Wednesday, March 11, 2009

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/

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