MEL Robot Wars

[InnerVortex]

can u give a link for that robot wars pls? im doing a robot right now.. but dunno if it fits hehe:)

[TuLe]

Cool idea, i'm on it too man...

Thoes RobotWars (old transformes) kick ass...!

And they use Maya to produce it? i didn't know that!

Well out on the link man!

Thankx!

[Jozvex]

no melBotWars is a new realtime robot fighting thing.

It uses mel scripting, experssions and rigidbody dynamics to make the robots fight each other.

http://www.melbotwars.com

[CitizenVertex]

I would like to do this as well.

[TuLe]

Oh my god... that's so much cooler than i though!

I get all messed up on my minda 'cause the words proximite
but this is like bulding a mechanical robot and put them for a fight!

DAMN COOL (TuLe is amazed!!!)

I'll check the website and get it straight...

Thanks for the link man!

[CitizenVertex]

After reading the website rules and watching the movies, I am deffinitely down for this. This is very clever. We have to do this. Someone lay down a time frame and let's get going. This should be a regular competition here.

[sigma]

http://www.cydonian.com/forum2/yabbimages/grin.gif
lol, That looks like fun. I dont know if my MEL skills are good enough yet but I might give it a try.
I have no free time right now but maybe in a few weeks.This should be a regular competition here. That would be interesting. Lets see how the Poll goes.

Great idea Svenip

[InnerVortex]

wow.. that seems great
too great, i wish i can code mel, for that seems really hard to code AI for a thing like that(at least for a guy that doesnt code at all).
Anyway in totally in, if i can!

[iC4]

hm, i learned C at school......but I don't know much about mel :shrug:

but maybe we can make it together? :)

[-wT-]

Heh, call me lazy, but I'm just going to ask it here rather than check the website ;)

So, did I understand correctly, that the AI itself is already/will be coded (Svenips post), and we just create the robots?
That wouldn't be so fun, though I'm not sure if I could develop a very good AI... well, maybe if someone could teach trough a simple tutorial what it should do and how, then I think I could maybe, but... yeah :)

[boomji]

hey dudes,
every night i pick my big fat c++ book and look to get into it again...squat happens!!! i spend all my time on variuos forums and checking out art and stuff...hehe old habits die hard,5 years back i was spending all my time at the arcades(street fighter 2).
SO HELL YEAH...melbot wars is just the right excuse for me to get into programming.and i'll have to really work hard at the coding...cause ieee HATE LOOSING...
lets lock and load dudes.
b

[CitizenVertex]

Originally posted by -wT-
Heh, call me lazy, but I'm just going to ask it here rather than check the website ;)

So, did I understand correctly, that the AI itself is already/will be coded (Svenips post), and we just create the robots?
That wouldn't be so fun, though I'm not sure if I could develop a very good AI... well, maybe if someone could teach trough a simple tutorial what it should do and how, then I think I could maybe, but... yeah :)

The point is to write some Mel code to control your robot and give it some limited AI. You have strict rules regarding the size, dynamics and scripting of the robots. You the place two robots in a scene, hook them up to gravity and run the simulation. First robot knocked out of the ring loses. It looks like a whole lot of fun, you learn a lot about scripting and dynamics along the way, maybe even some programming, and it's not very complicated. Maybe we should make some tutorial bots to help people out who aren't into scripting...

[-wT-]

Thanks CV, sounds nice :)
And yeah, we need some small brief tutorials... and CGTalks's own league! :airguitar

[d3v1n]

hmm...i jsut wanna ask a simple question.....do we controll the robot just like playing game.....or the robot fight by it self. thanx:love:

[InnerVortex]

yes that would be great, cose the main challenge here is the dinamics and AI, it would be great to see at least some basics for that, what about it end up as a fight simulation plugin:p hehehe, like that they did for lotr...(dream dream) but.. it is the basics for that right?

[-wT-]

Originally posted by d3v1n
hmm...i jsut wanna ask a simple question.....do we controll the robot just like playing game.....or the robot fight by it self. thanx:love:

I think you code the simple AI for it, and your robot will then fight by itself as you've coded.

[artifish]

yeah, count me in...

the basic for this is behavioural animation, just like the stuff they wrote in massive for lotr. melBots are purely based on rigid body dynamics, it's goal is to teach you a lot about mel and dynamics in a fun way. it would have been nice, if we had at least one demo scene, so we'd have a sample on how to build the melBot (eg. the site says something about a brain-node that contains all necessary data and expressions). I know, there are some demo-scenes on the melBotWars dvd distributed by a|w, but I don't have it and I don't think they'd like the idea of spreading their stuff on the internet... - well, if someone has this, i think a little more in depth information on how to construct the bots would be very helpful.
i heard, Habib Zagrapour (the inventor of this) said in the course at Siggraph something about posting examples on the site, so maybe we just have to be a little more patient :)

cheers, carsten

[steveblake]

http://www.poojyum.com/retro/
(scroll down to the bottom of the page for a bot built a coupld of years ago)

[svenip]

hi all,

so it seems like you all would like to go with me :) i'm currently ordering the dvd to get an idea of that stuff what they wrote. in my mind it's must be a rule based system, but we'll see.

so as long, here are some things that come to my mind for modeling etc.

1. we need to give maximum sizes (otherwise i will build the biggest one :) )
2. it doesn't really matter if you all build cannons etc (looks nice, but doesn't have any affect for game). but that doesn't mean you people should arm your cars :)
3. we need a unique driving part for all vehicels. just to make it easier for programming stuff and so on.
4. we need an arena
5. last but not least we need someone to collect the things.


for point 5 i will programm a little website based on php/mysql their you can login and upload/download stuff. so that game mebers always have access.
i also will sit down and think of the driving part for the vehicle and the setup for that

so then i'm finished with preparing this i will give the measures here and you can all start to model i would say.

bye till next time

[artifish]

it think we should take the rules written on melbotwars.com and use these as a starting point - if we come to the conclusion that these don't work for us, we can change them to our needs

the rules:
http://www.melbotwars.com/MelBotWarsRules.htm

the arena:
http://www.melbotwars.com/Arena.htm

tools to weigh the bots:
http://www.melbotwars.com/WeighingRobot.htm

there is also a non-linked weighing scene available in the download directory:
http://www.melbotwars.com/downloads/melBotWars_Scale.zip
(don't ask how i found this)

[artifish]

uhh, and for the driving part, it would be nice if we could provide samples to get you started, but you shouldn't be forced to use them - if you can think of other cool devices to move, then build'em :)

[DiB]

I am so down for this. I'm a n00b modeler but I love code.

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