May 12, 2020
Rec Room - appa
https://imgur.com/a/zcYRax0
This one's been a long time coming! We've seen so much enthusiasm and positivity around the Quests we've built over the years, and as long as community rooms have existed, the ability to build experiences with AI has consistently been one of our most requested features. Today we're excited to announce our first step in an ongoing journey to bring delightful, expressive, and robust AI tools into Rec Room for everyone to use! It all starts with Golden Trophy Goblins and JumboTron bots, but this is just the beginning, and you can look forward to many more AI features in the coming months!
https://recroom.com/developer-blog/2020/5/5/ai-in-rec-room-you-are-here
New Things for Creators to use:
- The Spawner Gadget
https://imgur.com/a/uKbLcCJ
This unassuming-yet-powerful little Gadget is now available in the Maker Pen Palette under Gadgets -> Other Gadgets. The purple base and beacon indicate the location for its spawned object, and the chip provides its circuit interface. This Gadget will ultimately be able to spawn just about anything in Rec Room, but today you can use it to spawn AI and some destructible props.
To spawn an AI, place one of these in your room, and then select it with the Configure Tool to select whatever you'd like to spawn:
https://imgur.com/a/qsxMXoU
Once you've selected something to spawn, you'll see a purple-tinted preview of the AI in the location where it will show up. To spawn an AI, send a circuit signal to the Red input pin!
https://imgur.com/a/Gj7woL2
- Navigation Data
We've built a lot of gameplay scenarios in our Quests and Laser Tag maps, but we've barely scratched the surface on the variety of environments these bots can play in. We're excited to see you push these limits, and because everyone builds environments differently, we've provided a visual indicator to help illustrate how these AI see the world and navigate through it. If a hallway is too narrow for a bot to fit through, you'll see that reflected in the navigation data. If a hill is too steep for AI to climb, you'll see that too, all without having to test all these scenarios manually.
https://imgur.com/a/gbGFL1D
https://imgur.com/a/Lwdl0XP
For creators, this visualization is a powerful design aid and time saver to help make sure your environments support the gameplay you want for your players. This information will then be saved into the room, and you’ll only need to redo the bake step when something changes where AI can move in the room, like moving walls or furniture.
Before you can have AI running around your room, open your Watch Menu, and go to This Room -> Settings -> AI -> Navigation and hit the button to bake NavMesh.
https://imgur.com/a/ZOQ0oIv
If you forget where to find this, you can follow the in-game prompt that displays if you attempt to spawn AI in a room that doesn't have navigation data yet.
**A couple quick tips for working with AI**
We’ve added a couple features to make it easier to iterate on your gameplay setups. First, we’ve added a Destroy All AI button to the AI Settings tab in room settings. This will clear out any AIs currently running around in your room. It’s easy to lose track of them as you’re testing a bunch. Second, we’ve added the ability to specify whether a trigger volume should only trigger once.
https://imgur.com/a/BYisIZR
With this set to true, if you just want one wave of spawns, your players will really only get one wave of spawns, rather than triggering spawns every time they touch a trigger volume.
We’ve also added a new Reset Gadgets button to the Maker Pen settings menu.
https://imgur.com/tQGFhPT
In Rec Room we have a very fluid line between creation and play. That said, as we add more complex features like AI, it’s helpful to be able to quickly try your experiences over and over, and see them the way your users would see them. This button provides a way to clear out non-permanent changes to the room, and reset the room back to the state it was in before circuits started running logic. This button currently only applies to the trigger count for Trigger Volumes, and the state of your Spawner Gadgets, but it’s likely we’ll expand this to reset other gadgets where it helps. If you work anything like we do, this one will make iteration on gameplay setups much smoother.
Lastly, we’ve added a configuration shortcut to our Game Rules chip in order to help Creators quickly configure their own games to run similar to our Quests.
https://imgur.com/a/jnP8jys
If you're using a Game Rules chip for game states, Reset Gadgets also gets called automatically on game start and game end. So if you have AI running around during pre-game, they'll get cleaned up before the game starts. And if AI are still alive when the game ends, they'll get cleaned up when you transition to post-game. The Reset Gadgets button is currently the only way you can manually trigger it.
All right, that should be enough to get you started creating with AI in Rec Room! As we mentioned at the beginning, this is just the first step in our journey to bring the delight and expressiveness of AI to everyone in Rec Room. As always, give us your feedback, both good and bad, hit us with all your feature requests, and stay tuned for more exciting AI features to come!
---
While we were building our new AI systems, we also took this time as an opportunity to run a comb through our existing Quests to tune interactions and squash a whole bunch of bugs!
General Quest bug fixes:
- Fixed spawn points being above the ground in some spots
- Fixed lock icons not going away when you unlock mid level gates and end doors
Curse of the Crimson Cauldron:
- Improved visibility and flow in the ladder section of the bell-tower
- Pike Goblins' shields now react more physically to being hit by projectiles
- Fixed a spot where you could get stuck on a ladder in the first level
- Added some ramps to clean up areas where players were getting stuck
- Fixed some black textures
Crescendo of the Blood Moon:
- Fixed various props clipping into geometry
- Sound effects that previous had no mixer assigned are now in SFX or Ambience
- Fixed a visual on a skeleton hand that showed a book
- Fixed a sprinkler effect that wasn't visible in the first level
- Lowered miniboss' hit audio volume
- Fixed enemy pathing issues in the Lower Sanctum level
- Lowered Musket Enemy health from 100->75. This makes it a little more feasible to flank a squad of enemies
- Made some navigation improvements to the ballroom level, specifically reaching the door at the end of the room
- Fixed some mini-bosses not spawning silver
- Minor performance improvements in some scenes
- Adjusted volume of the fire traps to be more audible
- Fixed a spot in the boss room that you could get stuck behind props
- Fixed getting out of the map in the Grand Hall
The Rise of JumboTron:
- Fixed a wall that had no collision in the first level
- Fixed meshes being unable to utilize LODs
- Fixed JT grenade damage radius visual
- Fixed props clipping inside of each other
- Fixed some collision clipping to allow smoother movement on some staircases
Isle of Lost Skulls:
- Fixed a name not showing up on one of the loot chest pedestals
- Fixed a bunch of audio sources that had no sound channel assigned
- Fixed the hat being the wrong color for the third slot outfit in the ILS storefront.
- Fixed an enemy killzone not working in the boss room
We also made some fixes to Laser Tag maps:
Hangar
- Fixed Laser Launcher power weapon damage radius visual
- Fixed bleachers collision to be more accurate
- Fixed a hole in the map that let you leave the arena
CyberJunk City
- Fixed some UVs on the orange side tower
- Made the orange side tower's windows slightly taller so you can enter and exit from the windows easier
- Re-tuned occlusion bake values to reduce areas where parts of the map disappear
- Adjusted collision on the overpass so its more accurate
- Fixed a window collision that allowed teleporters to get on top of a building in the map that was unintended
---
Unrelated we also added notification filtering settings to experience settings to help keep notification clutter down.
We also already have some updates to Clubs:
- Inviting all friends or nearby players to a club now prompts you with a confirmation screen.- “Sort By” options for club join requests work correctly now
- Club searches can now be run by hitting enter or submit, and provide more details about the search when no results are found
- Searching for players on club invite and ban pages should be faster and more responsive
- Club settings screen does not re-show Code of Conduct warning if the club is already public
- Club and member search text doesn’t get cleared when navigating
- Fixed a few typos in clubs pages, including the typography crime that was the word “CoOwner” :)
- Added join date to club member details page
- Updated validation and feedback messages for various club actions to be smaller and more concise
- Hitting the back button after removing a member or deleting a club no longer results in a 404
- Setting club photos now give better details about whether it is adding or replacing an existing photo
---
Also some general bug fixes:
- Unfavorite button in player details page was truncated
- Tooltips on room report categories were incorrect
- Friends list was updating too often and making it unusable for people with many active friends
- Chat message behavior improved for unread messages
- Vote to Kick button behavior improved when initiating a vote to kick
- Fix that prevents WalkVR players being able to teleport off of Royale gliders
- Fix for getting stuck in strange animation states when player releases 2-handed tools (ex: Cannon)
- Fix for animation tool desyncs when player joins room after it has been saved
- Fix for not being able to set shape equip slots on costume dummy in screens
- Fix for screens players not being able to fly when falling
- Fix that makes 3D text display reflections and fog properly
- Fixes crashing and stalling when using the clear all notifications button
- Fixes comment UI paged grid from resetting to first page when cheering or reporting comment
- Reduces max number of comments user can leave per minute from 4 to 2
- Adjusted AFK detection on Steam VR to address issues with certain headsets
- Improved audio prioritization in rooms with lots of players
As always, thanks for playing Rec Room!
Please see here for convenient links to controls, tutorials, comfort options, etc.: https://recroom.com/community
We love to hear your feedback, so please don't hesitate to let us know what you think...
This one's been a long time coming! We've seen so much enthusiasm and positivity around the Quests we've built over the years, and as long as community rooms have existed, the ability to build experiences with AI has consistently been one of our most requested features. Today we're excited to announce our first step in an ongoing journey to bring delightful, expressive, and robust AI tools into Rec Room for everyone to use! It all starts with Golden Trophy Goblins and JumboTron bots, but this is just the beginning, and you can look forward to many more AI features in the coming months!
https://recroom.com/developer-blog/2020/5/5/ai-in-rec-room-you-are-here
New Things for Creators to use:
- The Spawner Gadget
https://imgur.com/a/uKbLcCJ
This unassuming-yet-powerful little Gadget is now available in the Maker Pen Palette under Gadgets -> Other Gadgets. The purple base and beacon indicate the location for its spawned object, and the chip provides its circuit interface. This Gadget will ultimately be able to spawn just about anything in Rec Room, but today you can use it to spawn AI and some destructible props.
To spawn an AI, place one of these in your room, and then select it with the Configure Tool to select whatever you'd like to spawn:
https://imgur.com/a/qsxMXoU
Once you've selected something to spawn, you'll see a purple-tinted preview of the AI in the location where it will show up. To spawn an AI, send a circuit signal to the Red input pin!
https://imgur.com/a/Gj7woL2
- Navigation Data
We've built a lot of gameplay scenarios in our Quests and Laser Tag maps, but we've barely scratched the surface on the variety of environments these bots can play in. We're excited to see you push these limits, and because everyone builds environments differently, we've provided a visual indicator to help illustrate how these AI see the world and navigate through it. If a hallway is too narrow for a bot to fit through, you'll see that reflected in the navigation data. If a hill is too steep for AI to climb, you'll see that too, all without having to test all these scenarios manually.
https://imgur.com/a/gbGFL1D
https://imgur.com/a/Lwdl0XP
For creators, this visualization is a powerful design aid and time saver to help make sure your environments support the gameplay you want for your players. This information will then be saved into the room, and you’ll only need to redo the bake step when something changes where AI can move in the room, like moving walls or furniture.
Before you can have AI running around your room, open your Watch Menu, and go to This Room -> Settings -> AI -> Navigation and hit the button to bake NavMesh.
https://imgur.com/a/ZOQ0oIv
If you forget where to find this, you can follow the in-game prompt that displays if you attempt to spawn AI in a room that doesn't have navigation data yet.
**A couple quick tips for working with AI**
We’ve added a couple features to make it easier to iterate on your gameplay setups. First, we’ve added a Destroy All AI button to the AI Settings tab in room settings. This will clear out any AIs currently running around in your room. It’s easy to lose track of them as you’re testing a bunch. Second, we’ve added the ability to specify whether a trigger volume should only trigger once.
https://imgur.com/a/BYisIZR
With this set to true, if you just want one wave of spawns, your players will really only get one wave of spawns, rather than triggering spawns every time they touch a trigger volume.
We’ve also added a new Reset Gadgets button to the Maker Pen settings menu.
https://imgur.com/tQGFhPT
In Rec Room we have a very fluid line between creation and play. That said, as we add more complex features like AI, it’s helpful to be able to quickly try your experiences over and over, and see them the way your users would see them. This button provides a way to clear out non-permanent changes to the room, and reset the room back to the state it was in before circuits started running logic. This button currently only applies to the trigger count for Trigger Volumes, and the state of your Spawner Gadgets, but it’s likely we’ll expand this to reset other gadgets where it helps. If you work anything like we do, this one will make iteration on gameplay setups much smoother.
Lastly, we’ve added a configuration shortcut to our Game Rules chip in order to help Creators quickly configure their own games to run similar to our Quests.
https://imgur.com/a/jnP8jys
If you're using a Game Rules chip for game states, Reset Gadgets also gets called automatically on game start and game end. So if you have AI running around during pre-game, they'll get cleaned up before the game starts. And if AI are still alive when the game ends, they'll get cleaned up when you transition to post-game. The Reset Gadgets button is currently the only way you can manually trigger it.
All right, that should be enough to get you started creating with AI in Rec Room! As we mentioned at the beginning, this is just the first step in our journey to bring the delight and expressiveness of AI to everyone in Rec Room. As always, give us your feedback, both good and bad, hit us with all your feature requests, and stay tuned for more exciting AI features to come!
---
While we were building our new AI systems, we also took this time as an opportunity to run a comb through our existing Quests to tune interactions and squash a whole bunch of bugs!
General Quest bug fixes:
- Fixed spawn points being above the ground in some spots
- Fixed lock icons not going away when you unlock mid level gates and end doors
Curse of the Crimson Cauldron:
- Improved visibility and flow in the ladder section of the bell-tower
- Pike Goblins' shields now react more physically to being hit by projectiles
- Fixed a spot where you could get stuck on a ladder in the first level
- Added some ramps to clean up areas where players were getting stuck
- Fixed some black textures
Crescendo of the Blood Moon:
- Fixed various props clipping into geometry
- Sound effects that previous had no mixer assigned are now in SFX or Ambience
- Fixed a visual on a skeleton hand that showed a book
- Fixed a sprinkler effect that wasn't visible in the first level
- Lowered miniboss' hit audio volume
- Fixed enemy pathing issues in the Lower Sanctum level
- Lowered Musket Enemy health from 100->75. This makes it a little more feasible to flank a squad of enemies
- Made some navigation improvements to the ballroom level, specifically reaching the door at the end of the room
- Fixed some mini-bosses not spawning silver
- Minor performance improvements in some scenes
- Adjusted volume of the fire traps to be more audible
- Fixed a spot in the boss room that you could get stuck behind props
- Fixed getting out of the map in the Grand Hall
The Rise of JumboTron:
- Fixed a wall that had no collision in the first level
- Fixed meshes being unable to utilize LODs
- Fixed JT grenade damage radius visual
- Fixed props clipping inside of each other
- Fixed some collision clipping to allow smoother movement on some staircases
Isle of Lost Skulls:
- Fixed a name not showing up on one of the loot chest pedestals
- Fixed a bunch of audio sources that had no sound channel assigned
- Fixed the hat being the wrong color for the third slot outfit in the ILS storefront.
- Fixed an enemy killzone not working in the boss room
We also made some fixes to Laser Tag maps:
Hangar
- Fixed Laser Launcher power weapon damage radius visual
- Fixed bleachers collision to be more accurate
- Fixed a hole in the map that let you leave the arena
CyberJunk City
- Fixed some UVs on the orange side tower
- Made the orange side tower's windows slightly taller so you can enter and exit from the windows easier
- Re-tuned occlusion bake values to reduce areas where parts of the map disappear
- Adjusted collision on the overpass so its more accurate
- Fixed a window collision that allowed teleporters to get on top of a building in the map that was unintended
---
Unrelated we also added notification filtering settings to experience settings to help keep notification clutter down.
We also already have some updates to Clubs:
- Inviting all friends or nearby players to a club now prompts you with a confirmation screen.- “Sort By” options for club join requests work correctly now
- Club searches can now be run by hitting enter or submit, and provide more details about the search when no results are found
- Searching for players on club invite and ban pages should be faster and more responsive
- Club settings screen does not re-show Code of Conduct warning if the club is already public
- Club and member search text doesn’t get cleared when navigating
- Fixed a few typos in clubs pages, including the typography crime that was the word “CoOwner” :)
- Added join date to club member details page
- Updated validation and feedback messages for various club actions to be smaller and more concise
- Hitting the back button after removing a member or deleting a club no longer results in a 404
- Setting club photos now give better details about whether it is adding or replacing an existing photo
---
Also some general bug fixes:
- Unfavorite button in player details page was truncated
- Tooltips on room report categories were incorrect
- Friends list was updating too often and making it unusable for people with many active friends
- Chat message behavior improved for unread messages
- Vote to Kick button behavior improved when initiating a vote to kick
- Fix that prevents WalkVR players being able to teleport off of Royale gliders
- Fix for getting stuck in strange animation states when player releases 2-handed tools (ex: Cannon)
- Fix for animation tool desyncs when player joins room after it has been saved
- Fix for not being able to set shape equip slots on costume dummy in screens
- Fix for screens players not being able to fly when falling
- Fix that makes 3D text display reflections and fog properly
- Fixes crashing and stalling when using the clear all notifications button
- Fixes comment UI paged grid from resetting to first page when cheering or reporting comment
- Reduces max number of comments user can leave per minute from 4 to 2
- Adjusted AFK detection on Steam VR to address issues with certain headsets
- Improved audio prioritization in rooms with lots of players
As always, thanks for playing Rec Room!
Please see here for convenient links to controls, tutorials, comfort options, etc.: https://recroom.com/community
We love to hear your feedback, so please don't hesitate to let us know what you think...
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