Lesson 10

By: Deathbliss

Deathbliss

Comprehensive Movers and Triggers:

- Part 1 -

I though we could do some touch ups on the level we've been building from lessons 1-8. Hope I broke up the monotony a bit by throwing a Deathmatch Map tutorial in lesson 9. There are a few areas I need to expound on:

1. All the details on TRIGGERS
2. All the things you can do with TRIGGERS
3. What kinds of TRIGGERS there are

Also not related to TRIGGERS per say I found some areas of our map that could be improved. The lights, buttons for the doors and lifts to work, a place for our Pool Room lift to set, the in's and outs of the skybox, and more. So as I finish up the lessons as we prepare to move on to prototype mode I thought I'd iron out some rough spots.

To start open up the last save of the map you have been working on with me (from lesson 8). I've decided to delete the old Pool Room MOVER and I have built a cube 32Hx256Wx96B (H=HEIGHT, W=WIDTH, B=BREADTH). For now we can ignore WALL THICKNESS (for hollow cubes mainly) and GROUP NAME. Re-size the grid to 2 for the easy manipulation of our geometry and place this RED BRUSH as seen below: If you followed along with me when we built the Pool Room and/or have the same texture I used on the floors, you'll see that when we subtract this it'll align perfectly with the texture pattern. Whatever texture you used for the floor, at this point you can DE-SELECT ALL and then find it in the TEXTURE BROWSER. Click on that texture, then SUBTRACT the RED BRUSH. Here's what mine looks like: Now here is a good area to practice texture alignment. I had to FLIP U on mine in some areas and PAN to get it to line up like what you see above. This area really doesn't matter but still a little extra detail never hurts (TOO much ...). Now all you need is another cube the exact same size or maybe just a hair smaller. For me I am making a cube the same HEIGHT, but the WIDTH and BREADTH are going to have a -2 tacked onto the end. These dimensions then are 32Hx256-2Wx96-2B. After you have done this move the RED BRUSH to a clear area - such as the center of the Pool Room. ADD it there once you've selected a texture you will use, and remember you will not be able to change this later so if you want to keep your original lift off to the side somewhere do so at least until you are happy with the new lift. I am using ANCIENT/TRIM/ TILEMOS5 this time for a little color. Once done make a cube large enough that the RED BRUSH completely surrounds this new cube and INTERSECT it. If it doesn't work RESET ALL and then drag the RED BRUSH back to where you want it. Take the RED BRUSH after you've INTERSECTED it to the little hole in the floor we've created and place it inside - perfectly centered and just above the floor - the bottom of the RED BRUSH just touching the base of the hole (or you can leave it 1 grid unit above the base of the hole by re-sizing the grid to 1 and position from there). Find the ADD MOVER icon on the TOOLBAR and click on it. You can now RESET ALL on the RED BRUSH and it'll be ready for when we want it next. Now set the KEYFRAMES by RIGHT CLICKING on the purple box (the MOVER that will be your lift) and finding MOVER KEYFRAME in the list. Remember from our lesson this that you set the MOVER ahead of where it will go. So you select KEYFRAME 1 and then move it to KEYFRAME 1 (which will be perfectly aligned and even with the walkway above) and once it's there your do the process again but this time you'll select KEYFRAME 0 and it should return to it's resting space. If not keep setting the KEYFRAMES until it does. Be sure to add sounds if you want. REBUILD, SAVE and check it out. Here's mine: Now for a TRIGGER ... Well for TRIGGERS to work we know by now that you need to name an object's TAG and then you need the trigger's EVENT to be the same name as the objects TAG. In lesson 5 we called the door movers DOUBLEDOOR1 and then put a TRIGGER on either side or in the middle of the door mover. We then set the triggers EVENT to the same name as the TAG of our door movers. So each door mover would have DOUBLEDOOR1 as it's TAG and each TRIGGER would have DOUBLEDOOR1 as it's EVENT. This is how this type of TRIGGER basically works. However, you can use a MOVER for a trigger, and this is how you would create a switch that would activate something in Unreal. Getting the idea? You can make trap doors, traps, secrets, and we're going to learn how to right now. First off create a cube 33Hx33Wx32B. Align it like so: Find a texture you like - I'm just using a texture sparing ANCIENT/BASE/UNCARVD1. Now drag the RED BRUSH to the middle of the Pool Room again (or any clear area you prefer) and make another cube 32Hx32Wx32B. Now if you look in the ANCIENT texture list you'll see SWITCH in there among the types of textures. Open that up and select it once you've DE-SELECTED everything. ADD this new cube (which will become our switch), INTERSECT it and then drag it into the hole in the wall. ADD MOVER there and set KEYFRAME 1 to be inside the hole completely and aligned on all sides, and KEYFRAME 0 by dragging it back out and resting it just on the opening of the hole. Here's a picture: Now RIGHT CLICK on the switch and go into MOVER PROPERTIES. Look for EVENTS and expose the list there. Leave TAG alone but under EVENT put prlift into the box (pool room lift - get it?). Next you need to RIGHT CLICK on the lift and under MOVER PROPERTIES/EVENTS/ place prlift in the box next to TAG. Now also in that list you need to find OBJECT then the word INITIAL STATE. There you select TRIGGER OPEN TIMED from the list. What does all this do in English? In a nutshell the game says, "Hey, here's a lift named prlift and it's operated by a trigger - AH HA! Here's the trigger controlling it!" However all you'll see in UnrealED is that RED LINE connecting the two objects. Basically that's what that RED LINE that appeared is telling you (in case you hadn't already guessed that ;). REBUILD, SAVE, and see if it works. Well I noticed a few things - for one I might want a sound. For another it looks dumb having the lift go right through the switch, so to solve this I'm changing the position of KEYFRAME 0. By the way, I just discovered you may have to reset not only the switch's keyframes but the lifts as well. I guess that RED LINE also determines the position of the things it's connected to. Everything else is cool, and we got the height perfect it seems. So we need to explore some more uses of the TRIGGER once we're happy with this. Let's work on triggering some lights. I've come to the conclusion that my lighting sources are lame so I have spent some time creating something that looks pretty good. the map as always is download able for the Exordium Main link at the bottom of the page. I think a trigger you have to shoot at to activate would be cool, so build a cube 33Hx33Wx32B and set above the doors in the First Room and align like so: Next make a cube 32Hx32Wx32B and position in any available open area. This will be a lot like what we did with the mover and switch combo in the Pool Room. ADD it, RESET the RED BRUSH, build a cube large enough to go around the newly added switch-to-be and INTERSECT it, place the newly intersected REDBRUSH into the hole, and finally click on ADD MOVER. KEYFRAME 0 will be outside the hole, KEYFRAME 1 will be inside the hole. Now we have some MOVER PROPERTIES to set. Under EVENTS set the EVENT to tlights and the TAG to Trigger. Under MOVER set DAMAGE TRIGGERED to TRUE. You should fool around with the other settings to, some are self explanatory and some are not. For instance, you could make this TRIGGER work just once. Now you need to open up the CLASSES BROWSER and look for LIGHT. Open that list and you'll see 2 types of TRIGGER LIGHTS. We will be using the first one (with NO asterisk). Set these in our light sources in the First Room after deleting the old light sources (if you followed me then that's the torch flames) but keeping the holders. I have a new holder I have created that will be included with the map for you to download. All you do is go up to BRUSH then IMPORT and find the area where you placed ANCHOLDER3 then double click on it. Don't change the options in the box that comes up, click on OK and then you can position at will. If you're still using the torch holders that we made earlier you just place a TRIGGER LIGHT inside where the flame was. For the ANCHOLDER3 you place the light in the glass case area. Be sure to open up all the TRIGGER LIGHT PROPERTIES once you have them all placed and find TRIGGER LIGHT in the list. The two top settings are fine for now - BDELAY ON FALSE and BINITIALLY ON FALSE are the defaults and are what we want. Unless you want to turn the lights off when the switch is pressed in that case BINIATIALLY ON would be true. But we want to turn them one on and in this lesson I will show you how. Ok now find OBJECT and under INITIAL STATE be sure to select TRIGGERTURNS ON from the list. Now go up to EVENTS and set all the TRIGGER LIGHTS TAG to tlights. Leave the EVENT alone. REBUILD, SAVE, and try it. When you start the room should be dark but the switch will be glowing up there. Shoot it and it will turn on the lights.

Well by now you are beginning to see what you can do with a TRIGGER. I think we'll add more as we go along, and I also feel that we have a new room to create soon. There are a few more things at this point we need to do. The first is to tell you about the DISPATCHER. This is a special TRIGGER that keeps tracks of multiple special events. Say you wanted an EARTHQUAKE TRIGGER, then the lights to go out, then perhaps some explosions. You'd place these triggers where you wanted them in the level, then you'd place a DISPATCHER where you wanted these events to begin. In the ADVANCED PROPERTIES under DISPATCHER you would place the TAG names of your TRIGGERS in the order in which you wanted them to happen, so when the DISPATCHER is activated it would activate each TRIGGER in turn. I should demonstrate this here but this is getting long winded to begin with, and that's a more advanced topic. I'm not feeling that well at the moment and I want to get this up so we will close here. I'd like to expound on TRIGGERS later so the next one will continue this. Good work everyone! Hope you picked up some things that will help you make some of your ideas a reality. See you in the next lesson!