Question About Navmeshes (Green/Purple Vertical Lines in Navmeshes)

[AlbinoMunchkin]

Hello TF2Maps community!

A friend of mine decided to make a payload map a while ago and I chose to test it out with bots for 'balance'. I know a bit about how navmeshes work and I know that I shouldn't use bots for testing map balancing and stuff like that, but I enjoy working with bots... so I took up the task of creating an official navmesh for the map.

Now, there's those vertical green/purple lines that appear at walls and corners. From enough searching, I think that the green vertical lines represent map-made corners (at least as best as possible) and the purple vertical lines indicate a flat section of a wall, a part where a bot can freely press itself against. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Now, here is the question: Is it possible to force a wall navmesh (purple vertical line) into a corner navmesh (green vertical line) without editing the map itself? The bots are not intelligent enough to pass by this supply cabinet (they get stuck on the left-hand side of the cabinet):

There's another cabinet on the left side of the window, but the vast majority of bots go this way so I can't tell if the same issue occurs.
I've tried manually remaking the navmesh several times. I tried removing the navmesh located in the cabinet (shown in the photo) [no special effect], removed all the navmeshes in the room [the usual; standing still], checked the wall for connected navmeshes [there's none], did minuscule nav_generate_incremental generation in the room [no special effect other than taking a long time to do it all], added nav_avoid logics [didn't help], and removing higher-than-the-floor navmeshes from the other wide of the wall (there's a crate that had a navmesh on it) [no difference].

I feel like the only possible solutions are to actually change the green/purple vertical lines by force logics, move the supply cabinet or add an invisible wall. The latter two are definitely not what I want as a solution, but if they are the only choice I will abide by it.
Also I'm unsure if this is related, but the default navmesh for Dustbowl has a similar effect; if BLU captures the first point at stage two and doesn't have enough momentum to capture the second point, the bots get shoved in the right-hand supply cabinet room. I don't think they're related via supply cabinet-wise.

I should mention that I have no knowledge how to use Hammer. I make all navmeshes in-game unless that's the only way to make them. I will relay any information related to map-editing over to my friend, if need be.

If there is a completely different solution I'm missing, feel free to share it! I'm completely open to suggestions that are different than what I think are the only ways to fix this problem.

If you could help me with this issue that would mean a lot to me and my friend. I would also like to thank you in advance if you have an answer!
Also I apologize if the tags are bare/incorrect.

 

[Da Spud Lord]

Due to the nature of dynamic props, they are regarded by bots as nonsolid. All I can recommend is using nav_split and nav_avoid to make a large emptu box in the navigation mesh around the cabinet.

BTW, the command nav_avoid does not actually do anything. If you have an area you want bots to avoid, just delete that section.

 

[AlbinoMunchkin]

Due to the nature of dynamic props, they are regarded by bots as nonsolid. All I can recommend is using nav_split and nav_avoid to make a large emptu box in the navigation mesh around the cabinet.

BTW, the command nav_avoid does not actually do anything. If you have an area you want bots to avoid, just delete that section.

Thank you! I will take this into account when I next edit the navmesh. Hopefully this'll do as intended.

 

[AlbinoMunchkin]

I think this is what was meant in Da Spud Lord's post:

I have cleared out the navmesh in the room, rebuilt it on the back wall (furthest right-side of picture), and allow the navmesh to occupy up to half of the room up until that farthest right navmesh rectangle. I added rather thin, presumably far-enough navmeshes, with a nav_precise logic connecting the main room to the doorways. The bots still happen to run into the supply cabinet. I think I'll try adding the smallest amount of navmesh soon just to see how that does (literally a small square and an awkward rigid U look attached to the doorways).

 

[AlbinoMunchkin]

I tried the U-like navmesh shape for the room and tried to make it as small as possible, but it's so small it doesn't work. However, it did seem to help a lot of the bots that could path on the navmesh.

The friend took this information and he's going to add an invisible wall. Now, I know nothing about Hammer editing but I would assume there would be Player-restricted walls and NPC-restricted walls simply because Engineer bots can step through their own Sentry Gun, meaning that Sentries are Player-restricted walls.

Thanks for the help! If the issue isn't fixed once the map is updated, I'll probably come back here about it.

 

[Da Spud Lord]

I tried the U-like navmesh shape for the room and tried to make it as small as possible, but it's so small it doesn't work. However, it did seem to help a lot of the bots that could path on the navmesh.

The friend took this information and he's going to add an invisible wall. Now, I know nothing about Hammer editing but I would assume there would be Player-restricted walls and NPC-restricted walls simply because Engineer bots can step through their own Sentry Gun, meaning that Sentries are Player-restricted walls.

Thanks for the help! If the issue isn't fixed once the map is updated, I'll probably come back here about it.

It would seem so, but I believe you can't place bot-only or player-only walls in a map in Hammer, since TF2 treats TFBots as clients. Engies passing through their own buildings is a special exception, probably because Valve was too lazy to make engie bots path around their buildings.

 

[AlbinoMunchkin]

It would seem so, but I believe you can't place bot-only or player-only walls in a map in Hammer, since TF2 treats TFBots as clients. Engies passing through their own buildings is a special exception, probably because Valve was too lazy to make engie bots path around their buildings.

Ah, all right. I guess that is logical that bots are identical to players via coding, but there was a possible chance they could've been different like actual NPCs in Half-Life 2.

 

[AsG_Alligator]

You can encompass the cabinet prop in a playerclip brush. It will make the volume solid for nav_generate but it will not block bullets.

Just match the size of the cabinet with that playerclip brush.