Hm this is gonna be a tough one..

Question

Have you guys ever played a game named Grim Fandango?
Properbly not. Anyway, we are doing a game smiliar to Grim
Fandango, which means its a 3d adventure game. We've come up with
some really clever solutions for the game mechanics, but now the
source is getting so complex that we feel that we want to "split
up" the code into different behaviors with different names.
For example, when the character enters a specified area,
"Trigger_talk_bartender", we want a behavior to get activated. This
behavior will control the characters motions, overlay-text and if
the current line is to be played over and over again or if a new
line is to be played the next time the player enters this area.
Every conversation will have its own "Talk behavior". But how
should we get them to work together? Maybe something like this?;
If char.position = Trigger_talk_bartender then
Go Talk_Behavior_1 me
end
and then the behavior will be "On Talk_Behavior_1 me".
Its so complex to explain but I hope you understand
everything and go help me with problems.

Answer 1

Hi Pelleyoo,
I do not understand why you did not animate the characters in
your 3D application. What I would of done is created animamations
in my 3D application, and then depending on if I was animating the
charcter by its bones, then I would use the bones player modifier,
or if I was animating the character through keyframes, then I would
use the keyframe player modifier. However, no matter which modifier
I did use, both of them allow you to put your animations into a
play list que as well as blending one anitmation into the next
animation that is in the play list que.
In addition, to make things easier for me when coding the
script, I would also create an invisible object such as a door for
a doorway that when the collision detection hits the invisible
object, then the script would know the user has entered a certain
room. Once the script knows that the user has entered that
piticular room, then I would have the script call a "sendSprite"
command. The arguments for a sendsprite command is as follows...
sendSprite(to which sprite you want the message to be sent
to, #messageHandler, your additional arguments)
for example, the beliow script will send the message playMe
to sprite 0, which is the frame script behaviour area, and also
send the argument of the motion's name "Speek", and which character
is suppose to speek
on collisionDetected collisionData
if collisionData.name = "BarRoom" then
sendSprite(0, #playMe, "speek", "barTender")
end if
end collisionDetected
... this line of code is part of the behaviour script that
lies on the frame behaviour script....
on playMe me, motName, CharName
notLooped = 0
startTime = 0
endTime = 60000 -- this is in milliseconds which 60000
milliseconds is equaled to one minute
member("my3dScene").model(CharName).bonesPlayer.play(motName,
notLooped, startTime, endTime)
end playMe