Triggers in Action

hi, after i finished to update my system (installing and updating few things) i remembered that i said i will put some video to show triggers in action so i created a small map with a box attached to ceiling with few physics objects inside, so when i touch the trigger the box will be opened and the objects will fall down.
this is very simple example of using trigger_once (which trigger his targets only once), other triggers could be use at the same manner to achieve more complex behavior.

using triggers

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Doing some maintenance

hi, this week i did some maintenance, something i want to do for a long time is to replace my hard disk, my current hdisk (old 80 gb) start to do some noises so i thought its time to replace it, so i buy new 320 gb and clone everything.
i thought i will be fast and simple but the new norton ghost is so bad, i just want to do simple task (as i did in the dos days) and they make it so hard, they change the option for cloning hdisk to copy hard drive option which allows you to clone only one partition at a time and not the whole hdisk as one unit.
so i searched for another app, and i found really good software 'Acronis True Image Home', this is the best app i found for doing the job, very easy to use and have a lot of options to backup things. anyway i use it and it work perfectly.
i also install source control software (which i didn't use until now), the project become very big with a lot of files and it become very complicate to control it, so i installed svn (which i also use it at work), i really like this software, very fast and relaible.
the last thing i did is to upgrade my dev system to vs2008, i was using vs2003 which wasn't so great, i hope the new one will perform much better :)
thats it for now, bye

Triggers

hi, long time i didn't post anything, i'v been busy at work and also wanted to try few techniques and to read few articles from gpu gems 3 and gpg 7, i'm going to get a new copy of ai game programming wisdom 4 which will complete my series so i'm really looking forward to read it.
anyway, after checking some new methods on the graphics side (deferred methods) i wanted to get on with the gameplay so i decided to add new triggers to support interesting level design stuff.
background on triggers for those who are not familiar with it.
trigger is a convex volume which triggers an event when game entity (player, bots, projectiles etc) touches it.
simple example for using triggers: you place a door and want it to be opened only if you get nearer, so you place a trigger around the door but make it a little bit bigger so you will touch the trigger before you touch the door, you set the target of the trigger to be the door so when you touch it it will send a 'trigger' message to the door.
each trigger have basic attributes:
1) target - name of the entity that will be triggered when we touch the trigger, we can set multiple targets.
2) message - message to desplay when triggered
3) delay - amount of time between the touching and the actual triggering
there are few more relative to trigger type.
the triggers i'v added so far:
1) trigger_once - triggers only once, when it is triggered you can't trigger it again, can be used to destroy a bridge after you pass on it.
2) trigger_multiple - triggers multiple times, you can set wait time before the trigger will be trigger again when touched.
3) trigger_hurt - apply damage when touched, can set damage amount.
thats the main idea of triggers, i'v few more to add and there is cool stuff you can make with them.
next time i hope i will finish the rest and upload some video to show some action.
bye
as always if you have any question feel free to ask http://orenk2k.forumotion.net/