Reality Factory

Hi all,
Can anyone help me with the problems I have with triggers (probably because I totally misunderstood their usage.)? In order to make things clear, I’ve made a small level which can be found here: http://www.fokides.dyndns.org/downloadfile.htm
or here: http://4grpe-a-athin.att.sch.gr/download_file.htm
In front of a number of moving platforms, there are poles/switches, which are models associated with triggers. Every trigger is triggered with the “use” key.

Case1:
A trigger to trigger a moving platform every 5 sec.
Problem: The Moving Platform isn’t always triggered after pressing the “use” key. Reducing TimeOn in trigger, results strange sound problems (scratching), before the actual movement of the model associated with the Moving Platform. The scratching is the audio file that should be played when the moving platform is activated.

Case 2:
A trigger to trigger two moving platforms at once.
Problem: Moving Platforms aren’t always triggered after pressing the “use” key if TimeOn and TimeOff fields in trigger are set to 1 sec. If the above fields are left blank, pressing simultaneously the “use” key, stops both the models associated with the moving platforms, but doesn’t restart both of them.

Case 3:
A trigger to trigger a moving platform and a trigger (which triggers another moving platform)
Problem: It doesn’t work no matter what. Isn’t the field TriggerName in a trigger supposed to trigger the trigger?

Case 4:
A logic gate (type 0) to activate a moving platform, when both triggers are on.
Problem: It works if TimeOn and TimeOff fields in both triggers are set to 1 sec. How can I keep one of the triggers on (in no particular order) until the second one is activated?

In all cases: Depending on how the animation keys are set in models (especially when using 0.1 keys), when a trigger is activated, there is a flickering movement of the models (along with the scratching sound), until the actual movement starts.


PS 1
The design of the new web site is great.

PS 2
A previous post concerning SoundtrackToggle is still left unanswered.

PS 3
ScreenShake entity and ScreenShake field in Explosion require an EnvironmentSetup entity. This is not documented anywhere.

case 3: when the Trigger-field of a Trigger-Enitity isn't empty (let's say it's been set to 'bla1') then this means the Trigger cannot be pressed until the trigger/state 'bla1' (in this example) is on.

I hope that's the answer to your question you had in case 3.

Case 3:
So the question is: How do you trigger a trigger with a trigger?
In other words, how do you create a chain of events (not necessarily simultaneous) based on the triggering of a single trigger?
I'm not an experienced user of RF, but in other engines (i.e Serious Sam Engine) with chained triggers you can archieve pretty complex senarios.

How do you trigger a trigger with a trigger?

Ok then you should use the LogicGate Entity, with which you can do this (and much more, depending on its type)

from the RF manual: (Section LogicGate)

Type 1 DELAY - when the state of Trigger1Name changes from off to on it waits for the number of seconds entered in the Delay field before changing its state to on.

In other words: You can have one trigger, then you type in the 'szEntityName' of this trigger into the 'Trigger1Name' field of the LogicGate, type in a delay. The 'szEntityName's of all LogicGates can be used as if the LogicGates were triggers. This way you can insert it into the Trigger1Name of the next LogicGate(Type1), type in a delay, and so on.

This way you can chain everything together.

For more information look into the manual in the section 'Trigger and LogicGate Entities'.

Jay, thanks for your replies

Quote from the documentation about triggers and logic gates:
"Triggers can also be triggered. If there is an entity name entered in the TriggerName field then the state of that entity will be checked and must be on before the trigger can be activated". It doesn't say "the trigger cannot be pressed" as you suggest.

In case 3 what I'm trying to do is exactly what the documentation suggests: Player "uses" the model, the model sets trigger1 to on and the first platform starts moving. Trigger2 checks the state of trigger1 (has the name of trigger1 in Trigger field) and since it is on, it should also be set to on, thus starting the movement of the second platform. Even if there is no entity (i.e. a moving platform) associated with the first trigger, there is no triggering of the second trigger.

To get an idea of how complex things can become, imagine a traffic lights system along with the traffic itself. You need an efficient method to control the lights and the cars, I guess with triggers.

If you can spare some time, please check the other scenarios in the file (the link is in my first post). I cannot find exactly what's wrong, but I have the impression that there are some problems with triggers, especially in how time on and off is handled.

PS
Thanks for your reply in SoundtrackToggle. The areas of the entities are not overlapping, but I'll try the scripting idea.