Abby Normal

Is it just me, or does this thing look like a VW Vanagon?

Hi dmrsunz! Well, I know the commute time is 21 minutes from the commute time graph. And if you're thinking "Well, how does he know which path they took?", that's a good question. The answer is, it doesn't matter - because every path is equidistant from the destination. I was hoping that by seeing which path they took when there was no incentive for any one in particular. Some pathfinding algorithms wouldn't like the backtracking of the inside path, some would tend to shoot as far toward the destination as possible before being forced to change route, etc. I don't remember the outcome though, it's been a while. I really wanted to try something similiar to rezi's stuff (which is an excellent, excellent idea, btw), but life happened and I got sidetracked. Along with technical difficulties, as well. Glad to see some people are still finding these threads interesting!

---------------- On 8/25/2003 10:39:46 PM ALTX wrote: to hard to recreate? even with rush hour? ---------------- Just rotate your map 10 degrees clockwise and most of your problems clear up, dude.

---------------- On 6/20/2003 10:04:17 AM the7trumpets wrote: ---------------- On 6/20/2003 3:21:49 AM The Milkman wrote: I don't really understand your graphs, but if I understand correctly: Placing a commercial building touching a busy road will put the customers high? ---------------- Basically, your right. Sorry that I forgot to include a sort of conclusion on placement as well as ammount of traffic necissary: Conclusions on Placement of buildings for high and low traffic noise/customers rating: Any building touching a raodway with the afforementioned minimum ammount of traffic traveling through it will experience high customers and or traffic noise. Additionally, any building oriented with its side parallel with the roadway, and one tile away from the busy roadway will also experience the high rating. All other orientations will experience low ratings. It also appears that there is no "gradual" diminishing effect for customers and traffic noise as the building gets farther away. But, I will do more tests to confirm or deny this notion later. ---------------- Hi 7!! Apparently I am back! Interesting stuff. About time someone did some tests to prove that changing the roads to streets in commercial areas doesn't do a damn thing to help commercial desireability. Feh! A couple ideas: Maybe do a check at different times during the sim day/night cycle to make sure that doesn't affect the traffic noise attribute. I would hope not, but it's possible and if it does it would account for the discrepancies. It's also very odd that the job being parallel to the roadway would shoot down the customer/traffic noise rating. BTW: Have you confirmed that these two ratings are essentially identical? Are the customers just a commercial version of traffic noise? TarheelCP also had an interesting comment about the $, $$, and $$$ possibly having different tolerances for traffic noise. But does it actually change the traffic noise that they hear or is there tolerance just an internal game mechanics thing? i.e. Is a low traffic noise rating for $ equal to a high traffic noise rating for $$$? Em. I have to work now. Nice to be back!

Don't worry Dark, the data tree was just a nifty extra on that other one. I wouldn't actually know what I was looking at anyway. I just assumed if the algorithm was being executed in that matter, then it would be a simple thing to just output it to screen (as simple as programming ever is with stuff that seems simple). But you are absolutely right, there are several ways of doing that and I would not bother trying to display it. Indicating the method used would be nice though, so we can compare which methods are better than others in our situation. I love the configurability of your program, looks very promising! Yes, and that first screenshot + beta you posted I completely and totally missed. I can try to find code snippets if you want, although I'm not sure if it will be any more helpful than the stuff you have found. Karybdis: Given they are planning on putting in a feature that lets you see the path being taken to work, I sure hope it is fixed! It would be awfully embarrassing to have that feature in and see what the drivers are doing currnetly! Oh well, we can hope. Rendili: Looking good! You change that thing faster than I can keep up with it. Too bad I downloaded 8 megs of java already I'm very curious to try out the new heuristic feature. Em, I have to work now, crap.

I'd love for you to continue on the app you are working on. Especially if it isn't in java, as there is a bit too much lag for my tastes Plus, I think being able to tweak aspects of the pathfinding algorithm or plug in a different algorithm altogether are necessary for the testing aspect of it. If you have any early screenshots of it I'd be glad to give input on the interface or anything really. Also, there's no way to just disallow the diagonals in the calculations? I agree having them in there is a waste for SC4 type usage. Although you may want to keep it as an option.

---------------- On 5/20/2003 4:43:01 PM Proper_Bo wrote: Yes it works without download now but are you trying to tell me that this is the fastest route? Are you working for Maxis or what? ---------------- Actually, I would like to know how it came up with this solution as well. What algorithm are you using? Maybe the screwups will be more insightful than the successful shortest paths? Could possibly lead us to the real reason the pathfinding is broken.

Okay, I got that pathfinding link to work. You need the Java Runtime Environment which is about 8 megs. I do have a question though: Yellow: Starting point - Red: End point - Grey: Road - Green: Grass How many paths does this thing find?

What size map was this done on? I'd be inclined to think that the commute time shouldn't be involved since at 16 minutes it would definitely not cause any no-job zots, unless possibly a small percentage of the population couldn't get to work and most of them had a commute time under 16 (so it would average out). It probably has something to do with the way it recalculates everything from a save game, I would suspect the reason is for regional play. Although in doing this it does seem to wreak havoc with a city the first year or two after you load a saved city. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by relaying roads, can you describe that?

---------------- On 5/15/2003 3:24:05 AM Dr_ExK wrote: do you know that ... if you put a sim into a house with a no-job zot, he/she will 'hum hi ho over new job' in no time? That means, the path finding algo for a sim has no problem, but somehow something else is screwed ? is this observation valid ? ---------------- I think the special automata are pretty much completely seperate from the rest of the game. It seems like something they added instead of built in, at least to me. The MySims use a seperate pathing than the rest of the traffic system - I would have thought that it would at least be a more effective system since there would only be at most 5 MySims and I suppose a bunch of firetrucks and police, but apparently it's not. Also, I would guess that MySims can take other sims jobs, but that's just a guess.

I got a big grey box as well, I was wondering... I'll give a whirl after this java downloads!

Hey darkmatter, I manage to dig up a program that seems to be fairly similiar to what yours will be like (except it specializes in the A* algorithm). It might be interesting to take a look at if you want to steal any features for yours. Here is the description: ================================= F E A T U R E S ================================= - Draw, load and save maps. - View the A* tree and open/closed lists. - Run or Step the A*. - Breakpoints and 5 break conditions. Set a breakpoint by double-right clicking on a point on the map. If that point is queried, the A* will break allowing you to examine the tree as well as the open and closed lists. - Dynamically view the A* search space. - Create your own heuristic and map extensions to test your pathing algorithms before implementing them in a game. Here's the page where it can be downloaded from: A*Explorer <?A>

It is? Huh. Is there any way to tell from the screenshot? The only thing that seems amiss is the shortcut arrows on the icons...hmm. And you also have the drag dots on the start bar, but it appears to be locked since there is no "top" drag...thing. No drop shadow on the icon text but I think that can be turned off in XP.

I think you may have killed the thread with that generic XP pic ;P

Ooh. This sounds like a fun topic. I got one too! Half size version below, full size attached. I truncated half of it off since the other monitor isn''t showing anything different. This is my computer at work.

What is this recorder cheat? I could really use that for some of my upcoming tests, so as to keep me from having to draw on my screen with a marker. As for the animation, it could use some work but that's a very nifty trick in the first place! What it looks like is when you clicked on the 5th res lot from the bottom the truck went the long way around on top, when you clicked on the 3rd lot it went a more direct way? Maybe you could repeat the test trying to click on the exact same thing? I had previously thought that there wasn't much randomness in the special automata, they tend toward the "straightest path" sort of routes.

I dunno...are monkey cages Impassable or just hard to traverse through...? Hey seven, I''ve started working on that handbook, there is a ton of info but if there is anything you want in there that I may forget, PM me. I''ll show it to you before I hand it off to be posted anywhere.

No, no problem at all Bo. I didn''t mean to sound so snippy. I just have no idea why mine isn''t working is all. Odd, that. Thanks for the info though!

---------------- On 5/14/2003 1:35:24 PM Proper_Bo wrote: Its like I wasnt even here. Incase you didnt read my last thread...... SAME SETUP as Abby. This time all GO TO WORK on the same road. Before the sims move, several other cars were seen to take the two roads that the sims seem to chose between. ---------------- "Several other cars..." See? Proper_Bo is getting the normal traffic automata going to work, as it should be. Just to confirm, Bo, they''re all taking the innermost path (and/or it''s mirror) to work? The two outer paths are pretty much unused? What are your settings Bo? Traffic on high? Detail on high? Karybdis: "IE someone may be using road a) and road b), however only road b) will show traffic visibly because it has 2 instead of 1 person on it. It likes to do only things that are very noticable visibly. Maybe that''s why you dont see them going there" Unfortunately, that wouldn''t explain why I could see them in previous tests using different maps, and I also see a crapload of them coming home from work. I thought that this may have been the problem which is why I added two more tracks of residential to the end of the road instead of my usual one yard setup.

Hrm. I know for sure when I was doing my series of tests here on page 5 (The series of tests with the orange and green glowing paths) the automata were going to work as well as coming home. I am unwilling to use the MySim automata as I think it is unreliable and misleading for testing commute times, as several of the tests show that the path the MySim was taking was drastically longer than the path the traffic automata were taking and the actual commute time supported the traffic automata as being accurate. It IS possible that the MySim RETURN TRIP is the same as the traffic TO trip, but more testing needs to be done to verify this. Regardless, there definitely was traffic automata going TO work previously, where there is none now. They''d usually start leaving for work around 5am. To sum things up a bit for me: MySim is completely unreliable as a traffic pathing indicator (except for the slight possibility of the return trip being accurate to the going trip of normal traffic) We have previously proven that the RETURN trip of normal traffic automata is also useless for providing pathing info, as they will return by random paths (the circular commute idea is interesting, however it''s kinda stupid if they did it that way. I don''t really travel a circular route to get to work, I just go back the way I came). I believe there is a different mechanism at work for "Special" automata and "normal" automata. I would bet that the MySims use the same pathing as the fire trucks, so if you''re waiting till 6am for the jerk to leave for work, you can probably accomplish things faster using a fire station. Unfortunately, the info won''t be very useful for applying to commute times. Lastly, I do apologize if this post seems a little terse. Work is pissing me off, there''s a shitload of things to do, and of course I''m the one to do it. Ugh. There is a TON of information in the original travel time testing post, and it''s a lot to go through. Seven, if you have a condensed version of our testing observations and ideas, perhaps it would be a good thing to put in the top of each thread. Or even better, make a mini-commute testing handbook and Dirk can stick it on the articles or references section and you can just link to it in the first post of each of your new threads. I''ll try to jot down little things I''ve noticed as well, but E3 is making work a real pain in the ass and it may be a couple day before I can send you anything. And I''m frustrated by my teleporting automata ;> Remember to have fun!!!! I have a couple more tests but I need to figure out why I''m not seeing the automata anymore :/

Hey, I need some help here. For some reason I cannot see the sims going TO work, only coming home FROM work, which, as we''ve previously established is not a valid estimation of their pathing. I have no idea what my computer''s problem is, but I was thinking that perhaps the problem is with the layout itself. Can someone else reproduce this road layout and see if anyone goes to xxxxxxx work? On the way to work they all use their personal star trek teleporter device, and they must work at a car factory because they drive home every day using the lower inside route. Help!

This is a quick repost of the links I had found previously that seem to be good. Amit''s page in particular is extremely informative. I''m reposting this mostly for my own convenience when I start testing pathfinding theories Java A* Demonstration A* Pathfinding for Beginners