The ability to move an object along a given path, at a predetermined speed, time, and direction seems to be a very basic need for Reloaded, as this type of control is a staple for any 3D environment.

Draw a path (like a way point) which defines the path for the attached object(s). The object is attached to the path (through the FPE/LUA?) and positioned at a point along the path. A LUA script checks the current status of whatever conditions are needed to activate the movement of the object. Once the condition(s) are met, the object moves along it’s path

Let’s say the object is a bus, and the object has an internal animation in which the wheels of the bus turn. During the movement process the internal animation loops so that the wheels turn as the bus moves.

With each game cycle the bus/object’s position is moved until the prescribed game cycles or distance values are complete, at which point the bus stops or disappears (out of the players sight). Visually, during game play, the bus starts up on it’s own, drives to the end of the block, turns right, and disappears behind the building on the corner.

A seemingly spontaneous action, not directly connected to the game play which the player can choose to notice or not. It’s not about the bus, it’s about breathing life into the environment.

Without this type of movement the environment appears “dead”. In external environments like city streets, roads, etc. some type of background object motion is needed to bring the scene to life (along with characters who might be walking down the street using the way point system)

I am not interested in producing shoot-em up games, but rather explore, mystery, maze/puzzle games in the Myst tradition. My concern is spending all this time learning the Reloaded system only to find that a basic 3D object movement component is not to be had. Am I wasting my time with Reloaded, or will this type of control be available down the road? Can this type of movement be accomplished through LUA scripting without a formal path system? Thanks.

yep been requested many times ...Its all been added to the to do list

It can pretty much be done right now in the scripting system, but it takes some mathematical skill and some clever coding. I'm doing such things in my game right now. You have to devise your own waypoint system though and cannot utilize the existing one. There was someone else on the forums that provided some movement scripts to do this as well. I can't remember his forum name at the moment, but there were even some videos showing this off. I did my own a little bit differently, but same kind of results.

In classic FPSC you could simulate this by making objects 'NPCs' and making them move via waypoints. I haven't played with reloaded as much as I would have liked, but I would hope this could be achieved in the same way.

you can use the existing waypoint system with a simple bit of copy/paste from the AI script but imo it's not a very good system right now because it doesn't seem to follow the path but just head to the nearest point which makes anything but very simple paths impossible and turning isnt realistic at all for vehicles but there isn't a better one released here yet so yh would be good to see some work on it.

Need is the mother of invention. Tried and unusual route for my school bus. I rigged the bus in Milkshape and created a 180 frame animation moving the bus forward. It worked!!! and I caught some video while fooling around with it. Hope this works since this is the first video I have uploaded.

Thank you all for your responses. I tried to make it turn right but that needs some work.

I guess this will work, but how does one attached a video so it shows-up in the post and not a download?

I think you need to link the videos from another online source, like youtube, for them to display in a post.



It's a nice start, I look forward to seeing you finish off the idea.

This has been requested a lot of times, and we can look at things like this after V1008 is released. We do have a fairly comprehensive list of features planned for V1009. Most of which are AI or environmental in nature, but I can see if I can push this up the list if users feel it's important. As with all requests, we can make no promises as there are many things that we need to prioritise.

SC

If you explore the soldier script when V1.008 is released you will see how you can read the waypoint data in LUA and you can use the Zombie pack soon to be released to work out how to assume manual control of entities.

Thanks Lee, Looking forward to it.

I noted that in the sample game that comes with each version of the beta, that there are times when the characters do not walk the way points and at other times the same character (the guard at the front of the compound for example) does walk the way points. How is the character triggered to begin walking after just standing there during game play?

could be a distance check or there is a command "switchscript" which could allow this also but it's more likely just the script distance limit - while you are further away from enemies etc you will be able to see them but they wont actually do anything until you move closer