Virtual reality with max payne

[DragonMaster]

Hi, my name is Kévin and together with my University we're working on a special level designed to be used with virtual device (such as google and glove). Those device are already usable and this is not the reason why I came here. With this simulation we are building a kitchen and we want the player to take dish out of the dishwasher and put it in the right cupboard.

This is where the hardest part begin, I'm here to ask if you have a better idea than mine to do the simulation. I had think of turning each dish into a "weapon" and this way the player could take the objet (the trigger send a message to add the weapon to inventory) and in front of the right cupboard a trigger could say:

if possess dish
remove dish
dish appear in the cupboard

This is the best solution I have found since now. If you have any other idea please tell me. Oh, if you don't understand something, it maybe because I'm french and sometime my english isn't so great.

Thank!

[Jokke_r]

You're doing this with MaxFX? Are you working with Max Payne1 or 2?

Sadly there is no such scripting functionality which you need. The best way i could think of to do this is to make the dish a weapon, the dish in the dishwasher could be a ammo item for the dish weapon, or simply a Dynamic Object within the map which has a Player interaction trigger so that when the player uses the use functionality on the trigger the FSM (finite state machine) of the dish DO would add ammo for the dish weapon. You could edit the weapon files so that the dish weapon shoots a projectile which has a very short range and a very large damage, say 2000. Then you can make another Trigger/DO of the cupboard which has a health of 2000 and when it dies it unhides another Dish DO inside the cupboard.

Or if you want to make it very simple and do it all within the level editor by simply using the "use" function within the game (i don't know how your glove interacts with the game).
In that case i would simply use a mesh of a dish (made in the level editor) Make it a dynamic object and place it within the dishwasher, add a trigger next to it which if you use the trigger it will make the dish in the dishwasher hide using the do_hide(true); command while at the same time enabling another trigger at the cupboard using the t_enable(true); command. Now if you use the trigger at the cupboard it would simply unhide another dish DO mesh which already is inside the cupboard(it would be hidden during startup with the do_hide(true) and unhidden when the trigger is used with do_hide(false))

It's many years since i did level scripting in max payne so some of the command might be wrong but i know this is possible since i've done it many times in the past, you just need to do some simple FSM scripting.

[DragonMaster]

Thanks for your fast and clear answer. You have confirmed what I had think, I will probably use the do_hide function but as I need to see the dishes in the hand of Max Payne, I will also make it as a weapon. Is there certain limit about the number of new weapons or about everything else concerning them? Because I'll put 8 types of dishes, 4 glass of different shape or/and colors and 4 plates of different shape or/and color.

I know it is a little bit weird to do something like this with Max Payne Editor (I use the second) but 3d modeling or video game aren't my speciality as I'm studying in computer science (mathmatical and general branch). We're also short on time, so as we must hurry we have decided to use maxed2.

I have another question. Is it possible to make a weapon (my plate) shoot and detecting the bullet only at a certain range? For exemple, from 1 meter of the right cupboard, if the player shoot (with the plate weapon) a dish could appear automatically in the cup board. If it is not possible, can I say something like that from the cupboard:

If player have weaponX and ammoX
cupboard:late->do_hide(false);

I hope that I am clear enough. Thank again for your answer!

[Jokke_r]

You might have a problem with adding weapons if you are using Max Payne2, because of the different way MP2 handles melee weapons compared to MP1 there is a limit to the number of weapons you can add if i remember correctly, you might be able to replace existing weapons to suite your purpose though.

Although i am not 100% sure i do believe you can specify the range a projectile will have, especially since melee weapons have a extremely short range and the various kung-fu mods have short ranges.

You can give a trigger or dynamic object a certain amount of health which when depleted it will move to another "dead" state and do certain commands like hide or unhide an object, the problem is that the trigger or DO cannot differentiate between what weapon was used, so if you have say 4 different plate weapons the cupboard will not be able to know what weapon was shot. I don't know a way around this problem.

The scripting language in maxED does not allow for those kind of IF/OR commands that you are looking for nor is it able to do checks on what weapons or ammo the player is carrying, there simply aren't any commands for that. But IF the player is only able to pick up one dish at a time (logically he can only carry one in his hand at a time) then you can by script your way through this, you simply need to give the cupboard trigger multiple states for all the different dished, say a "white plate" state and a "yellow plate" state, which if triggered while in that state will unhide the specific colored plate in the cupboard. If you do that however you must keep track of what plate was picked up latest. So if i decide to pick up the yellow plate from the dishwasher by activating a trigger, the player would pick up and equip the yellow plate weapon and the weapon model will show up in his hand, the trigger would also send a command to the cupboard trigger to switch from its deactivated state to the "yellow plate" state etc, so that when activating it, it would trigger the player to lose his weapon (i'm quite certain there is a command for this since in the game Max loses his weapons in the middle of the hospital level when he goes down the elevator) AND THEN it would unhide the yellow plate inside the cupboard and after that the cupboard trigger would again deactivate until activated later again when the player picks up another dish.

[akula65]

DragonMaster,

I don't know if you are part of the group asking about copies of Max Payne in this thread , but if you are not, you might be able to get some useful advice from them as well (they speak French!).

[DragonMaster]

Somehow, the group you talk about are working in collaboration with us (they give us the idea of using a level designer), but what we are doing is a little different.

I will try to make it with the information you gave to me. It may take a little time for me to create those weapon, but since the level is almost done I will be able to work on the algorithm a lot of time this week.

Thanks again for all your answers.

[Jokke_r]

Be sure to post screenshots if possble

[DragonMaster]

Hum, we've got some problem that are really impossible to pass. The psychologist professor want the test to be subdivised into different categories. In the first one, the patient must class the dishes by type (plate, glass, etc). If the patient get ten good answer in a row, we pass throught the test 2. In the test 2, the patient must class the dishe by color (blue plate go with blue glass). This is were I have hurt a huge wall, the test must change automatically and without noticing the patient. In my knowledge, it is really impossible to find a solution within max payne.

Also, I was mistaken with the difficulty of the task. There is 4 types, 4 colors and 4 shapes of dishes for a total of 64 differents pieces. This represente a lot of complicated states machine. So we do not abandon the project yet...but we must find another editor to perform such and hard test.

Do you know a level editor with a very good scripting language? (with conditionnal expression such as if...).

[Jokke_r]

Unfortunately i haven't modded other games than Max Payne that much really, but, i would assume that a role playing game would containt much more advanced scripting language with conditionals, for instance The Elder Scrolls oblivion already contains all the functionality you require, you can freely pick up and move objects in the scene due to its physics engine. All you would really need to do it implement your user interface to work with the game in a satisfactory way and make some new object models to implement ingame. The game has a pretty large modding community which i'm sure would be willing to help you.

Take a look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWrA1...eature=related

[DragonMaster]

I will surely took a look a this editor. I have already look at the video on youtube, an if we can do thing like this in the editor it will surely help us a lot. Thanks again for your help an I wish you good luck for your futur project or plans!

Kevin Bouchard.