Author Topic: In-game cutscenes  (Read 4988 times)

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Offline WMCoolmon

  • Purveyor of space crack
  • 213
When I get some free time again, I'm thinking of adding some SEXPs:

set-camera-position - Sets camera position, like set-ship-pos(ition)
set-camera-facing - Sets camera facing, like set-ship-facing(?)
reset-camera - Resets view to whatever it was before

For simplicity's sake, these would lock the camera in position, unless the player tried to get out of the view or a camera SEXP was called.

Of course, here's where the problem comes in - I figure for the player's sake, esc should probably skip the cutscene. With the above method, the cutscene would continue anyways; the camera would just jump back to the previous view.

Also, the player's ship would continue to be flyable(Although, the mission designer could get- and set- the ship position/facing with the ship-invulnerable SEXP to keep the player from being too much of an arse ;).)

So, using SEXPs, how would people like to see cutscenes be setup and take into account things like the player hitting escape? (Should cutscene-skipping support be left up to the mission designer, through use of is-key-pressed?)

Oh, and for black bars, either a fourth argument for the set-camera SEXPs or a black-bars-on and black-bars-off system.
-C

 

Offline Lynx

  • 211
You. are. the. man.:yes:
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Offline Goober5000

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Ugh.  No, no, no, no, no.  You can already do all that with the player ship - set-ship-position, set-ship-facing, etc.  Play Shrouding the Light and see how Blaise Russel did his cutscenes.  This is completely unnecessary and would only duplicate what we already have.

 

Offline vyper

  • 210
  • The Sexy Scotsman
Unless you actually want to keep the player model in shot...
"But you live, you learn.  Unless you die.  Then you're ****ed." - aldo14

 

Offline Lynx

  • 211
Yeah. And the black bars for the movieesque would be good too.

Ihope that that might be utilizeable for an autopilot flyby for WCS...
Give a man fire and he'll be warm for a day, but set fire to him and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

 

Offline WMCoolmon

  • Purveyor of space crack
  • 213
It'd be easier to FRED. You do something like:

set-ship-invulnerable
player-ship-use-ai
set-camera-position

And you've got your cutscene.

It should also work in multiplayer.
You don't have to worry about the player switching to different views (say, external views of his own ship) while the cutscene is playing.
You don't have to worry about the ship having a "show ship" flag (Which would be another SEXP to add, like toggle-hud)
It's the right way to do it and makes more sense when you're looking at the SEXPs.
And like vyper said, it means that you could see your own ship.

Finally, set-camera-position could be used for things other than cutscenes. Let's say you wanted to implement a remote-camera system; using is-key-pressed and set-camera-position you could switch to a remote camera point, write some text using a custom hud gauge and hud-set-text, and the player ship would still be flying - no need to try and make it look like the player stayed in the same place the whole time.

Edit: also, if shadows ever get reimplemented, you wouldn't have to worry about the 'camera' casting shadows.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2005, 08:10:33 pm by 374 »
-C

 

Offline StratComm

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How would this conflict with the cockpit code (visible ship models, actually)
who needs a signature? ;)
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Last edited by StratComm on 08-23-2027 at 08:34 PM

 

Offline Trivial Psychic

  • 212
  • Snoop Junkie
Would it be possible for a lock-camera-on-object sexp, so the camera would follow a ship as it passed by?  Or perhaps pan-camera, with arguments of left, right, up, down, degrees of pan and duration of the pan.  Something like

When
-true
-pan-camera
--left
---20
--up
---90
--5

so the arguments are

--direction left/right
---degrees of left/right pan
--direction up/down
---degrees of up/down pan
--duration of pan in seconds.

Obviously the FREDer can opt to leave one of the directions blank it its only a 2D pan.  We might also benefit from a translate-camera SEXP, to simulate zooms & such.  It would need co-ordinates for the destination location, the amount of time the translation should take, and perhaps even an option to acclerate and decelerate on either end of the translation, so its not quite so jerky.

Feasable?
The Trivial Psychic Strikes Again!

 

Offline Flaser

  • 210
  • man/fish warsie
The sexps - for moving the camera would be incredibly usefull for other uses: force changing a ship's orientation, without the snappyness of set-ship-facing.

So we could force rotate a capship so it's port or starboard where it's weapons are (Orion) facing the NMEE.

As for the whole camera thing: is it possible to build a ship's that's only a view source? If yes we have a camera.
This kind of ship should also suffer from no tbl. restriction's - so any speed any rotation ratio and damp ration should be possible.

So I see 3 possible refinements for cutscenes and general FRED:
-Force gradual change in orientation
-Invisible Ship support
-Know-no-limit sexp for ships allowing to reset table values

The last will also make the overpowered engines possible. With that instead a case-by-case table tweak with a separate entry we could pick any given ship and simulte damage or power-redistribution or out of ordinary operation by changing the table values.
"I was going to become a speed dealer. If one stupid fairytale turns out to be total nonsense, what does the young man do? If you answered, “Wake up and face reality,” you don’t remember what it was like being a young man. You just go to the next entry in the catalogue of lies you can use to destroy your life." - John Dolan

 

Offline Falcon

  • 29
What about a camera ship? A *.pof file with an invisible texture it would also have unrestricted movement in the ships.tbl. All you would have to do then is place a camera ship in the mission or how many camera's you want.

You could also have a sexp called reset-player-view then specify the camera object. That way you still would have your player ship visible in the cutscene.  IMHO

 

Offline Flaser

  • 210
  • man/fish warsie
Quote
Originally posted by Falcon
What about a camera ship? A *.pof file with an invisible texture it would also have unrestricted movement in the ships.tbl. All you would have to do then is place a camera ship in the mission or how many camera's you want.

You could also have a sexp called reset-player-view then specify the camera object. That way you still would have your player ship visible in the cutscene.  IMHO


Uhmm...that's not very different from what I suggested though it may not have transleted too well. *Sip*
"I was going to become a speed dealer. If one stupid fairytale turns out to be total nonsense, what does the young man do? If you answered, “Wake up and face reality,” you don’t remember what it was like being a young man. You just go to the next entry in the catalogue of lies you can use to destroy your life." - John Dolan

 

Offline Singh

  • Hasn't Accomplished Anything Special Or Notable
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Having a Pan feature would be incredibly usefull indeed. Almost _every_ other function is possible (yes, I've actually tested it!) with current SexPs except for that one.
"Blessed be the FREDder that knows his sexps."
"Cursed be the FREDder that trusts FRED2_Open."
Dreamed of much, accomplished little. :(

 

Offline Flaser

  • 210
  • man/fish warsie
...or force rotate a capship (not pitch or yaw but roll)?
"I was going to become a speed dealer. If one stupid fairytale turns out to be total nonsense, what does the young man do? If you answered, “Wake up and face reality,” you don’t remember what it was like being a young man. You just go to the next entry in the catalogue of lies you can use to destroy your life." - John Dolan

 

Offline Falcon

  • 29
Quote
Originally posted by Flaser


Uhmm...that's not very different from what I suggested though it may not have transleted too well. *Sip*


Actually its because I overlooked your post. :p

oooops......

 

Offline WMCoolmon

  • Purveyor of space crack
  • 213
set-cutscene-bars and unset-cutscene-bars implemented.

They take one argument - the number of milliseconds to add/remove the black bars (Done like homeworld).

I couldn't compile FRED, though.
-C

 

Offline Singh

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  • Degrees of guilt.
what do those do?
"Blessed be the FREDder that knows his sexps."
"Cursed be the FREDder that trusts FRED2_Open."
Dreamed of much, accomplished little. :(

 

Offline WMCoolmon

  • Purveyor of space crack
  • 213
Make it look like you're watching a widescreen movie :p
-C

 

Offline Singh

  • Hasn't Accomplished Anything Special Or Notable
  • 211
  • Degrees of guilt.
ok. thanks :)
"Blessed be the FREDder that knows his sexps."
"Cursed be the FREDder that trusts FRED2_Open."
Dreamed of much, accomplished little. :(

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
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    • Goober5000 Productions
Quote
Originally posted by WMCoolmon
set-cutscene-bars and unset-cutscene-bars implemented.

They take one argument - the number of milliseconds to add/remove
Hmm.  Why have the milliseconds at all?  Why not just turn them on and then a little while later turn them off?

 

Offline karajorma

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I'm guessing here but if the FREDder has to handle the use of the ESC key then he'll want the game to snap back to normal when it's pressed.
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