Difference between revisions of "Pathfinding/Alpha release notes"

Latest revision as of 15:34, 2 March 2012

Pathfinding in Second Life

Welcome to the home page for the open alpha testing for Linden Lab's Pathfinding project! Thank you for your interest in pathfinding and for taking the time to help us test.

Restrictions

The initial release of the pathfinding LSL is available only on the Aditi test grid on the following regions:

Important: Remove all HUDs and scripted attachments before entering the pathfinding areas. There are currently several attachment-related bugs.

How to report bugs and suggest features

Use JIRA to report bugs and suggest features in the PATHBUG JIRA project: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/PATHBUG

Note: Viewer tools are planned for a future Viewer release.

Testing tips

The pathfinding project is still in alpha stage and subject to change. We are making the LSL calls public early to get feedback and pinpoint as many issues as possible before release. Expect some bugs and instability. The most helpful feedback at this stage are bug reports and specific suggestions regarding the API for the existing pathfinding functions.

Because we want to get these features to Residents as soon as possible, it is not in scope to make major functionality changes before the product release (for example, adding volumetric pathfinding or the ability to pursue multiple avatars at once). That said, we may continue to add more pathfinding features in the future and welcome both near-term and long-term suggestions for improvement.

Also:

Be respectful of other residents while testing.
Have fun!

Pathfinding-enabled objects

Pathfinding-enabled objects will not work (and may cause errors) if taken outside of the pathfinding test regions.

We have set all objects to be returned after an hour to help maintain a cleaner testing environment for all.

Please do not rez more than 10 pathfinding enabled objects at a time, due to the heavy cost of scripts on a debug server build. Once pathfinding is released, you can expect to have a reasonably large number of pathfinding objects without impacting server performance (we've tested several hundred pathfinding enabled characters within a region with no noticeable slow down).

Performance

To collect more valuable testing data, the pathfinding-enabled regions are running a debug server build. This will substantially impact server performance. If you experience significant lag / FPS problems, try a different pathfinding test regions.

Viewer tools

The Viewer pathfinding tools will greatly aid in visualizing the nav-mesh and debugging issues with pathfinding-enabled characters. A project viewer with these tools will be available soon.

Because the Viewer tools are not yet available, Resident testers will not be able to regenerate the region nav-mesh for the time being. This means that if you place a staircase in world, for example, characters will view it as an obstacle rather than a pathable object.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Viewer tools are planned for beta release.  This Viewer is not currently available.
+{{Pathfinding Nav}}
+Welcome to the home page for the open alpha testing for Linden Lab's Pathfinding project!  Thank you for your interest in pathfinding and for taking the time to help us test.
 == Restrictions ==
 The initial release of the pathfinding LSL is available only on the [[Aditi]] test grid on the following regions:
-* {{Comment|List of regions here.}}
+* [secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/PathTest1/131/101/23 secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/PathTest1/131/101/23]
+* [secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/PathTest2/100/170/26 secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/PathTest2/100/170/26]
+* [secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/PathTest3/103/127/23 secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/PathTest3/103/127/23]
+* [secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/PathTest4/127/194/29 secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/PathTest4/127/194/29]
+{{KBcaution|Remove all HUDs and scripted attachments before entering the pathfinding areas.  There are currently several attachment-related bugs.}}
 == How to report bugs and suggest features ==
-{{Comment|TBD.}}
+Use JIRA to report bugs and suggest features in the PATHBUG JIRA project: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/PATHBUG
+{{KBnote|Viewer tools are planned for a future Viewer release.  }}
+==Testing tips ==
+The pathfinding project is still in alpha stage and subject to change.  We are making the LSL calls public early to get feedback and pinpoint as many issues as possible before release.  Expect some bugs and instability.
+The most helpful feedback at this stage are bug reports and specific suggestions regarding the API for the existing pathfinding functions.
+Because we want to get these features to Residents as soon as possible, it is not in scope to make major functionality changes before the product release (for example, adding volumetric pathfinding or the ability to pursue multiple avatars at once).  That said, we may continue to add more pathfinding features in the future and welcome both near-term and long-term suggestions for improvement.
+Also:
+* Be respectful of other residents while testing.
+* Have fun!
+=== Pathfinding-enabled objects ===
+Pathfinding-enabled objects will not work (and may cause errors) if taken outside of the pathfinding test regions.
+We have set all objects to be returned after an hour to help maintain a cleaner testing environment for all.
-== Known issues ==
+Please do not rez more than 10 pathfinding enabled objects at a time, due to the heavy cost of scripts on a debug server build.  Once pathfinding is released, you can expect to have a reasonably large number of pathfinding objects without impacting server performance (we've tested several hundred pathfinding enabled characters within a region with no noticeable slow down).
-*  Phantom Prims are seen as barriers.
+=== Performance ===
-*  Water is seen as a barrier/borked.
+To collect more valuable testing data, the pathfinding-enabled regions are running a debug server build.  This will substantially impact server performance.
-* Saving scripts sometimes doesn't work - post save the character is frozen. Picking up the object with script running and rezzing makes the character activate.
+If you experience significant lag / FPS problems, try a different pathfinding test regions.
-* Can't set an offset to the vertical height that the object hovers at, or make it lower so that it appears to hug the ground, or move through the ground. In other works pathing is only script modifiable in X and Y coordinates, not Z, but pathing functions in all three coordinates, albeit with Z hugging the terrain or objects it is passing over.
-* When creating a fleeing script, has to be set to flee one AV at a time, ideally needs to be possible to flee everyone.
-* Replacing an existing script doesn't stop behaviour, in the same way as particles and hover text, use [[llExecPathingCmd]](PATH_CMD_STOP, [])
-* Occasionally a script fails with no explanation - no path related elements work but pathing silently fails. Putting the same script contents in another prim works perfectly.
-* Getting occasional “database content cannot be loaded” error when reopening an existing script.
-** Need a reproducible case.  Server logs seem to indicate something about full parcels which lead to objects going deeply underground.
-* If a targeted agent flies the agent becomes invisible to path script.
-** This doesn't seem to be always valid: I can be flying near the ground and still be followed. If I fly out of the vertical bounds of the path volume it then loses me.
+=== Viewer tools ===
+The [[Pathfinding Tools in the Second Life Viewer|Viewer pathfinding tools]] will greatly aid in visualizing the nav-mesh and debugging issues with pathfinding-enabled characters.  A project viewer with these tools will be available soon.
-[[Category:Pathfinding]]
+Because the Viewer tools are not yet available, Resident testers will not be able to regenerate the region nav-mesh for the time being.  This means that if you place a staircase in world, for example, characters will view it as an obstacle rather than a pathable object.