Animated Sequences

by: Machismo a.ka. The Indian Fakir
cool_machismo@yahoo.com

GIVE ME MORE INFORMATION DAMNIT!

Let me be frank. Since there are going to be so less people who want to do animated movie like opening sequences this is going to be a fast and bitter tutorial (don"t mind me I don"t know what the hell I"m talking about half the time :) - but don"t worry this tutorial will get you to where you want to go) . Since you are reading this tutorial lets hope you are interested in doing that. Ok I hope everyone who"s reading this tutorial has played both Unreal and UT and not just one of them - I don"t know why I go around making stuuuupid comments like that but it had to be made. Ok this tutorial will set out how to make those animated sequences that you see when you start Unreal and UT; the end Unreal sequence and the trophy sequences in UT. Another harsh reality - no one is going to want to see your animated map except your friends whom you can force to watch your map with dire threats (a very nice way of showing off your skills and boasting lol). Its also a nice way of showing off any good map that you have made. What am I blabbering about, lets get with it.

THE SECRET (BUT NOT ANYMORE):

When I first took up Unreal editing I was really impressed by the opening and end sequences knowing the editor and all that kept me wondering how the hell did they do that. Well as the heading of this tutorial suggests the whole thing is controlled by the interpolation point (hereafter referred to as Interpol, located under the actor class keypoint). I"ll assume that you have a map that you want to animate. If not then build four boxes connected to each other to form a large square - got that?. Lets dive into this cool pool pal, here"s how to go about it:
1. At the beginning of your level where ever you want the animation to start place a player start high up in the air so that if you were to play the level you would fall from a height. You need to do this or its going to be a little awkward, this will make the beginning more smooth. You"ll understand why later.
2. A little below the player start place a trigger. Under its properties|collision give it a nice big collision radius and height so that the trigger will get triggered no matter what. Also give it an event name.
3. Add in a special event from under triggers anywhere in the level. Under its properties set the following:
(a). Its tag must be the same as the trigger you placed above. Give it a event name we will be needing it in a while.
(b). Under object|initial state set it to player path. This lets the game know that it has to move the player around the paths we specify and that the player has no say in the movement.
4. Now for the main part. Since the whole map is run by the Interpol we need to set them up properly. The Interpol decides how the camera (think of it as a moving handcam) moves about, where it does turns, how fast it moves at each point, etc. Locate them under keypoint and place them around your level. The placement is really up to you but a few tips - you can place as many points or as less as you desire, I almost always use the top down view to check out the rotation to see that the red arrow is pointed in the direction that I want it to take. At this point some of you make be wondering about how to make turns - don"t worry about it too much. Say you have point a, b and c is around the corner - have a point at b and give b a small twist in the top down view to the left. That should take care of itself. Be careful about those turns though I"ve found myself doing unexpected turns on the corners. So do the placement carefully (and yes I lied before when I said not to worry :). Do some experimentation with the placement - this is not something that I can hold your hand over. Ok now that the points are all set over the level do the following to its properties:
(a). Do a select all interpolation points and set all their tags to the event of the special event. Why? So that when you enter the level the trigger sets off the special event which tells the whole level to make the player take the path laid down by you. You should see the trigger connected to the special event and all the interpolation points connected to that one special event by a spider of red lines.
(b). Ok move to the very first Interpol that you placed. Under its properties expand interpolation point - we are bothered with only four of them:
-bEndOfPath - false for all except for the last point where you want the movie to end. One interesting point of note here is that you can achieve smooth endings by using the following technique. Say you have a line of paths approaching the end of your level and there you have a statue right smack in the middle. From the line of paths build a circle of paths by placing say hypothetically 10 points around the statue and don"t set bEndOfPath for any of the points in the level. What you will have is a line of Interpol"s coming to the statue and a circle of them around the statue. You should also adjust the points so that a few are pointing in at the statue and the rest of the points form a kind of circle to help you circle the statue. The cam will keep moving around the statue give you a "press esc to begin" message and start at the beginning of the level.
- bSkipNextPath - Depends on the situation. You are going to use this only once in a while. Say you have point a, b, c and d. a leads to b; b has SkipNextPath to true and c has bSkipNextPath to false. As should be obvious by now we need point c to tell the game not to skip the next point or there would be no end to the skip path. You can use this technique to increase speed gradually (see below).
- RateModifier -The rate at which the the camera moves needs a little experimentation......again. .5 is a nice slow speed that allows you to get a good look at the surroundings. Play around with it you can achieve some cool effects by slowly increasing the speed from point to point until you are virtually zipping along - say behind a car on a high way -we"ll deal with that next.
- Position - Just what the name suggests, what is the position of that point. Set the first point to 0, second to 1 and from the second if you have a set of points in the same line in the front the position of 3 to that point where you want to move to next in the game.
That"s all with the Interpol"s this should be enough to do any path you want to take on your level.
5. Ok say you have a highway type level and want to see some cars moving around these is how you need to do it:
(i). Set up the Interpol"s along the highway lets say for this example in a straight line. We have points 10, 11 ,12, 13, etc. running along the highway. At point 11 say 1/4th the way along the highway set up a trigger give it an event name and a nice big collision radius and height so that you don"t miss it.
(ii). Behind point 10 in a garage kind of thing place any one of the cars from under decoration. Set its tag to something.
(iii). The main part of this section is here. Expand Brush|Mover from under classes and make sure that attach mover is selected - finally getting to use that one!. Read the explanation given by Epic in the script box in green. The texture is not important make a small brush that fits under the car and cannot be seen from above or the sides and hit the add mover button.
(iv). Under the attach movers properties set - AttachMover|AttachTag to that of your cars tag; under events|tag give the mover the same tag as the trigger that you placed before; object|initialstate to triggeropenedtimed. Also you need to set the following under mover :- MoverEncroachType - Return; MoverGlideType - MoveByTime; MoveTime - Depends set it to say 3 for a fast car; NumKeys (not KeyNums) - How many moves or keyframes the mover will be able to perform (since this is not a mover tutorial all I can say is that if you just want your car to move in a straight line then forget it, but if you want it to do all sorts of twits and turns the amount of twists and turns that you want it to do should equal the NumKeys; StayOpenTime - I always give quite a large number as we don"t want to see the car moving backwards all the way or something.
(v). Ok hit mover keyframe > key 1 and move the car where you want it to go. If for example you had set the NumKeys to 5, hit key 1and after that hit key2 the mover will move back to key0 that is normal. From there move it to the second position and then key3 and so on. At the end hit key0 to set the mover back to the original position. Key 1 can be a straight move, then when the mover is at key 2 you can give it a little turn and another turn at 3 and do a complete circle so that it reaches then end position where you want it to go.
(vi). Go to Interpol 9 set its rate modifier to a slow amount and move to 10 increase the amount, keep doing this (increase the rate that is) till you reach the end of the highway and turn off into another section. The effect that I"m trying to convey is that you come out onto the highway at a slow rate and suddenly under you the car should come along moving at a fast pace and then since the Interpol rates increase you increase your speed along with it then turn off the highway into another section.
6. Hit F6 to open the level properties enter your name and all that, under DefaultGameType hit use after expanding info|gameinfo|tournament game info and selecting UTIntro. After a rebuild when you enter (this may be obvious but don"t save the map with any extension like dm,etc.) you should feel like its just like the opening UT sequence.

SOME GENERAL NOTES:

One cool effect that is a virtual corollary to the above is the ending unreal sequence. There the nice effect of being inside and outside the escape pod is achieved. How this was done was to just circle the pod while in the beginning stages of takeoff using Interpol"s and then using Interpol"s the rest of the way to give a feeling of being inside the pod. I mentioned how to use the trigger to set off the cars, another cool effect is to come at a door at a fast rate slow down and hit the trigger to the door, the moment the door opens take off again. I"m totally deviating from the topic so I"d better stop. This tutorial has hopefully answered your questions (if you had any in the first place :). If not please email me at my add and I"ll try to update you and the tutorial simultaneously. Since I wrote the tutorial in the night instead of sleeping I hope its lucid. That"s the end of this sequence.