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Hi ,

I saw some days ago a lot of tracks made by hilaire9 with an awesome racing line. I saw that he uses a lot of nodes in the curves. I tried to copy his style but I failed. So could someone tell me how to do this ? I think that this is the perfect racing line. I saw a lot of tracks with a bad racing line where the AI Cars aren't able to finish 1 lap. But as I saw , hilaire9's tracks have all great racing line. The guys say that more nodes doesn't mean good AI. Well , I really don't believe this. But , 40% of this is true. I curves are needed a lot of AI Nodes and somewhere else where aren't needed so many AI Nodes you don't need to add so many. I saw more tracks with a great racing line. But hilaire9's tracks are all with that perfect racing line. As example Urnemanden's JungleVolt has a great Racing Line and the AI cars are playing really good. RST's Floating World has a racing line that rocks. So , is someone able to tell me what's the secret of the perfect racing line ? For me the most important part of a track is the racing line. That's why I wanna make good racing lines.

Start learning some 3d editor, i'll just assume that you're trying to make the racing line with with all ready made .prm's
Making stuff in 3d editors will give you a lot more freedom to do what you want, that includes the racing line as well. The tracks you've mentioned is for example made in 3ds max.

Tracks like that can be make with kits too.

miro, you are talking about ai nodes, right?
you dont need to know any special thing to make fairly good ai nodes. hil makes brilliant ai nodes, just study his work. you know how to insert, move and adjust ai nodes, right? how to connect them, how to change the priority, etc. if you know these things, you just need to have a general knowledge of how to drive well, and how to place the ai nodes. do you know how to check how ai cars are driving and adjust and save changes on ai nodes while they are driving?

and miro, listen, there is no such thing like perfect racing line, best driver, best track maker and things like that. all you have to do is just do your best, and things are gonna be fine

Something I noticed that works well for tweaking AI...

Create the initial AI line, using slightly more nodes than usual
Save everything and exit Re-Volt
Restart Re-Volt and use AI edit mode again
Change the AI nodes around in the troubled areas(this includes node types, racing line, etc)
Save the changes but don't exit
The cars should adjust to this new racing line
You should now be able to change and save over and over

See what happens.

No perfect racing lines. Also, each car will have a different "ideal" racing line, so you really have to design the racing line for the kind of cars you want raced on the track. There's also a lot of trial and error and watching how the car's handle your line and making adjustments involved.

As a side point, I'd point out my recent post on AI lines, since I think a lot of people still don't comprehend what I'm talking about.

You know what would be fun? Give everyone a track with no AI and let them create their own AI lines for a specific car (or cars). Then see who's AI line results in the fastest races and that person is the winner.

human wrote: miro, you are talking about ai nodes, right?
you dont need to know any special thing to make fairly good ai nodes. hil makes brilliant ai nodes, just study his work. you know how to insert, move and adjust ai nodes, right? how to connect them, how to change the priority, etc. if you know these things, you just need to have a general knowledge of how to drive well, and how to place the ai nodes. do you know how to check how ai cars are driving and adjust and save changes on ai nodes while they are driving?

and miro, listen, there is no such thing like perfect racing line, best driver, best track maker and things like that. all you have to do is just do your best, and things are gonna be fine

Yes Human , I know all these things , all. Well , hilaire9 told me in RVHouse that to see the best AI Nodes just take a look about how is Humma playing because is the best computer car. Anyway , Re-Volt is over 10 years now and we still don't know what some properties like "Jump Wall" , "Wilderness" , "Stairs" , "Bumpy" , "Soft Suspension" and "Barrel Block" do. Well , there are some things like Off Throlle and Petrol Throlle that I saw in some tracks but I don't know what they do. Could someone tell me ? Anyway , Acclaim should made a tutorial about all features of Re-Volt before releasing it.

zagames wrote:Something I noticed that works well for tweaking AI...

Create the initial AI line, using slightly more nodes than usual
Save everything and exit Re-Volt
Restart Re-Volt and use AI edit mode again
Change the AI nodes around in the troubled areas(this includes node types, racing line, etc)
Save the changes but don't exit
The cars should adjust to this new racing line
You should now be able to change and save over and over

See what happens.

Yes , I always use it so. But I don't exit from Re-Volt , I just save then restart race.

Aeon wrote:No perfect racing lines. Also, each car will have a different "ideal" racing line, so you really have to design the racing line for the kind of cars you want raced on the track. There's also a lot of trial and error and watching how the car's handle your line and making adjustments involved.

As a side point, I'd point out my recent post on AI lines, since I think a lot of people still don't comprehend what I'm talking about.

You know what would be fun? Give everyone a track with no AI and let them create their own AI lines for a specific car (or cars). Then see who's AI line results in the fastest races and that person is the winner.

Yes , I saw that topic too but just now I understand about what it is. And yes , the idea with the different track makers that make racing line would be a nice idea. There are a lot of type of AI makes. As example: Zipperrulez & hilaire9. Zipper makes long AI nodes and hilaire9 make short and many. Thanks anyway and please tell me more if there is anything else.

When I create AI Nodes I always start with nice organized ones. Then I watch how the AI is taking the corners and try adjust the AI nodes, but avoiding giving properties, just yet. After I've modified the AI to be best as possible where properties isn't needed, I begin looking for places where the AI might have hard cornering and I try different properties and adjustments and moves towards the AI nodes until I got the best racing line. If the racing line still sucks I start over.

Well , better look how play the AI cars after you done all the changes and the nodes. Always when a AI node isn't enough make more. And use splits. This would help. Because if you look immediatly after you made the first AI nodes the cars will play very bad.

AI nodes requires the creator to be smart
just apply correct english and logic of cars...

My bad (i guess)
I understand racing line as the path where you drive.
And i'd call ai nodes, well, ai nodes

urne's method described above should work out quite well. just imagine miro how you would be driving on the track and place the ai nodes like that. then watch the cars and adjust the nodes till humma, toyeca, cougar, adeon etc get it right and that should be satisfactory, it only needs some tweaking then i f it needs any.

You should analyze the ai nodes of already-made tracks (like garden_bot, nhood1) and see how the developers have made them
then you can start your own Ai nodes

miromiro @ Nov 9 2009, 02:08 PM wrote: As example: Zipperrulez & hilaire9. Zipper makes long AI nodes and hilaire9 make short and many.

short and many are better, those are my older tracks where i used the longer nodes.

KDL @ Nov 10 2009, 01:08 PM wrote: You should analyze the ai nodes of already-made tracks (like garden_bot, nhood1) and see how the developers have made them
then you can start your own Ai nodes

already saw all stock's AI nodes ,
but sure that our great track makers make better ones ...

Personally I feel that there only really needs to be an AI node for every physical turn in the track, unless they're really long straights, then you need them for respawn points, etc... There's exceptions of course, but in general, the AI only needs to drive straight until it gets to a spot where the track turns, then the node lets it know where to go next.

The way I see it, the car essentially always drives to where the line between the nodes where the car is currently located is pointing. If the nodes are close together, when a car crashes and needs to get back on track, it may have to drive more sideways in order to get to the nearest line/node intersection, while if the nodes are further apart, it won't be going sideways so much. And if cars don't have to turn so steeply to get back on track, there's less chance of them doing their "wobble" routine where they're steering back and forth unable to get facing straight again.

As I say, a lot of this has to do with the type of cars you're designing for.

yes , all is true.
i saw this too
but ... how large could be an AI Node ?

Aeon wrote:Personally I feel that there only really needs to be an AI node for every physical turn in the track, unless they're really long straights, then you need them for respawn points, etc... There's exceptions of course, but in general, the AI only needs to drive straight until it gets to a spot where the track turns, then the node lets it know where to go next.

I've always been admiring your method, Aeon, since it works so well and the AI is really competitive. I haven't been able to copy your way to use on my own tracks, though, so you must be putting alot of effort into the AI nodes.

well , i dont spend too much time for AI Nodes. If the track is about 1000m i finish AI in 30 mins. The is taking more , like 2 hours , to "update" the AI nodes and to make 'em better.

I've spent about 5 hours on ai nodes on my track before I delete it using cmd.exe >:'(

It's supposed to be a great ai node usage, "hélas, sighs"