Yandros on 25/10/2016 at 00:23
Feel free to steal the settings for the cigarette smoke particles in Waterfront Racket, which I spent a lot of time fiddling with and which look pretty good if I do say so myself. Also, for quick and dirty disarming, or if you're unable to find an unarmed version of your mesh, you can make an unarmed version of the skin where the sword portion is transparent, and then you can just switch skins via Mesh Textures (which can be in a metaprop you add and remove). It isn't perfect as you can tell the right hand is still curled around a transparent handle if you are looking for it and catch it from the right angle, but most players probably will never notice.
LarryG on 25/10/2016 at 01:37
Quote Posted by nicked
For anyone interested, here's the finished result
It reminds me a little of the WC Fields sketch where he flips a lit cigarette up into his mouth to hide it from his wife, and then flips it back out to continue smoking (in The Bank Dick, maybe). You might do better to use the left hand for getting the cigarette to and from his mouth. And something to time the hand motions a bit better.
One odd thought is that you could have an AI doing cigarette magic for an audience, where the lit cigarette vanishes and gets produced from various locations. Sure it would require some fancy shenanigans with property sets to keep switching the alt location for attachment, but it could be fun. I may just do that sometime -- an AI magic act -- if I happen to be working on the right mission to put it in ... Coin magic perhaps?
nicked on 25/10/2016 at 17:08
OK I've got the unarmed guards in and with sheated swords on their belts by basically just copying settings without really understanding them.
However, looking through the City mission gamesys, I can't seem to find anything that tells me how to trigger the guards unsheathing the swords. I would have assumed the model tweq and draw motion would be triggered by an Alert Response, but there seems to be no such thing.
I can't make head or tail of the new Suspicious stims, is it related to that?
Also, thanks Yandros - that smoke looks way better!
Nameless Voice on 25/10/2016 at 20:29
The sword-drawing is handled by AIWatchObj default links IIRC.
nicked on 26/10/2016 at 06:43
OK I found some fnords that I'd missed, particleattached to Garrett. Still can't seem to get it working. This is way beyond my understanding of what everything is actually doing, but I've got:
3 new Stim:
DrawStim
MiscStim
PermeateStim
(Not sure I really need the second two for this, but I copied everything to try and make sure).
New Metaproperties:
M-SheathedWeapon
M-DrawStim
M-SheathStim
(I copied all the properties of these, including all Act/React setup.)
Various changed settings, all copied exactly, from SheriffsGuard and every other changed setting up to Creature (apart from metaproperties for a new Suspicion system which doesn't appear to be related).
New objects under fnord>WatchObjs:
WatchObj-DrawSword
WatchObj-SheathSword
(also with all settings copied exactly, including the WatchObj defaults and links to Garrett.)
A Sheaths>SheathedSword01
(also with properties copied exactly)
I've also got the sheathed sword and empty sheath models in the right place. Also got the full motions folder required.
The sword appears on the guard's belt just fine, but there's still no special draw sword reaction when he spots me. I must be missing some link or conversation somewhere, but I don't know what I'm looking for, so I'm not sure what's missing.
Nameless Voice on 26/10/2016 at 10:20
What about the G-Startup genie, attached to Garrett, which spawns on startup and sets up the links?
I can't help but wonder if this system isn't a tiny bit over-complicated! Bear in mind it was created before (or at best, in the very early days) of NVScript.
These days, you could probably replace the genie with NVWatchMe (NVWatchMeTarget="@M-SheathedWeapon")
nicked on 26/10/2016 at 19:25
Yep - totally missed the Genie!
With stuff like this that is beyond my comprehension, I'm used to just following links in the hierarchy, but a lot of this setup was about adding links ingame.
Anyway, overcomplicated it may be, but it is now working, so I can tweak the smoking guy to not have to worry about stabbing himself in the face.
Thanks for the help!