Request: Real Working Candle

[Ishtvan]

I think we're ready to attempt the Real Working Candle from our design docs. If you don't recall, this was the goal: Frobbing the candle holder/ lower half of the candle picks it up. Frobbing the candle itself/upper half snuffs out the candle.

 

I think the code is ready for this, but what we'll need from the modeling dept is:

 

Please separate the candle and the holder as two separate models. They don't actually have to be remodeled to fix missing tris or anything, since we will glue them back together shortly, but they have to be two different models because they're gong to be two different entities.

 

Also, we will have to make new, separate collision models for these two separate parts, since they will be separate movable entities and will both need CMs, otherwise they won't load.

 

That's pretty much what we need from modeling. I'm not sure if we should the candle in half, or just keep it as candle and holder. Cutting it in half would mean the frobhilight would go halfway up or down the candle, then suddenly stop, which could look bad, but it might make it easier to pick them up without snuffing them out, because there's more area to grab than just the small holder at the bottom. What do people think?

 

After that, we go into the editor,l bind the two pieces together, put a candle flame on top and bind that on as well, set the target of the candle to the flame, and make a prefab out of the whole thing.

[Springheel]

I think it's most intuitive to have the holder highlight to pick it up, and the candle itself to put it out (which is probably what players will do the most. That also makes more sense for things like the wallcandles or candelabra, which won't be able to be picked up but could be put out.

[Ishtvan]

@Spring: Yeah, that makes sense, altho we could still break it in half just for the candle in holder case, since the other candles don't have to be broken up. I see what you're saying, I just hope it's not too hard to frob the holder.

 

This also raises the question of how to ignite things. We were originally thinking of selecting a tinderbox in the inventory, and then frobbing things/hitting use item with the tinderbox selected to light them. We could do that, or we could have hitting the "use item" key on the tinderbox create a little "lighter" in the world. It would basically be a piece of kindling with a glowing ember at the end that would give off a fire stim, so you could light stuff. That might be more cool, and it might also take less work since we already have a response to a fire stim. Although maybe it's not less work, the way Sparhawk set frobbing things up with items, it's pretty easy to do. We'd just need one script for the tinderbox that called the ignite script on the entity it's used on. A piece of kindling to ignite stuff with would be pretty fun though.

[Springheel]

I think most of the candles have large enough bases that they should be ok to frob.

 

Didn't we say we'd give the thief some kind of match instead? A tinderbox just seems very time-consuming.

 

Come to think of it, if we give the thief an ignition device, there's no more need to give him a lantern. He can carry candles around to light dark areas. Though I guess he couldn't use other objects as easily.

[Dram]

Hey Ish, this is'nt really needed. I'm guessing you're trying to make the candle itself have a skin for on/off? if so then you don't need to because you can achieve a nice effect using glare as a texture, this makes it look good when it moves around and all.

 

I must be misinterpretting what you're trying to do though

[Ishtvan]

@Dram: No, I'm trying to set it up so that the player can choose whether to frob a candle so as to snuff it out, or frob the base/holder so as to pick it up and carry it around without snuffing it out.

 

@Spring: I dunno, a lantern might still be a nice piece of equipment, can't always count on having a candle. Unless we make the candle an inventory item the player starts with, but realistically an enclosed lantern would be more reliable in terms of going out. I was thinking of a "tinderbox" item that would give the player (in their hands) one of those thin wooden sticks that you can light one end of (forget what they're called). Of course we would abstract it so it instantly pops up, rather than take the time it would realistically take to get a fire going with a tinderbox.

[Dram]

@Ish: Ahh ok, don't mind me then

[Springheel]

@Spring: I dunno, a lantern might still be a nice piece of equipment, can't always count on having a candle.

 

Well true, though I was thinking that the whole reason we decided to include a lantern in the first place is so that the mapper can create pitch black areas without worrying about players getting lost. If the player has a tinderbox, however, all they have to do is put an unlit torch or candle in the vicinity of the dark area.

 

A lantern is more versatile, obviously, since you'd have to put the candle down to open doors or use a weapon. But it might just be good enough to push the lantern to a post 1.0 feature.

[Ishtvan]

Perhaps, yeah. I was thinking we could make the candle act as an inventory item too, rather than just a junk item. So when you pick it up, you can hit "use item" and it will go over to the left side of you and stay there (until you scroll away from it in the inventory or something), and it would only go back to the center and act as a junk item if you hit "drop item." I guess we still have to work out how we're going to do that object manipulation + inventory item stuff.

 

Once that is set up though, I don't think a lantern would be that much more work since it's basically changing the model, and maybe changing the light color and shape a bit.

[PinkDot]

Personally I would miss the lantern... Imagine professional Thief going for a serious job with a candle instead of lantern... Candles are too vulnerable (wind, rain, shaking while running etc...)

 

If it's really just a model of lantern to be done then maybe I could use the one I've made for my dark engine mission? With some texture improvments it could work fine, I think...

[Domarius]

I don't think they're talking about the player's own light source, just candles in general.

 

But we already had a discussion about making a lantern item for the player to use, that never runs out. This model would be perfect

[PinkDot]

I don't think they're talking about the player's own light source, just candles in general.

I know that - but I've read in their posts that lantern might be not going to implemented in first release, which would be a pity, IMO.

 

Anyway - going back to main topic - I've already separated these models and I've made collision models as well. If it works fine in engine then I'll let you know.

[Springheel]

It's a nice model, (would work well for guards) but the player's lantern needs to be hooded so it can turn on and off. Something like this:

 

[PinkDot]

Very clever

 

Will this effect be visible for player? (some animation?)

 

---

about candles: for some reason candle model in game has incorrect smoothing groups. It displays properly in Deep Exploration so I don't know what's wrong. Has anybody idea how to convert models and preserve proper smoothing groups? DE tends to make a mess with smoothing groups...

[PinkDot]

I uploaded two models with collision meshes to CVS: candle1 and candle_holder. They are separated candlestick1 model. As I've mentioned before, candle doesn't look properly but that should be enough for coding and testing purposes. I'll change it when I figure out how to.

 

Do you want candlestick2 separated as well?

[Ishtvan]

I'll try testing it out with the candlestick1 first. If it works we could also do 2.

[Dram]

Don't forget to make a collision model around the cndlestick, so it can be moved around. Basically just make a few boxes or something around the model (as close to it as possible) and make its material textures/common/collision

[Ishtvan]

Oh, yeah good point, forgot to mention that. It won't work as a moveable without that.

[PinkDot]

I uploaded two models with collision meshes to CVS

Yes, I made collision meshes as well (models - whatever you call it...)

[Ishtvan]

Okay, thanks! Sorry I didn't see that.

[Ishtvan]

Update: Due to shittiness of D3 physics when it comes to binding two moveables together, we might have to do a trick when binding the candle together:

 

Make the collision mesh of the candle holder extend all the way up to where the candle would be, then make it the bindmaster. One or the other collision mesh will be ignored when they're bound together, so if we make the bindmaster collision mesh extend out over the bound object too, that should work. This is unfortunate and not elegant, but seems necessary unless a major overhaul of the binding physics code can be done.

[PinkDot]

I have updated candle_holder model with changed collision mesh as you wanted.

[Ishtvan]

Sweet, thanks! Maybe I'll have time to get to it this weekend.

[Ishtvan]

I get the "cannot load collision model" error for candle_holder.lwo. How many faces does the CM that you put in have? It should conform to the faces/edges/verts limits outlined in this thread: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=3968

 

The candle itself loads okay, but I have some comments on it:

1. It has no bottom, which is okay for this particular application, but if people wanted to also use that model for a free-standing candle that can get knocked around, which is pretty likely, it should have a bottom.

 

2. It seems to have that smoothing problem we've seen with other ASE models in the past. Not sure what you modeling guys usually do about this:

[Ishtvan]

Btw, anyone with a modeling app could potentially help with this, if they have time.