Aerial Assist 3D Game Simulation

[RyanCahoon]

I've made up a rudimentary sandbox 3D simulation of Aerial Assist. I would like to add more features to it as the season progresses (perhaps creating an API that could be controlled by the various blind programming language simulators that have popped up recently), but figured I'd do an initial release while it might be helpful for figuring our strategies.

http://thecatalystis.com/AerialAssist/

http://thecatalystis.com/AerialAssist/screenshot_small.png (http://thecatalystis.com/AerialAssist/screenshot.png)

Runs on Unity Player, so should work fine on both Macs and PCs (Linux people - try the downloadable version - let me know if it works).

More details on features are on the linked page.

[Dragonking]

This is really well done.

[Wyverncloak]

It seems to work fine for me on CrunchBang Linux (64-bit Waldorf) through a VirtualBox instance running windows (not exactly native support, but it works).

[chibi_mechanic]

This is an amazing resource! Thanks so much for putting this out there! I'm pretty positive my team will find this very helpful!

[Adamz_]

This is really cool, ive been playing around for a few minitues with it, and must say, quite impressive

[bEdhEd]

I remember trying a 2012 simulator that had an option to change the the mechanisms of your robot, so customization of the robot was possible. I think it was made by Diamond Bullet Studios. Do you think you can further develop this simulator to do that?

[RyanCahoon]

options to change the the mechanisms of your robot

Propose some suggestions for other mechanisms you'd like to see, and I'll do what I can.

The emphasis with this in my mind was provide opportunities for experimentation, even if things don't end up looking "official." I.e. you can pick up the red ball with the blue robot, score with balls in goals of mismatched color, etc. You can experiment with trying to catch balls by just seeing if you can get the other robot underneath the ball before it hits the ground, even if the robot won't actually catch the ball, per se.

The immediate gaps in functionality I see are the ability to change power and angle of launch, which would allow experimentation with the "Aren sweet spot" talked about in the Build Blitz. It would also allow a powered pass by just pointing the launcher straight along the ground.

[bEdhEd]

Propose some suggestions for other mechanisms you'd like to see, and I'll do what I can.

The emphasis with this in my mind was provide opportunities for experimentation, even if things don't end up looking "official." I.e. you can pick up the red ball with the blue robot, score with balls in goals of mismatched color, etc. You can experiment with trying to catch balls by just seeing if you can get the other robot underneath the ball before it hits the ground, even if the robot won't actually catch the ball, per se.

The immediate gaps in functionality I see are the ability to change power and angle of launch, which would allow experimentation with the "Aren sweet spot" talked about in the Build Blitz. It would also allow a powered pass by just pointing the launcher straight along the ground.

Rotating intakes, hoppers, catching nets, suction cups, paddles, catapults, spring launchers, there are all kinds of options. They don't have to look pretty, they just have to give an idea of how a robot would operate with those types of mechanisms.

[RyanCahoon]

Rotating intakes, hoppers, catching nets, suction cups, paddles, catapults, spring launchers, there are all kinds of options. They don't have to look pretty, they just have to give an idea of how a robot would operate with those types of mechanisms.

A continuous (rotating) intake would be useful. I'll add it to the list of to-do's.

Can you clarify what you mean by a hopper? Since there's only one ball at a time this year, what I think of as a hopper wouldn't be of much use.

Would a ball launched by a catapult or a spring launcher behave differently than the current generic launcher? Seems like they're all just different methods of imparting energy to the ball, which then follows a roughly ballistic trajectory. The simulator is mostly useful for strategy purposes; physical prototyping is required to figure out which mechanism to use.

[xForceDee]

Very cool simulator. One thing that I think would be nice is if it worked with an Xbox controller or Logitech gamepad

[RyanCahoon]

Very cool simulator. One thing that I think would be nice is if it worked with an Xbox controller or Logitech gamepad

My Logitech F710 (wireless version of the F310) works fine with the game (Windows 7 64-bit; both web player and downloaded version). I don't have one to test with, but I believe an Xbox controller should work - though I'm not sure if the axis/button mapping will be optimal.

If you can't get your gamepad to work with the simulator, can you check that the joystick in the Control Panel (or equivalent on Mac/Linux) and make sure its axes and buttons are responding, and then let me know what OS and specific joystick model you're using?

Also, make sure you click on the game to focus it - this allows the game to receive input, either from the keyboard or joysticks.

Thanks,

[BrennanB]

Very fancy, had a bit of fun working with it in a few minutes. One small thing that i'm not even sure that you can change is that the sideways friction (eg. T-Boning) doesn't have as much friction as it would in real life.

Very cool!

[Emphimisey]

It is a very good game, after playing with it for about 5 minutes you have done a good job. the only problem that I have is that it is not open-source. I think if it was the general populous could actually make some nice improvements to it. But overall good job.

[thedeadlybutter]

I'm sure many of us would help out & contribute if you made it open source!

[RyanCahoon]

I'm sure many of us would help out & contribute if you made it open source!

https://github.com/rcahoon/AerialAssistSim

The code is hopefully pretty self-documenting, but I haven't had time to comment it (kinda trying to build a robot at the moment :rolleyes:). Feel free to PM me with questions

[vladtheimpaled]

I'm working on my own simulation with Unity in the free version. I was wondering how you got the ball to shoot so accurately. I made the ball rotate with my robot but that still misfires sometimes. Was the shooting done through animation, or was it some specific code? Also did you use JavaScript, c# or Boo just for my curiosity.

[RyanCahoon]

Hi Vlad,
I used C#. My project is posted at https://github.com/rcahoon/AerialAssistSim. Feel free to use as much of it as you want.

I had the robots carry the balls using kinematics (updated transform.position on every frame) but the shooting was done using the physics engine - I added an impulse-type force. Check out https://github.com/rcahoon/AerialAssistSim/blob/master/Assets/Launcher.cs

Let me know if you have any more questions

[vladtheimpaled]

Thank you very much.

[BBray_T1296]

Huge feature, but somehow allow importing custom CAD files.

[vladtheimpaled]

Did you use the launcher script on the blue ball, or did you somehow use it on the robot? What I did was put my launch script on the blue ball and moved it with the bot and then shot by using addrelativeforce to te ball.

[RyanCahoon]

Did you use the launcher script on the blue ball, or did you somehow use it on the robot? What I did was put my launch script on the blue ball and moved it with the bot and then shot by using addrelativeforce to te ball.

I attached the launcher script to the robot because that made made more semantic sense to me, but I don't think it makes a lot of difference. In either case, I think you want AddForce rather than AddRelativeForce because the direction of the force on the ball is dictated by the orientation of the robot, not the orientation of the ball.

[cjl2625]

Hmm, maybe I'll fork this and add swerve drive robots.
I already made a 2D swerve game that I can borrow code from.

[asid61]

Hmm, maybe I'll fork this and add swerve drive robots.
I already made a 2D swerve game that I can borrow code from.

Swerve 4 lyfe bro. If you can do this, that would be amazing.

[WillNess]

Have you made one for Recycle Rush?

[Jared Russell]

Have you made one for Recycle Rush?

Here you go. (http://www.amazon.com/Forklift-truck-simulator-Pc/dp/B0034G4V1G)

[WillNess]

Here you go. (http://www.amazon.com/Forklift-truck-simulator-Pc/dp/B0034G4V1G)

Lol

[Maximillian]

Have you made one for Recycle Rush?

Someone made this

http://xantaz.netne.net/FRC2015game/WebFRC2015.html

[WillNess]

Someone made this (http://xantaz.netne.net/FRC2015game/WebFRC2015.html)

Do you have a link to it?

[asid61]

Someone made this

http://xantaz.netne.net/FRC2015game/WebFRC2015.html

The Unity Web Player isn't working on it.

[Darkseer54]

Works in IE, but not chrome.
No idea why... but I had heard something about unity not working in chrome anymore or something like that. :confused:

[RyanCahoon]

Works in IE, but not chrome.
No idea why... but I had heard something about unity not working in chrome anymore or something like that. :confused:

FWIW, it seems to be working in FireFox as well.

Have you made one for Recycle Rush?

Sorry, no. New team + new job and I didn't have time. Hopefully next year :) Thanks to the Rembrandts for making one.

[faust1706]

It'd be really cool to see the best robots from 2014 in this simulation and have AIs run them and see how perfectly the game could be played.

[MaestroRoboto]

Does anyone know how to change the joystick axis's for the controls?

[RyanCahoon]

Does anyone know how to change the joystick axis's for the controls?

There's no way to do it in the web version. Use the downloaded version; click the Input tab on the initial splash window.

[MikLast]

Have you thought of talking to Autodesk? They too were trying to make a game like this and i bet they would want to take a look at this.

[RyanCahoon]

Have you thought of talking to Autodesk? They too were trying to make a game like this and i bet they would want to take a look at this.

I haven't - I guess I assume that Autodesk could do better than what I was able to do in a week. Was there somebody particular at Autodesk that was talking about wanting to create a game simulation?

Hopefully this would more easily allow a CAD import function like Brian suggested.

[MikLast]

I haven't - I guess I assume that Autodesk could do better than what I was able to do in a week. Was there somebody particular at Autodesk that was talking about wanting to create a game simulation?

Hopefully this would more easily allow a CAD import function like Brian suggested.

What Autodesk had at the PNW champs was just a field and 1983's robot that could drive, and they were looking for people to help with the project over the summer. I was not able to get any info, but i bet someone that went to the champs may have something.

Autodesk also had a .stl to .fbx converter, but because of bugs they said it would beta next year i think.

[RyanCahoon]

What Autodesk had at the PNW champs was just a field and 1983's robot that could drive, and they were looking for people to help with the project over the summer. I was not able to get any info, but i bet someone that went to the champs may have something.

Autodesk also had a .stl to .fbx converter, but because of bugs they said it would beta next year i think.

Sounds like maybe it's going to be a project for this year (http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/bxd-synthesis-general-discussion/what-is-bxd-synthesis/td-p/5451021)'s group of high school summer interns.

Creating a STL importer isn't terribly hard - STL files already store data in polygonal format, so it's directly usable in game engines. When I've played around with CAD import in the past, the two challenges have been 1) simplifying the models enough to be usable for real time graphics and especially in physics simulations and 2) annotating the CAD model with the appropriate joints and actuating forces. Having better access to the internal data inside Inventor could possibly help with both. I've tried using the Inventor API in the past, but it's a bit clunky.

[AndrewSears]

Hi All,

Yes! We are working on the FRC game simulator again this summer and will continue to develop this as long as possible. This summer we will have 11 FRC interns working on this. We are calling it Synthesis for now. The link given above to the Synthesis discussion is where we want to collect your feedback now and also after release. Feel free to start commenting on this now.

We also set up an IdeaStation site for FRC teams to comment on future enhancements teams would like to see in Synthesis. Below are the two links.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/bxd-synthesis-ideastation/idb-p/104
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/bxd-synthesis-general-discussion/what-is-bxd-synthesis/td-p/5451021

We have a lot of really good plans for Synthesis and almost released it last summer but decided to hold off until we get further along. Please be sure to voice your opinions and let us know what you think.

We are discussing ideas about making Synthesis open source. Please let us know if this is something you are interested in. We would manage all changes submitted, roll them into the product and release continuous builds prior to the build season.

If you have any questions, please email us at FRC@autodesk.com. We always like talking about Synthesis!

Thanks,
Andy

[RyanCahoon]

We are discussing ideas about making Synthesis open source. Please let us know if this is something you are interested in.

I would be interested

[Dunngeon]

See this (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1479147&postcount=12) post for more info about where the project was at the end of last year.

[faust1706]

Is it unreasonable to assume autodesk will release a simulation of the 2016 game shortly after kickoff?

[Aaron.Cohen]

Current intern here! Currently, we are working on some tools to simplify the process of embedding game logic into the simulator. Hopefully, that will be done by the end of the summer. In addition, we plan on going open source under the Apache 2.0 license within the next couple of weeks and we hope that some members of the FRC community will involve themselves in the development process, especially when the 2016 game is announced.