Just a quick update here for those interested;

I have been doing some more of the technical design, for ease of use (to switch from project to project) I decided to make AIWorld be the main point of access. The project/simulator has no idea about the AI Drivers, or anything about that. Instead it has a bunch of different structures to communicate with the world. I have still been working with LFS at this time, though the AI part of the project should be able to be placed in any other project.

I've named the project as well. A.I.R.S. Short for; Artificial Intelligence for Racing Simulations. I am not looking at creating gaming AI - and as stated before I have no idea or intentions of this AI actually being competitive as it is all experimental. That said my main connection with LFS is written inside the "LFS_to_AIRS" conversion file. This file has handlers that receive InSim, OutSim and OutGauge messages, and using these messages it will update the AIWorld.

I also have an idea of how I want the driver to deal with the world through the PhysicalSensor, VisualSensor and CarController; however not all the details have been worked out. The limitations -should- be placed within the sensors themselves, before it even gets to be used in the AI brain, however since I want to allow the AI to follow a line directly (as the first stage) then the sensors will likely need to change or something.

I have setup my very first, very simple, test situation at the autocross park. About 50 meters in front of the starting location I placed two green cones; for human use and saved that file as "AI_VIEW". I also placed a blue cone in the center of the two green ones, and named that "AI_DRIVE". The Ai Drive layout will be loaded since currently I look for the blue cone - and I realize this will get more challenging when it comes times to support additional tracks - and make that the AI's destination. The AIWorld starts in state AIWS_GRID_WAIT, which means the driver is waiting for the lights to come on. then it will move into stage AIWS_GRID_WARM, which means the driver should shift into first and get some throttle input to increase engine revs. Finally the state will change into AIWS_RACE_GREEN, which the AI should start driving.

However, currently I need to work on the shifting. I did shift the car into first, although it doesn't happen in the game so I need to work on the "CarControl" class; which will end up being where driver reaction times come into play and the whole "PrepareTo(SHIFT)" thing will come in to make things more realistic for the AI, although harder on the programmer!

I've also been thinking about my "layered" driving system, where the first layer makes the controls that the driver wants to happen; even if its 100% throttle in an LX6 while cornering. Then the next layer looks at the controls from that, and modifies it; so that the throttle is not 100% since this layer knows it is likely a bad idea. The next layer handles things that have become a problem; understeer/oversteer etc. And of course another layer will handle the shifting and other actions of the driver to keep the car within the preferred power-band. I have yet to figure out technically how I want to pull it off. And I also have yet to figure out how to add the 'emotions' to the AI; the stress/business that effects things like reaction time and sensory input.

Of course that will come in time, for now I just want to drive the car from the start point, through the green cones; and then add more points for the car to follow. Of course this is following a predetermined driving line without any visual sensor input; but I've got to make sure I can drive the LFS car before I try the experimental stuff!

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy and show the support!

Speaking of this I have just investigated and the latest Layout Format is 251 and not 247.

The Wiki article shows the version at 247 and the LFS programmer file format shows 250. I don't know what has changed, or when it has changed but that might pose a threat unless it is discovered.

Yea, I am not really interested in learning more web development, and there is a reason the website is not very graphically oriented. Screen shots are really going to be all the art. Thanks on the magical 970 number. I will fix it when I get a chance. I am trying to stay as basic as I can since I do not want to deal with browser incompatibilities and that sort of thing...

@Becky - I don't want to use wordpress or such because the blog I am creating is just an outlet really, I don't need people posting comments; though if I ever do decide to get more advanced I will look into some pre-made thing. My goals are not to become a web designer, I already know I lack the graphic design side of things; I don't deny that. Actually web development is extremely boring to me, I'd rather something more interactive.

About the physics thing, my comment "I understand how crucial it is to have a fixed timestep " was meant to be more of "I understand how crucial it can be to have a fixed timestep " My current project is a turn-based game with physical simulation between the turns, it needs to be 100% deterministic. Just in case it's misunderstood; by fixed time-step I do not mean fixed frame rate, or making physics run differently on faster computers; Just to say the physics are locked to 100hz, and the framerate can be 60hz to 1200hz or whatever it might be. Anyway that is slightly off topic, and with a little more artistic ability I will be posting screenshots and a description of the prototype project here.

Thanks Becky for the honest and straight forward piece; out of all the coworkers and some people that should have spotted some of the more obvious mistakes; like me not displaying my skills properly, no-one has mentioned this until you. Though, the page isn't only for job hunting, it is also to list the projects I've done. As far as more pictures, I am still waiting for more information from Stratogon before I can gather that.

No, I am not a web-designer, this is the best, furthest and most content filled web-site I have ever made. I didn't make it with front-page or anything except notepad and my; very basic, html 'skills'. Which included h1-h6 (although I only used h1 here), p dl/dt instead of ul and li and img, tables and i, u, b appropriately (imo)... I don't like WYSIWYG editors on most things when they over complicate things later in the process. I'm not a web-develioper, correct but I did plan on making this layout so it would work when I wanna blog about personal projects later. Just paste the template table at the bottom of the page, add a date and the content of the entry. Which would be simple.

hyntty - thanks for the notice. I developed the website to be 1024 wide, I didn't realize that I needed to be smaller than 1024 in-order to fulfill that requirement. Does anyone know what width is actually used to support a width of 1024px without creating the bottom scrollbar?

The site is missing a huge component, which is the top menu to navigate the site and to go to a personal projects page and other things that would further show area's where I've learned networking.

Also the list of skills were broken up the best I could into; APIs/Libraries, Interests (and VS is obviously a dev environment that didn't fit here or elsewhere), and languages. Perhaps the list should be languages, api's and interests. However I think that you're point will still stand about some of those not being displayed in the projects I've worked on as I've only yet worked with networking on my personal projects; from LFS with InSim, to a current Prototype project I am working on to many other including a voice-communication that worked surprisingly well considering.

Though, Physics, not so much, there are no real projects to back this up. The concepts of linear physics; gravity, friction, and spring-like forces are easy, and I've implemented that several times. Rotational physics have bitten me. I have a strong desire to learn this, and get passed it since I attracted to and pulled towards the physical side of games and more importantly simulation. I mean, I understand how crucial it is to have a fixed timestep, and the flaws with Explicit-Euler Integration (which is the most basic, and I still believe is accurate enough for games but I will figure that out another day). That said the most impressive physical thing I've worked on is my Tire Simulation, which is a neat deformable object, and was a great project.

And finally, I wanted to ask where you saw the negativity on the page? Where you got the feeling that I didn't like the project/work environment? Because I would say on all those projects it wouldn't have been the case. I was a little disappointed to only come in mid-way through the big project, but that proves I have the ability to catchup to speed quickly in unfamiliar territory.

Thanks for all the feedback, I will see if I can fix somethings, although I wonder how the content is for just a general, professional developer page. I still need to add personal projects, but I think this page is long enough already and that personal projects needs to go onto a separate page.

Thank-you everyone!

Last edited by blackbird04217, Sun 24 Jan 2010, 17:34.

Yea go ahead and spell check, I reread it all a few times and spell checked in OpenOffice, but some grammatical errors are not pointed out all the time.

Thanks for the find!


Edit: Changing to: "The confederates are coming, wait now come the allies!" "it is" didn't seem to flow right.

Yea I've noticed that I am kinda looking for another one still that shows the HUD as well as that one does. Thanks for pointing it out though!

Hey good friends,

As a game programmer trying to find a job I finally found the time to create my professional website. I have the index page mostly finished, and would like some feedback from people who have an eye for things.

I am still waiting for a few urls, screenshots and release dates on some of the other projects I've worked on, though I hope you enjoy the site. I will buy my own domain someday, but for the time this will work;

http://timbeaudet.50webs.net/index.html

Thanks for looking and any feedback!

There is a layout editer available and it would be very possible to make, I do believe though I haven't tried myself.

With that said, what is the data format of your GPS output? Maybe I'd be willing to write a converter if I have a feeling it would only take a day or two to do I would be all over it.

That said, I am going to look more closely at the format, where I have looked at it recently, I wanna see it more deeply for this idea. I will come back and edit or make another post.

Edit: It does look possible, however with the current version of LYT each object has different index values at each track. If this was only for the AutoCross arena it looks like that would remain fine, and I think it is a safe assumption that this would only be for the autocross arena since that is what you are planning. However, helping markers, that show which side of a cone to go on would likely need to be placed manually after the fact, but since you have the exact locations already this would just be visual touch and thus easy to to by hand.

Last edited by blackbird04217, Sun 24 Jan 2010, 05:53.

Happy Birthday to...

PeWe
Andrei221

Quote from Crashgate3 :

This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49jKeGyUCJE

This what I came in the thread to do; find a reason to smile today, thanks! As for the rest of my day, I gotta go rant about it because well lets just put it that I am happy I found something (above cat video) to smile about.

So then, are you thinking that my AI physics sensor should simply be a state that gets computed before the Driver gets to play with it?

I've been thinking that the AIWorld is the main point of access for the developer using the AI. They will feed in the Inputs and retrieve the Outputs in the form of structures; kinda like the AIControlOutput structure. The AIDriver knows about the world only from it's sensors. So in this situation, the world gets to know the physical position, direction and heading and can compute the sliding state of the car.

My original idea had the AIDriver knowing the condition of the front tires and rear tires; WITHIN_LIMIT, NEAR_LIMIT, AT_LIMIT and OVER_LIMIT. So the original idea here was; (IF REAR_TIRES <= AT_LIMIT _AND_ FRONT_TIRES > AT_LIMIT) the car is in STATE_UNDERSTEER. Also twist it around to compute oversteer. In this scenario the AI has no knowledge of whats going on; but can easily make up a reason - that is until I was also going to use a check like (IF FRONT_TIRES > AT_LIMIT _AND_ IsBrakingHard()) then the car is losing traction because of threshold braking and in this case the prevention layer would release the brakes a bit.

Time to get down and dirty and design all the little inputs and outputs the program would need to communicate to/from with the AIWorld. Some I've thought about - likely only the obvious ones.

- A list of vectors to be used as left or right track edges. (Needed?)
- A list of vectors to be used as the 'best known line'. (Needed?) [Even if needed, it will be used in a different way than most current algorithms, which is the idea behind this experimental AI in the first place.]
- A list of vectors to be used as the reference points.
- Accurate physical state of the car; Position, Velocity, Direction, Heading etc...
- Accurate car gauge / control information; RPM, Speed, Selected Gear Maybe this includes the current control positions too like SteeringWheel state of MAX_LEFT, HARD_LEFT, MID_LEFT, SLIGHTY_LEFT, NEAR_CENTER etc... Considering the AI knows what they did with the controls may this is not useful or even needed.
- Accurate car properties information; Hi and Low of the Powerband, 5-speed, 6-speed, FWD/RWD and other properties that don't change about the car but the driver still needs to know this info.

I can't think of anymore at the moment, but I am sure there are more.

I haven't made my mind which of the rock hard choices I will end up going down, however I played with my LFS connections again tonight, also with PPJoy - the virtual joystick emulator and I have hacked it up to something I think it reasonable although it could likely cause issues in the future; I do hope not. I then got OutGauge and OutSim to report information to me. I do not know if I need both of them giving me information but I have the capabilities to do so if I want/need.

I then proceeded to start on the very basics of the AI structure. Really, I didn't get to deep at all. There is an AIWorld. It holds information like all the reference points, driving lines or anything else that the AI driver will need to use to navigate the track. I created message handlers that will translate InSim, OutSim and OutGauge messages into useful things for the AIWorld and AIDriver to use. I bound the following controls in LFS to my virtual controller;

Steering, Throttle, Brake and Clutch (analog controls)
Up Shift, Down Shift, Handbrake (digital controls)

I will consider adding; Ignition, H-Shifter and a few other controls later on.

-----------

My current idea is to have the AI Driver to return a structure something like;

AIControlOutput //Output in the sense the AI is telling the game what is happening.
In this structure is a float for the analog controls, and booleans (maybe even a bitfield) for the digital controls. When AIDriver::Update() is called, this structure is returned. This is all said and good, but now I need to design the more technical parts of how I want this to be used.

I was thinking about a "AICarStateInput" structure, which contains things that the AIDrivers "physical sensor" needs to know. Position, Direction (of travel), ?Speed?, Heading, AngularRotation - etc; But this is hopefully where the physics should end; the point is so the AI can't compute "turn X% + frictionFromTires() = output" instead they have to 'feel' whether the car is oversteering or understeering. Which leads me into a small mathematical problem; Using Direction and Heading how does one calculate understeer / oversteer?!?

It is easy to calculate if the car is _not_ experiencing _any_ oversteer / understeer; meaning all 4 wheels have grip - Direction and Heading are parallel in that situation. The angle between the two vectors would give me the amount of slip angle, but how do I compute whether that is oversteer/understeer...

Please don't get you're hopes up for me using LFS as the test bed, where as I do want to, it has challenges that could be destructive, or time consuming. So where as I at least started something in LFS does not mean that I am going to use LFS yet. I am currently fooling around with my AI in a UF1 at the dragstrip. I think that should be a rather simple combo to start with, then make it more complex as time goes.

Quote from Nathan D. :

80 Kilobits (kbps) is quite small in my opinion based on the fact that most broadband connections will give you at least 1024 kbps up and down.

Most broadband connections are ADSL. Asynchronous meaning the upload speed is (on average) 10% what the download is capable of. Meaning upload is about 102.4kbs not 1204kbs up. Give it some credit and got up to 140kbs uploading. at 80kbs for voice alone that is 60% of the upload speed. You're entitled to think that that is quite small, but my opinion using half the upload is considered an impact. Also considered worth it in my opinion, but that has already been said.

Happy birthday to . . . nikopoh (37)

-according to LFSForums-

The fact that I have people supporting personal projects is very motivating and worth smiling about for the day. Other than that not much.

Do remember that in making my own environment I would still separate the AI from the physics. Please don't think that I would allow the AI to have anything besides the "Feeling Sensor" for physics; besides the possibility of getting 'tire wear' information - for pit stop use only.

LFS does present a nice place to show things off, but it presents said challenges. I am leaning towards my own environment, except as stated -the setup time has already been a solid week and I still have a black screen. Of course it would have been a little more than a black screen if I had any idea of how I want to create a track. A flat plane is looking like a good answer, even if it is not graphically beautiful.

Well time for a small update, believe me when I say small.

Someone who was intrigued by this idea has been sending me PMs supporting and pushing me to do the project. I still stand between a rock and a rather hard place. I would love to do this experimental AI project with LFS for multiple reasons, a large reason being the physics and the fact that the world/environment is already created. I have spent the last several hours messing with the Virtual Joystick Program, and have successfully got a car to drive 'fairly' straight down the dragstrip. By fairly straight I mean there is some variance in the Heading of the car that I get reported through InSim. So I have currently an extremely _hacked_ condition where my car can be driven.

Is this the same from computer to computer? Who knows, is it even the same if I was to restart LFS right now? I don't know that either - I sure hope so since I just now realized I've spent 6 hours on this, I can't believe how much time went by... Anyways, even with the ability to have finally driven a car straight using this virtual controller, I am not set on using LFS as the test bed. I see many areas where the AI should know specific values; exact moment lights turn green, information about the track, tire wear, suspension damage, blown tire etc so that they can use this information to pit properly. Sure that is not entirely needed for the ability to get an AI driver going around the track, bit it is required for where I aim the experimental project to get.

---

Also there has been a lot of progress on my own 'environment' for the AI to be simulated in. The framework is 50% complete, but I've run into the issue of how I want to structure tracks, how to edit tracks etc. I have a very simple idea that is limiting; at least at first, and this will not be a graphical beauty; which I fear the worst from publicity of a non-beautiful but experimental AI project. I have been thinking that a flat plane, could represent the track, with a texture stretched over it to resemble a track; only for the humans benefit. A script file would place the reference points, which for visual representation would be shown via cones; simple and effective. This offers the ability to test a few things besides AI as well. Like for instance how it should be possible to drive by watching the cones alone;

Now with my current physics experience I am confident I can create a car that has some form of horsepower band, has a _simple_ transmission and gearing, is effected by air/rolling resistance (not downforce), and can apply the brakes. However the engine would be sub-par. If the transmission was disengaged (neutral or clutch pressed) then the engine speed would be undetermined. When it comes to turning the car, things get a bit tricky. To make a car on rails is simple and very possible; but I don't think that allows me to test my AI in situations like; driving at the limit, dealing with oversteer/understeer and other such things which are important to what I want to achieve.

---
I also looked into TORCS a bit more, downloaded it and tried it out as a player. I don't really like the physics side of things. I believe it is likely better physics than what I would end up creating in my environment, however I find most of the stuff in there very confusing. Maybe I am just over complicating things - and even if I didn't find it very confusing I do not know if I can create the AI in the experimental ways that I want to - and for that I can't tell if this would be a good test bed. Also looked into RARS more which also looks like it has lost its support a long time ago (2006).

I am really interested in this project, and hopefully more people will keep pushing me to continue with it, however I am quite stuck. I do think my best option is to suck it up and write my own environment; which would at least give my AI the information it needs instead of coming up with loads of hacky solutions, that take much longer in development and are likely to break down with the wind from a breath across the room ...

So I turn to the public, those who have been interested from the beginning; those who filled this thread with tons of great ideas, what are thoughts on a an environment that doesn't look so good, likely doesn't feel great for driving but at least achieves the AI going around tracks in the experimental methods I've come up with? Meaning I would not let the AI effect physics, or really know about the physics (besides the 'feeling sensor'). I want to do this, but I don't want to do it with all the constraints that I seem to be limited to.

Sorry for the wall of text, and thanks for supporting!

I was finished with this on my last post until you started calling my responses pathetic. As I pointed out, directly where you tried pushing away the notion that increased bandwidth is any form of fact. The words you used meant you did not accept the fact for what it was and instead pushed it away like it wasn't a negative side-effect. And then you go and claim that I am putting words in your mouth; you said them.

Maybe since you've said them you've changed your mind and started thinking about the negative impact of the bandwidth (or any other facts that may be said since or still to come.

I am not instigating anything, just trying to make a point that it is important to listen to the other side when they have valid points. First you weren't letting any 'negative opinion' be heard at all; glad we moved up so you can at least read those. I hope now that you can also accept what people have to say even when it is against what you want.

Also, I did notice you said, "Your arguments as far as the server load and bandwidth go" and I also noticed you added, "are not realistic" which is where you took the argument and nullified it in your head. The fact about bandwidth; that I was making, has to do that it will use more bandwidth than LFS uses now. There is no way around that, if you have more data to send, you use more bandwidth to send it. I didn't give out numbers of how much more bandwidth, I didn't pretend it would make the game suffer I simply said 'more bandwidth'. Which is a very realistic side effect.

As I said, I was done on my last post back until you went calling my responses pathetic when it was based on what you said. This is my final post on this unless of course you want to continue that type of bashing. Whether you have learned to accept others opinions, that will be for the future to tell. But I never once put words in your mouth, 'basically' was probably the wrong word to choose, the more appropriate word would be 'is'. And regardless of the word choice there, it is not twisting your quote around, or changing the words you said.

After rereading the post you say again that it wouldn't affect LFS negatively; the simple fact of more bandwidth is the negative thing about the more bandwidth comment/fact. The comment was never made saying "more bandwidth will be used and therefore LFS will be laggy". That was not the fact,
-------------------------------------------------------
All done for now, please don't go bashing because I haven't been doing any of that to your post. I have stated that you need to open up more and listen to the other sides, but I haven't gone towards an insulting level and nor do I want to go there.

Quote from Nathan D. :

Your arguments as far as server load and bandwidth go are not realistic. LFS is an extremely "light" game from what I've seen. Client/server bandwidth is low as well as server load and client load. LFS would not become a "heavy" game with a relatively small implementation such as voicecomm.

Really? This is basically not accounting for the negative fact!

And there is no "teams" here, its all opinions, which doesn't help anything.

In another thread that started about development speed someone mentioned that LFS was cheap, financially, and that this is the reason the community has a lot of people complaining and people who don't give a crap. Because 'anyone' can buy it without much care. Basically the comment made was implying that by costing more, people would care more about the community and things would be better with less immaturity and other issues - at least, this is how I took the comment, I could be wrong because I only briefly looked in the thread.

I think the thread you were referring to was when a comment was made that LFS is too cheap so that just anyone can buy it without caring about what it means to do so.

I can see where that statement was coming from, there are a lot of people who don't take the simulator seriously. But I don't think it is too cheap. I wouldn't mind giving a little more to the developers if I had it; as is I pay for HQ skins more to keep contributing. Personally I feel LFS is an amazing deal - I've played it for several years and still play it, for $50usd (about what it cost me) I would say LFS is the best entertainment per dollar I have spend on about anything; that likely even includes adding my entire Sim Racing Station that I have built specifically because I play LFS...

That said, if LFS would have been more costly before I had bought the license I do not know if I would have bought the license. I now know otherwise and would be willing to pay more, but back then I do not think I would have felt the same. Not to get into another thread about development speed, but that is a huge reason why I think my entertainment value has, and will continue to rise while playing LFS because it is a constantly changing environment, not many games have that support from their developers. The few that do are generally subscription based, and I have not jumped on board with the 'lets pay $X a month to keep playing a game." LFS is likely the _only_ game I've ever played that I would even consider a monthly subscription, that said I do not wish for that, and I doubt that the developers would take the that route. Money doesn't seem to be their motivation, which I could be wrong about, but LFS has true love in the development. Sure there are other better looking things out there, and there are some other simulators competing in other regards, but nothing compares to the effort and 'feeling' that is put into the projec there.

Because regardless of which side of an argument someone is on they can not pretend that facts do not exist when brought up by the other side. It seems you need better 'listening' skills. You are doing great at ignoring the other side, but my point that I have been trying to make for the last 5 posts or so is that the people against voice communications have a valid point, and you can not pretend that their point is invalid, or unrealistic!

When the point was first brought up that doing this would cause more bandwidth to be used, you mentioned that that is an unrealistic argument. Which it is not unrealistic. This is a negative side-effect to putting voice communications in the game. Where I believe, and likely you and others believe, that the good overcomes this negative - we can not deny the fact that it is something that needs to be thought about.

You have no valid point in saying 90% of LFS'ers use broadband or a good connection that LFS takes < 10%. You realize it is upload limits that games have to be careful about since ISP's do not like large amounts of uploading- most networks are designed for good download speeds, but less upload speeds. Even ignoring the connection itself, pretend for a moment that everyone uses only 0.5% of their connection while playing on a loaded multiplayer server. Add VoIP and it could go up to 1.0% or it could even be well enough to be 0.050001% which is STILL MORE bandwidth.

So the argument: "this will use more bandwidth" is a 100% accurate statement, regardless of connection speed and status!

Do I think the benefits of VoIP in the game are worth the extra bandwidth, yes. But don't pretend that the fact, coming from an opposing side is 'unrealistic' or 'invalid' in any sense. Accept the fact, and listen to what others have to say vs ignoring the idea and blowing it off. Does that help explain where I am trying to come from?

Making it an option doesn't change the fact that when the server is using Voice Communication that it still requires more bandwidth.

I am all for adding options for the server, and individual player for these types of things. But again whereas, Ger Roady, Nathan D. and I agree it would be convenient to have in-game VoIP - with appropriate options, we can not deny the negative impacts that will come from the addition. Even if we agree that the negative impact is 'worth-it' in our minds.

Where I agree with it should be implemented, I don't believe in pretending things are not positive or negative side-effects of something being implemented.

So the;

Quote :

Your arguments as far as server load and bandwidth go are not realistic.

Needed to be straightened out, because those who use an argument that more bandwidth will be used are 100% correct, and that can be deemed as a negative impact. However, IMO, the positive outweigh the negative. The amount of extra bandwidth was never claimed to be a lot or a little.

- - - - - - - -

So, we do agree. But I will still make sure to listen to the other side as their argument "more bandwidth will be used" is an accurate statement, and needs to be taken into consideration - it is a realistic argument.

The argument that server bandwidth would be used for voice communications stand.

Regardless of how light LFS is compared to other games, or in comparison to itself. Adding more data to pass over the network increases bandwidth regardless of how you look at it. Will it effect LFS, likely not, but the point of the matter is it still does increase the network traffic.

So that is a valid argument that more bandwidth is required, however for me personally I don't think it would effect much and would like to see it built into LFS, though at the moment I am fine with using Ventrilo or something.