My Questions are about the Scripting (Scripted Movies with the Engine) abilities of Coldstone, because we thought that it would be realy cool if we could do this in our Game.
Okay, my questions:
Is it possible to them at all? (Beacause ive seen it inn Pillars)
When how good to use is it and how extensive is it?
grEEz,
benzofat
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Originally posted by benzofat:
**Is it possible to them at all? (Beacause ive seen it inn Pillars)
When how good to use is it and how extensive is it? **
Movies are able to be utilized by using a dialog event object and clicking the "movie" tab. You can then throw in whatever checks/events that you wish to dictate when the movie is played.
It is really pretty easy/painless. The only caveat is that movies are fairly large, typically, so your game size will increase quickly if you use movies.
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Originally posted by benzofat:
That is so or so a one of the greatest probs. of the Engine!
Umm, I don't quite understand what you mean.
Movie support is one of the greatest problems of the engine? Or that movies greatly increase the size of your game?
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Originally posted by benzofat:
**The second one! With Coldstone you cant construct a game whit a size between 10 and 30 Megs.
But I will check it out (Scripting). **
10-30 megs isn't a very large game anymore. heh.
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**** the movies will not start, can you describe me exactly what I have to do?
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Movies are able to be utilized by using a dialog event object and clicking the "movie" tab
Okay that ive done! (I have to put this event in to the "Main sequence actions", right?)
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You can then throw in whatever checks/events that you wish to dictate when the movie is played.
Where can I throw them in? In the Textwindow? Or in the window on the left side of the text window? Or shall I put them in in the "linked actions Sequence"?
And you say that I cant put everything in I will! Then my question is, what do I have throw in, that I Can control Characters and make dialogues?
And the last questions how do I need to link them that they appear in the game? Bescause when I did it the didnt start! An wich event do I need, that the Scripted Movie starts if I click on a Character for example?
I now im stupid but I hope that someone can explain it to me exactly,
thanks and grEEz,
benzofat
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Originally posted by benzofat:
Okay that ive done! (I have to put this event in to the "Main sequence actions", right?)
Is your movie in your "Movies" directory? Did you select the correct one to play from the dialogs movie tab?
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Where can I throw them in? In the Textwindow? Or in the window on the left side of the text window? Or shall I put them in in the "linked actions Sequence"?
The dialog box is 1 event object within a single event. You can place your conditions around the dialog box in your event structure. Ie, you may have a conditional to check to see if the movie has been played before(so it is only shown once). If the condition is false(it hasn't been shown) then it calls the dialog which has the movie, and if the condition is true then it doesn't call the movie. In this example your condition would be on the left side of the event window(the main list) and the movie would be on the right side of the event window(linked list). The conditional event object would have to be linked to the movie under the "else" clause.
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And you say that I cant put everything in I will! Then my question is, what do I have throw in, that I Can control Characters and make dialogues?
You can control anything that is controllable. Look at the event actions listed in the manual. This gives a list of everything that is doable.
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And the last questions how do I need to link them that they appear in the game? Bescause when I did it the didnt start! An wich event do I need, that the Scripted Movie starts if I click on a Character for example?
Everything in the left hand column of an event(main list) is executed(unless you specifically end an event prematurely with an "End Event" object call) automatically. Items in the right hand column of an event(linked list) are only executed if called by an event object from the main column. So make sure that an event is called which triggers your movie.
As to clicking on the character to start a movie, I'm not sure if you can edit the this screen to add a movie or not.
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Originally posted by benzofat:
But I thin that u are talkin about importet, pre-rendered Movies! Right? What is with Movies made directly in the Engine? I think that should be possible, or not?
Movies must be placed in your Movies directory.
You can't compile a movie into your game(ie. part of the engine). You can only compile the call to your movie into the engine, so that the game will know when/how to call for your movie to be played.
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I think you two may be talking past each other. Benzofat, are you perhaps talking about the idea of making in-game "cutscenes" using the engine, such as were seen in many old SNES-era RPGs?
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I don't know what I'm talking about.
Oh no, here comes another learning experience.
Oderint dum metuant?
Exactly! InGame Cut Scenes, are they possible (at all ive seen them in Pillars but ev that was prerendered, but I dont think!). U need to know that Im not an english Expert, we speak (swiss German) in Switzerland and at school we learn it since 3 years (and that ****In french I learn since 5 years!!!)...
grEEz,
benz
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Originally posted by benzofat:
**Exactly! InGame Cut Scenes, are they possible (at all ive seen them in Pillars but ev that was prerendered, but I dont think!). U need to know that Im not an english Expert, we speak (swiss German) in Switzerland and at school we learn it since 3 years (and that ****In french I learn since 5 years!!!)...
grEEz,
benz
**
I understood you perfectly on with first post. Another term used for what you are describing is "Machinima" (cf. (url="http://"http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20001006/hancock_01.htm")http://www.gamasutra....hancock_01.htm(/url), (url="http://"http://www.machinima.com/whatis.shtml")http://www.machinima.com/whatis.shtml(/url), (url="http://"http://www.wordspy.com/words/machinima.asp)")http://www.wordspy.c...s/machinima.asp)(/url)
What I saw in Pillars of Garendal were a handful of simple camera moves (the opening of the game, the introduction to the village, the pan over the Wizard's Tower, the preview of the big nasty at the climax). I believe these were accomplished by forcing the camera to track an invisible figure who ran very fast. The climax was spiced up a bit by having (I seem to remember) an extra little animation for the Guardian when he is first shown.
I don't have either the Coldstone .pdf or my own notes before me at the moment but I recall looking at the possibilities of doing in-game animation to liven up the action. If you were to start with, say, a Map event, you could create an entire custom set and use stamp animation and scripting to do some rather Flash-game like stunts. One of the biggest problems (in my opinion) is that all animation and sound are "wild"; there is no natural clock to anything (frame are generated as fast as the engine can manage them). That meant I might create a custom character animation of a spirited sword battle, but the music underscore would gradually fall out of sync.
To sum up...it is possible to create in-game "movies" as well as to display pre-rendered quicktime files.
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Butterfly
My husband gave his promise
He would return in the joyous season,
When robin red-breasts rebuild their nests.
In our Game we will made lots of these Ingame Cutscenes and some rendermovies. That with the rendermovies is plainly I know now it aproximately. And that with the inGame Cutscnes Im going to try soon. Have u any Inputs for me? Wich events do I need to use? If u know it exactely as possible it would help me, that I dont have to try it for hours!
greez,
benzofat
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Originally posted by benzofat:
**Any Inputs or ideas?
**
Believe you're going to have to experiment. Unless Beenox releases the source for PoG...(fat chance!) But in any case, by the time you've created a complex game good enough to deserve in-game cutscenes, you will understand enough of the engine to do them.
However (taking pity, finding manual, flipping through briefly) the best tool for camera moves seems to be an animation (triggered by event control), Camera Lock on, and motion path keyframed in. My earlier suggestion was slightly in error; I'd use a stamp (or change player map icon and freeze the mouse). The stamp would contain nothing at all but have its position displaced in keyframes. With the camera locked, the spline motion path will be the track taken by the camera. At the end of the animation the camera is returned to the PC. This is almost certainly how the camera fly-overs were done in PoG.
Look, I'd love to give you this in "Press button A, select the first item from the pop-up, and voila, you're done!" but it ain't gonna work that way. You are just going to have to study the engine until you understand its tricks.
(Now back to EVO and TnT...)
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Butterfly
My husband gave his promise
He would return in the joyous season,
When robin red-breasts rebuild their nests.
