andargor Posted July 29, 2005 Share Posted July 29, 2005 Hi all, I'm about to leave on a trip, and would like for you to look at some work I've been doing, and perhaps give me a hand. The Holowan PuppetMaster 3000 aims to provide your own personal army in the game. Several groups could act independently, for example war droids in a wall in front of you performing search and destroy, your personal Jedi bodyguard surrounding you and knocking off anyone coming close, and a mob of Jawas trailing you to pick the items off the remains of your enemies. Several formations would be available. My major problem right now is the smooth movement of the troops. I've implemented this by using "waypoints", which are basically objects of the Creature type that I jump to the proper position for each individual soldier, depending on formation. If you use the script, you will notice sensorballs (like Bao Dur's remote), which act as the "waypoints", so that each soldier knows where to go. The problem is that I do not know how much processing power this requires, and it's jerky. I would like smooth movement, the same as party NPCs following you. Plus the sensorballs are visible, and even if I put an invisible effect, the fact that they are selectable targets (i.e. they'll appear when you select next/previous target) is annoying. I've tried invisible placeables, but I can't move them and I can't assign parameters to them dynamically. Currently I use Get/SetLocalNumber. Anyway, I'm still here tomorrow to answer questions, but I'm leaving for a week Saturday morning. So any lightbulbs welcome. The code is very pre-alpha experimental, so use at your own risk. You'll notice that I use the Hak Pad's start script as a starting point (cz_hakpad.ncs), because I didn't have time to mess with items. So either use the Hak Pad and replace the script, or code your own item. The code is here: http://www.andargor.com/files/puppetmaster3000.zip Thanks in advance for your help, Andargor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Kenobi Posted July 29, 2005 Share Posted July 29, 2005 That's just kewl as heck man What an idea...lol I already can't wait to see how this turns out. Nothing would break the Sith line better in the Trayus Academy than 5 HK-50's and a few Jedi Masters. Very original man lookin' forward to it's completion General Kenobi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Maker Posted July 29, 2005 Share Posted July 29, 2005 Originally posted by General Kenobi That's just kewl as heck man What an idea...lol I already can't wait to see how this turns out. Nothing would break the Sith line better in the Trayus Academy than 5 HK-50's and a few Jedi Masters. Very original man lookin' forward to it's completion General Kenobi Looks very interesting, keep it up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emperor Devon Posted July 29, 2005 Share Posted July 29, 2005 Sounds awesome, Andargor. Don't the jawas have no animations, though? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth333 Posted July 29, 2005 Share Posted July 29, 2005 Originally posted by andargor Several groups could act independently, for example war droids in a wall in front of you performing search and destroy, your personal Jedi bodyguard surrounding you and knocking off anyone coming close, and a mob of Jawas trailing you to pick the items off the remains of your enemies. Several formations would be available. My major problem right now is the smooth movement of the troops. I've implemented this by using "waypoints", which are basically objects of the Creature type that I jump to the proper position for each individual soldier, depending on formation. The problem is that I do not know how much processing power this requires, and it's jerky. I would like smooth movement, the same as party NPCs following you. Plus the sensorballs are visible, and even if I put an invisible effect, the fact that they are selectable targets (i.e. they'll appear when you select next/previous target) is annoying. Looks very interesting. Good idea! Unfortunately, I cannot look at the mod right now (I'll give it a try as soon as I get home) but you could have a look at this post to make them follow you in a more natural way: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1762339#post1762339 You could also use invisible npcs: there are a few ones in appearance .2da : this is what I used for the floating lighsabers force power: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=146327 - they also follow the PC - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andargor Posted July 30, 2005 Author Share Posted July 30, 2005 Well, looks like I won't be leaving after all, gf and I broke up. So more coding pleasure. Looks very interesting. Good idea! Unfortunately, I cannot look at the mod right now (I'll give it a try as soon as I get home) but you could have a look at this post to make them follow you in a more natural way: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1762339#post1762339 I looked at that, but ActionFollowOwner only works for puppets (as defined in the engine). ActionForceFollowObject does the same thing, and it's what I use in the script to get the creatures to go to the waypoints. The only problem is that the creatures stop just short of the object, and I want precise placement. What is not smooth is that when the PC moves, I JumpToLocation the waypoint creatures. But this doesn't get updated fast enough, plus I'm worried about performance since there are essentially 2x the creatures. Another option was ActionMoveToLocation, but that's the location where the PC was at the time of the check, not the current position if the PC moved away. However, I use it to bridge the gap from ActionForceFollowObject to the actual location of the waypoint. (when I say "waypoint", I mean creatures as waypoints, not the OBJECT_TYPE_WAYPOINT object) You could also use invisible npcs: there are a few ones in appearance .2da : this is what I used for the floating lighsabers force power: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=146327 - they also follow the PC - I tried the lightsaber model, and it does this annoying swishing sound and motion. ANIMATION_LOOPING_DEAD stops it however. Right now, I'm revamping the approach to try with a single controller per creature group. There's a performance boost, since it halves the number of creatures spawned. I've tried with 50 creatures in a group, and it's slow but bearable. Still experimenting. I wonder if there's a way to "clone" a creature, so that only one is spawned, but many images appear... Hmmm. Andargor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorden Darkblade Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 Very cool work man! Can't wait to use it when it's done :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 Very cool idea. This mod should be great once finished. Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mono_Giganto Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 Sounds cool, have fun making it. I'll have fun using it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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