Help Trogdor Burninate?

[kyleblakely42]

To clarify, this isn't exactly a request, and I'm not sure what to classify it under. I'm more asking if I'm goign the right route, and that this is a scripting problem?

My team and I are working on my project and we're completely stumped. Considering that none of us are scripters, that would be the reason why. One of the main goals, and one of the reasons that our project is uniquie is because the environment will be made to be completely interactive. For instance: in the real world, if you could cast magic. Lets say, Fire for instance. What would happen if you cast it on a barn? The barn would burst into flames, would it not?

In most game worlds, you can't even actually use 'Fire' outside of battle. But what if it had practical use? What if you could use Fire to burn things, like you could in real life? Hence our problem:

The most logical conclusion (at least to me anyway) was to use the fire ability to trigger a common event, that triggers a switch that makes the desired effect happen. That worked fine for a little while, but then we ran into an instance where we needed multiples of the same skill on one map. It wouldn't make any sense if the player used fire, and two trees on completely random sides of the map burst into flame, would it?

I've really been hesitant about posting this, because I figure in my n00bness, I've missed some obvious conclusion, that is staring me in the face. But I can't figure out how to work it, and it's halting development. My guess would maybe be attach a certian attribute to abilities, that makes them trigger a trigger, or something. But the question is, how do I keep that trigger in range? How do I say burn down one tree and not another?

Any help would be appreciated. Even if it is a mocking finger pointing to some tutorial that I just missed.

Thanks.

Ah yes. And if this is in the wrong place. Feel free to whip out the Noobstick and beat me, Mods.

EDIT: I just sent the following message to the brilliant SephirothSpawn

"That would work I suppose. But the thing is that, there would also be a sound involved, but here, I guess I may not understand what you're saying, so I'll map it out.



X-Tree X-Tree blocking path
O-Player

So say that the player casts fire on the tree, right?

X-Tree X-Burning Tree
O-Player

The tree burns down, and the player progresses, not aware that the other tree is burnable. But under my current system the following would happen:

X-Burning Tree X-Burning Tree
O-Player

Because the skill calls a common even that triggers a switch that's the only way I can get it to work. "

Hopefully that explains better.

 

[SephirothSpawn]

Couldn't you lets say take the tree image and make a spritesheet out of it. Create an event and use that image as the sprite.

Then you can use event commands to have it show an animation on that event.

You could create an event comment and have it read the comments when a button is pressed. It then can check for ranges of events on depending on whatever skill you are pressing, the skills range, play the animation, etc.

I personally would love to script this. I have had some plans of doing it before (darn Xenosaga) but never really got to it. It will be a little while before I can get to it, but I can add it to my list. This isn't something extremely hard to script, but can be difficult.

 

[kyleblakely42]

*bump* :D

 

[Taylor]

I think he wants it so you can't just go click on a tree to set it on fire, but must use the skill from the menu. Or something similar.
Plus using tree Character sets doesn't look good when you move around... or maybe it's just the pixelmovement script which does that to large graphic'd events.

 

[kyleblakely42]

Doesn't have to even be a click. I just want it so that you know, whenever you set a tree on fire, or blow up a rock, or move something EVERYTHING on the map isn't affected by the skill usage.

 

[Rhazdel]

What you could try is using Player Touch (or Event Touch) events as your burnable objects. On touch, have your event throw a switch (say, for example, turns [Self-Switch A] On. Then, on the second page of the event, have Conditional Branches for your Common Event Swich On and Local Switch On. That way, only when the player is touching the event will it actually flip on that objects switch and burn.

 

[bruisehound]

Hey kb42.

I'm not a scripter either. My tendency is toward clumsy event workarounds. So here's how I'd do it.

SWITCH:
Battle On/Off

VARIABLE:
Effect Spell

COMMON EVENT:
Fire:
When Battle is Off,
Fire produces a little sprite identical to the player.
Then it makes the player look like a fire,
and sets the variable 'Effect Spell' to 1 (you could set it to different numbers for different Effect Spells: Fire, Quake, etc.)

MAP EVENT:
Each of the burnable objects has an event. And if the player in his fire guise runs up and hits that event with the action button, the burnable object bursts into flames and does whatever you want it to do. The event has within it a Conditional: If Effect Spell=1, so that it only acts up when fire is on.
Once that's done, teleport the player in his fire guise back to the little sprite that looks like him, set Effect Spell back to 0 (for no spell active), and make the player look like himself again.

#####
To the player, this would look like they had cast a spell, and then they get to remote control the fire to do whatever they want it to do.
User friendly AND solves the problem, nay?

Whaddya think?

EDIT: One problem would be that you'd have to set every normal map event to work only when Effect Spell was at 0. Bit clumsy, that.

-bruisehound

 

[kyleblakely42]

Hmm. Those are both awesome suggestions. If it wasn't like 2 am here I would totally get on them. But alas. I have class in the AM and a crap ton of home work. I'll let you know shortly how they go. :D

EDIT: Alrighty then.

@Bruiser:

You're absolutely right. I think you can change it back with a common event, but things get all wierd and laggy for me, and it's possible that I'm doing it wrong...

I tried it. I think that it could actually lead to some really, really cool puzzles! Like ones where you have to use spells to do certian things? Cool elemental powers, and stuff like that. My brain went all crazy when I thouhgt about it.

I'm not really too fond of the idea of having to do that every time you cast a spell to interact with the environment though. It would limit my idea that there should be several answers to each puzzle. And in the end would get annoying, you know? We'll see.

@Rha:

Heh. Works great. You just can't be too near something else or it will go off as well. -_- unless I'm just doing it horribly wrong. I dunno. Thanks for the help though. :D

 

[Rhazdel]

Yeah, that is a problem. If you are touching two events that are 'burnable'. If you want two events next to each other that are burnable, you could also include Conditional Branches to check the player's location (set them equal to variables) or what direction they are facing. It would be a pain to code for every burnable object, but not too bad for the few you have that sit next to each other.

Why not do a combination of the two? You could have the "touch events" burn in some puzzles and then use the "controllable elements" in other puzzles. That would give you a lot of freedom and allow you to make some really cool puzzles.

One idea would be use the "touch events" in normal mapping, and then, whenever you want to use the conrollable ones, put a specific tile down to let the player know that if they stand on that tile they can control their spell. Make it a glow or a specific tile, or something that the player can always recognize and look for.

Just an idea.