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Dear 0 A.D. community, This is just to let you know that we've had something of a revolution in the modding section of Age of Mythology Heaven. Tasev created a file converter (ABE) that allows you to export models from 3ds Max into AoM directly, without facing any of the constraints we previously had (number of frames/materials, attachpoints, etc.). I thought you guys might be interested since a lot of you have their roots in AoM modding. Most of you will be fine with the instructions you can find in ABE's readme but there's also a beginner's guide in case you need it. Best Android

Ok. It's funny though that actual university researchers study stuff like this - where science meets games haha.

I see . I guess Continuum Crowds are no option for 0AD either though? Too complicated?

I am surprised noone has commented on this yet. I find it most interesting, especially this video, very impressive. Why do you think that advertising SupCom2's pathfinding as being based on this is nonsense, Philip?

The thing is that it's redundant. You could just build walls in different directions using left-clicks - then cancel with a right-click, as always. Less effort than holding Shift throughout the process. Less effort > redundancy, so these guys do have a point. We should not stick to the Age conventions like glue if they don't really make sense

It'll need some work, sure, but for now it's spectacular indeed!

Specular lighting looks promising! Good job

Good to see how the game's coming along. Speaking of walls, I think this would be suitable for 0AD as well!

And only if they don't obstruct things otherwise pathfinding will be a nightmare

Good points. I guess what I meant by 'fluidity' is what you can see in video 2 if you look at the left flank of the formation - units are able to ignore other units' obstruction radii and thus the formation as a whole is able to contract/spread out very quickly if desired. This is even more visible when you have large formations of 100-200 units. I think this is special compared to the Age games and 0AD? Edit: In other words, units just completely ignore the obstruction radii of other units in their formation. I think that's new and also highly effective.

True but I mean we haven't even tried a 'fluid' approach yet. Formations are more or less rigid with strict minimum distances, as they were in the older Age games. Maybe this is something worth investigating.

Thanks for your comments and your newest report Philip, most interesting . I too think you're doing a great job! Please remember my criticism was targeted only at the funding campaign that raised false expectations. On the issue of not having ideal or out-of-the-box pathfinding solutions: Take the Age games for instance; pathfinding has improved in every instalment of the series. Now with AoEO it is almost perfect but remember how long it took them . By the way I think we could learn a lot from AoEO's pathfinding. The way it handles formations is most interesting: Units tend to close ranks very tightly when necessary, making them move almost like a fluid mass while still looking realistic enough. It works out quite nicely.

Ok, some good posts there, thanks.Still I think the next Pledge should be clearer about what to expect.

Well, as much as I appreciate Philip's work, people will ask themselves why they should donate if their money doesn't make a difference.

Well officially the campaigns were intended to speed up the process by having one person working in a professional way rather than in their free time. That's why they said 'full-time month' which clearly is something different than just some number of days or hours. Again, this is what they said:

Hi guys, I hate to be a downer but I'm a bit disappointed by the fundraising campaign. Both Pledgies were explicitly set up to hire a full-time programmer in order to speed up development: It seems this is not quite what is happening though. It's not that I'm unhappy with Philip's work, not at all, and I do understand he is a busy man, it's just that we donated for a full-time month.

The Age games, especially AoEO, did not have units that were wider than one tile or that had a rectangular obstruction footprint, and it worked fairly well... Graphics-wise the results were okay too because they adjusted the formations accordingly. Maybe the easiest solution for 0AD as well?

Hi team, sorry for not getting back here for quite some time now, but I finally managed to check out the new alpha and I must say it rocks . I especially like the new FOV + improved unit selection, the rally point marker lines, and the fact that you can place rally points on resources! So handy. The only major issues that remain are pathfinding and weird unit AI behaviour in my opinion. Keep up the great work guys, can't wait until the next release!

^ Good idea. I agree with Michael that a height bonus as in AoM doesn't really make any difference; but a LOS bonus could be visible and nice. Apart from that I agree with everything that's been said except for the idea of having AoK-like friendly fire. In the end it may be a matter of taste but in any case I'd urge you to check out AoK again. I happened to do so a few days ago and I remember noticing how difficult it was to manage an army with five mangonels in it. You are lucky to get off one volley before your melee units go in, so they are pretty useless in field combat. Against buildings there are stronger siege weapons available obviously. Anyway, whatever you do I suggest you throw in a couple of AoK matches and play around with mangonels first. (Also note that these units were the only friendly fire units in any Age game iirc - scorpions, trebuchets, catapults etc. never caused friendly fire.)