3D World altering A* star path finding and AI

Sorry, video is quite boring but the world generator performs quite well. Frame rate was between 30-60 while recording.

Update: Basic resource gathering. Made multi-npc pathfinding adjustments. Tweaked the battle system.

What is awesome?
Liberating enemy character out of existence with badass AXES!!!
The new gathering AI, Multi-npc pathfinding adjustments and battle system work quite well together. Taught them even to gang up and be more flexible regarding choice of opponents. They will respond to attacks if they intercept the attacking of the planned target.

Sorry for the sad display of 5-20 fps.
This is due high NPC count, which was meant to be a logic stress test, not a performance test.
Basic version of concept done. Rest is now optimisation.
They basically avoid anyone who is closer to the target or has priority.
To not hinder them, they slow down to let them pass, or use the new path finding code I wrote to make them run away along the best path, considering positive beacons( objective, friendly troops…) and negative beacons (enemy characters) and avoid nodes being blocked/ stood on by other npc . (so that they won’t clutter the main area; the start of the line que)

2

I love this idea.Do you think the ai you have made could added to an in game level editor?That you can add roads,stone walkways and grass walkways too.

3

It is planned. A* star could be modified to do that.
Instead of tiny balls as way points it would change the block’s type for example.
That is for one row, 2 row roads would need some extra lines.

4

I was thinking that could implemented in a in game level editor.The level editor would allow you to make enemy cities ,allie cities or mazes.But i would like it to have a save and load script.I would prefer it to be a firstpersonshooter.You could make game where you have to search for the approprite weapon to kill a particular enemies.Each of the enemy types all look the same but have various levels of hit points.Sometimes their hit points are great and their weapons are weak.And other times their weapons is powerful and their hit points are weak.

5

The game you are after might be some posts under me:
http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?288438-Polygon-Land-Free-and-Open-Source-Blocking-FPS-game
Instead of the weapons and shooting,
I am aiming to build an town, raise an army and slaughter enemy camps.
Of course both are possible.
And for the level editor:
I am a fan of procedural map generation and would partly let the AI choose what and where to build.
Anyway, any kind of feedback is welcome.^^

6

im just going to ignore all that weird off topic
about your game, it looks nice!
indeed you have something really cool in there, i love how the AIs can make their path in real-time(it is in realtime or you set the waypoints before starting game?) and how they can build and destroy to reach their target, i also noticed you have something like 30 fps in your videos, thats AWESOME! it means that you managed to do something that not many people have done!(im talking about dinamic pathfinding and a non-lag minecraft-like world, and im going to guess that you get 60fps in game, and you are getting 30 beacuse of the recording software).
i dont like very much the graphics, but i like the game very much!
i wouldnt mind if you share the dinamic pathfinding, it would be very useful, atleast for me lol
also, i saw a project like this a few days ago, perhaps you want to check it out, it can give you some ideas ;D

anywaay, you better finish this or i will find you… just kidding xD, good luck!
-lucki

7

All is real-time. Game is quite smooth without the recording.
PATH:I have a dict of every block in the game(so yes and no(each block is a node/waypoint xD)), the path finding goes through it real-time and in 3d. It adds the movement cost according to the height of the stack(all blocks on the first one).
I have a visualisation video also on that in the playlist.
WORLD:The world has small hics( 5-20 framerate drop for 4 frames or so) because of spawning/del while moving,
but after that it’s steadily 50-60 with, wait, 161515 cubes
(of which 1633 are separate physical blocks and others combined meshes of 16 blocks).
EDIT( tried with 163131 had no reduction in frames but when moving the recreation of a 31 chunk row took a steady 6ms till it was done)
Also, in the 4*4=16 chunk there also trees…
As for the DESTROYING: After path finding is done, The npc ai checks whether there are any blocks in the way and then does the animation/deletion sequence if needed.
I am bit sleepy, so the text is bit messy. My apologies.
and for that link -___-; DARN, WHY WAS I BORN SO LATE!
also castle story…

8

whoa, now im getting some ideas, i might make a code when i get time ;D
i didnt know about castle story, it looks awesome xD, oh and i also found this while youtubing xD

9

Claimed to be able to run 163131 blocks,
and well , delivered 164141 blocks now in the new video and after world was loaded,
frame rate returned around 55-60.
Video also shows some moving in the end if anyone is bored enough to wait/skip to that.

10

Neat! I’d say you definitely have the stuff, so keep at it!
You might consider getting a team together. Would speed up development, and if done right can keep you motivated for years.

11

Updated the game as I have now more time again after my exams.
As always, the NEW videos are in the main post.

Pathfinding is now multi-npc friendly.
Characters can now sort themselves in extreme situations to clear the front of a weapon supply unit and form an orderly que/line to gather the equipment without obstructing each other.
Added Axes and woodcutting.
Equipted axes deal more damage than normal hand slapping.
Un-equipted axes are held on the back of the npc.