Interested with questions

markfrancombe

Hi,

Ill say right out that I haven't bought AC yet, as I only discovered it today, but it looks like it might be the answer to all my headaches!

The happy answers to theses will no doubt confirm a sale.

I am quite a long way into development of my game, so integrating AC now, might be a backwards step. But if the elements below are simple in AC, it might be worth me re-building them.

1. Im using UFPS AND PlayMaker, together, in, what I think is a bit of a clutzy way. So Im wondering how easy is it to work with both systems. Ill give you an example.

When Im outside in the rainy forest and come across the scary hospital, I can click on the door, a tooltip appears "Enter Hospital" Press F We press F and a new scene opens. When I leave the hospital, I leave by a different door, I Press F again but the door saves a variable that tells it which door Im leaving by and then, in the scary forest, I spawn to the new, backdoor, location.
Do-able?

2. (this not solved in my game.. its a headache for me) While in the hospital I find a gun, a syringe and fall down the stairs, suffering 20% Health damage. Then I leave the hospital, the loot is gone, and Im back to 100%... DAMN.. 
Can my stats persist from scene to scene?

3. Im using RAIN to move my NPCs about, but haven't done so much of that so prepared to start from scratch, but Im assuming... NPCs can take damage from my gun, and when they die, I can drop a ragdoll into the Death Prefab slot of the Damage controller for UFPS...
This do-able?

4. THE BIGGIE... Not yet done in my game apart from in tiny test scenes to check validity.
Multiplayer?
My game is basically a co-op mystery, you become a character at the start, and other players do too, We cannot all be the same character, when I have chosen one its not an option for the others. Most of the game you play alone, in different parts of the map, collecting stuff, doing quests, finally you come together for one.. lets call it a battle agains NPCs (its not, but that would be a giveaway he he)
Im doing this in Photon, (controlled by PlayMaker) and its not as hard as it seems.
Basically, photon asks, is THIS player mine, if so, enable the UFPS player setup, if not enable this player object and display its animations and location on all clients.
So would this f*** up AC?
In reality, its still a single player game, its just that there are some strange models that slide about on their own, (other players avatars) all interactions with objects and doors and scenes, are just local to your client.
This would mean however that SOME things needs to be sent between clients, like, this door has been unlocked by player A, so Player B need not find the key... this gun has been found by Player C, so its not there for Player A to find... etc...
I can probably keep this seperate from AC anyway, by having PlayMaker keep track of what is visible. If a magical book has not been enabled by PlayMaker, then the AC interactions to pick it up and put it in the inventory would not be possible.. right?

Sorry for long post, but as you can see, I need to know some stuff.

You know Ill probably buy it anyway, theres this other game I have in mind....

regards

Mark

ChrisIceBox

Hi Mark, welcome to the forum.

While I don't want to put you off AC, it is important you know what AC is and isn't.  Yes, AC can handle UFPS and PlayMaker, but it's intended for more passive games, that don't involve weapons, enemies, and so on.  Not that they could be added in through script extensions, but not out-of-the-box as you might be expecting.

More fundamental to your game, though, is the question of multiplayer.  AC is strictly a single-player only toolkit, and much of the core system relies on the fact that only one player exists in a scene.  I don't really know anything about Photon, so again - it'd be up to some major script extensions to implement multiplayer.

The other questions you have are generally much more do-able, however: AC can handle both scene-based and game-wide variables, the latter of which will survive scene changes.  You can also link AC's global variables to PlayMaker ones, which may be of use to you.

You can also check the values of these variables when you enter a scene - so going by your example, you could have a boolean variable called "Left by the back door", which - when set to true - moves the player to a different starting point when they leave the hospital scene and enter the outside one.

markfrancombe

Thanks for that!
I have one comment on the Photon issue, and one more question.
RE Photon. You know it may still not be a showstopper, as Photon works quite independantly, AFAIK, and im no Expert, Photon never ACTUALLY has more than one player, its more of a trick.
When a game starts you create your player, when others start that same game they Get a player, YOUR player then sends transform and animation data to their game, and they see a model at that location, its more like an NPC. You SEE their player in your game, but again its just a model moving to the location sent by their game.
There is a function in Photon called isMine and isNotmine, therefore i could tag your player Player, and any isNotMine as NPC. Prob still a bit of a headache however.

My question: Im impressed by the AC inventory, but in UFPC you have a simple inventory where you carry an item, usually a weapon, in your hand. It would be foolish to use both systems, so is there a way to select from the AC inventory an item to carry, like a gun, or a torch, or a Bible?
My game is not a First Person shooter, and doesnt involve killing per se, but yeah.. you CAN shoot stuff... locks, and er maybe a few people... but predominately its an adventure game, finding keys, maps, letters, etc
Got any clues as to how I might achieve this?

Mark

ChrisIceBox

The problem would be if you want to use the same inventory for both weapons and regular items (i.e. more traditional adventure-like items, that aren't equipped).

You're right that you shouldn't rely on two inventories - I'd recommend using AC's, because you can define exactly what happens when an item is clicked.  So your "AC gun" item would, when clicked, activate the "UFPS gun" item.  For that, you'd need to write a custom Action that would handle this link.  UFPS is well documented on how to do such things - and by placing such code in an Action, you'd be able to call it within AC whenever you like - including when an AC inventory item is clicked on.

markfrancombe

Came back to this thread, to continue the subject.

Having now run through the AC tutorials, I must say Im loving it, and wish I had had it a year ago when I started this game, however, Im going to take the trouble to rip out my clunky PlayMaker solutions for things and replace with AC as much as possible.

Ill keep kinda top level things, that are not to do with interaction as PlayMaker, for example, I turn on and off huge chunks of my game geometry when my player enters or leaves that area.
I am assuming that this will not interfere with AC functionality. For example, Where I currently keep a top level game object called _VILLAGE or _HOSPITAL.. I will just move these into the geometry folder that AC generates. If a HUGE trigger (spherical collider) made in Unity and triggered by PlayMayer does this job, it wont affect AC will it? Or should I use an AC hotspot for that?

But they real reason for me posting is this...
You said...
So your "AC gun" item would, when clicked, activate the "UFPS gun" item.
For that, you'd need to write a custom Action that would handle this link.  UFPS is well documented on how to do such things

Firstly, do you mean, clicking on it IN THE INVENTORY MENU? (I think thats what I want...)

Being a NON-coder, I will have to get a coding friend, who is NOT conversed in either Adventure Creator OR UltimateFPS to do this for me.
Can you tell me how I might go about explaining, or finding the information he will need to do this for me?

Heres the functionality I have settled on.
Complete use of the Adventure Creator Inventory System, so I will remove vp_SimpleInventory (or whatever its called).
So picking up of an item will involve clicking on it (like in AC) it will then go to the menu,. THEN the clicking on it in the menu should wield that item, IF IT AN ITEM THAT CAN BE HELD (Gun, torch etc.. but then how do I put it back in the inventory???) however if its an examinable item (book, note, map) it is merely DISPLAYED fullscreen(ish). and THEN.. if its a USABLE item, (Key, puzzle piece, strange alien artifact, THEN I would want to use AC functionality of draggin it to the combinable thing Door etc...

Most of this is pretty built in in AC (is it not?) apart from being able to get the gun to appear in the hand of UFPS. Gun functionality such as shooting and health of NPCs that get shot, should remain in the UFPS system...

Phew... seems like alot.. Im I embarking on a fruitless operation of botchjob patchings.. or is this all pretty simple? Maybe Im thinking this all wrong...

Needs some help here...

REALLY need help from other users who are doing something similar, at least using UFPS.

Mark

ChrisIceBox

First off, the visibility trigger can be done in AC: a Trigger that has an Object: Visibility Action can show/hide a GameObject + it's children.  Adding a RememberVisibility component to the base object will also ensure it's state is recorded in save games.

For the custom Action: yes, I meant within the Inventory menu.  By default, Items are moved to the cursor when clicked on, but you can override this within the Item's properties - and instead run an ActionList.  It's in here that you can place a custom UFPS Action.

I'm not familiar with UFPS' weapon selecting code, so you'll have to rely on another source for that, but as for the AC side of things, you really just want to temporarily remove the item from your inventory.  The manual's section 12.7 lists common script functions, including those to add/remove Items from your inventory.

To tell your coding friend: your Action will need to have a public integer to store the "inventory ID", which you'll want to expose in the Action's GUI.  This ID can be used by the Action to determine which item to hide, and also which weapon to show (though the latter will have to be mapped by hand).

As for other items, you can use the Menu: Change state Action to display a "popup menu" that shows the item in question up-close.  The menu will also have to hide/show the correct element (one element per item), so you'll want to use parameters to avoid the tedium of repeating yourself.  The Inventory: Select Action can be used to select an inventory item outside of the regular way of clicking the item's icon.

markfrancombe

Thanks Chris,

Just a small clarification, regarding the visibility trigger.
Yes I could re-make it in AC, the question was more if I HAVE TO?

I should explain that this is just a rough and ready optomising routine, due to the size of my game area. HUGE trigger spheres enclose whole areas of the map, and entering them will enable that geometry.

I dont NEED to remember the visibility settings (although that will be useful for items)

And it works perfectly as it is.. BUT was more wondering if it was a good idea to change this functionality to AC? Remember that the hotspot needs to be HUGE encompasing many buildings, which they themselves have clickable areas... can you have a hotspot within a hotspot?

More to the point, if I was to keep them as they are, Then within one of these areas there is a locked door. A key is made to open that door, then the player leaves the area, exits the trigger sphere, and the whole area turns off... Then later they re-enter that area, and the door...? Is it locked again? Or is the remember code good for items that have been disabled and then re-enabled?

Currently I simply set an global variable on that door, islocked. Do I just do the same in AC?

Sorry for newbie questions, I should probably just dive in, just dont have time to make mistakes and re-do them... when I probably re-doing alot anyway---

Mark