Floors/Cameras

[SickAlice]

I won't need to use it for a bit but something I need to learn eventually, what's the protocol for different floors? So say I have a house and it has two or more floors and also a roof. The character walks in and the camera will need to change so the player is seeing through the roof and the second floor. Likewise when the character goes up say the stairs to the second floor the player needs to see through the roof but not the floor of the second into the first. You get the idea, how do I set this up please and thanks. Most 3d engines I worked with otherwise preset this and it was automatically dictated by proximity/whether the camera position had passed through a wall/floor though I know this engine tends to be fussy.

[BentonGrey]

SA, unfortunately, FF doesn't really do multiple floors.  You can do multiple levels, like in the Robot Factory map from  , but the game can't really handle true multi-stories maps, where actions can take place on the same axis on multiple different levels.

[GogglesPizanno]

Its been a long time, but generally the way I used to think about it was like taking a bed sheet and dropping it over your level. Characters can only move and path-find on the surface of the sheet itself, so anything that was multiple floors or went under something else (like trying to do a bridge) would not actually work right and could only be interacted with on the top most level. Ceilings were handled with flat black 3D planes that were non physical that were destroyed when some trigger event occurred (like covering something with a piece of paper, and then removing the paper to expose it).

You could try and get tricky and do a level where all the upper areas didn't sit on top of the lower areas and try to fake some stuff with creative use of those planes and trigger areas but that's just a fancy version of the robot factory really... or you could try something like The Matrix Mod did (I think that was the one) that actually had multiple rooms on a single map on a single plane (with each one surrounded by a lot of black empty space so you couldn't see the other parts of the level when in one of them), and when you entered a new area through a portal of some kind (door, elevator etc...), the camera and characters would be transported to another part of the map containing the "new" level - basically instantaneous area hopping on a single map similar in concept to the ffx freeroam mod. The illusion broke if you had your camera zoom levels set to go out really wide though.

[Randomdays]

Maybe trying some tricks with objects and bounding boxes? Make a flat plane nif that you can walk on set at a height above ground level. You might be able to walk under the nif and also walk on top of it.

Can you put objects on objects, like on the plane put some walls, desk, etc ?

[GogglesPizanno]

Back in the day I tried numerous tests like that, but as soon as you put a physical object that you could walk on over another walkable area, the area underneath becomes invisible and blocked from the path finding algorithm and treats the upper level as like a building, so characters would either fly over, need to jump up or just avoid the area underneath as if an invisible object the size of the "upper" level was in their path like a wall.

But its been a long time. Maybe something ingenious has yet to be worked out that no-one has thought of yet.

[SickAlice]

I figured there was going to be a big limitation in this engine. Unfortunate they didn't go there, "fly through" is a pretty basic and old 3d operation. I was think along the lines of RD here as well. I know in cases where the object isn't set to solid and the character can pass through if the angle is good and generally a big object the camera will follow them through creating an optical illusion of going inside of something. The overhead part is where I got stuck though hence where I started thinking of cameras much like older 3d programs used. Another idea in rough draft that kicked around my think pan is maybe the levels are not physically lined up as they should be but the players eye never sees that much. Like the floor is actually in a different place all together. Going up the seemingly vertical (optical illusion) stairs makes the appearance of going up but the player is in fact going across to another room rather than a floor? I'll have to sketch somethings when I get the time if anyone thinks that one is applicable.

I'm probably going way out of my comfort zone with all this, I'm weak when it comes to maps and worse with mods and scripting but I'm always open to learning something new. I'm also always mindful that this game can be glitched into doing things favorable. The first "skope" I ever did was before things like nifskope existed, I put weapons in Ninja Turtles hands by putting just the weapon nifs in FFedit and then the Turtles themselves and just gave both instances the same name. That tricked the game engine and not knowing how to resolve it the game brought both of them together at the same time. In another there was a problem with the summoner attribute in FFX. I resolved it by having my to summon character already placed in the stage but stuck inside a wall where it was out of site and couldn't move. When the summon was enacted the character was then teleported to where it's start position would be giving the illusion it had been summoned even though it was always there. Just for examples of that stuff.

One of these days someone needs to get around to overhauling the engine as well of course a proper nif version update and fix a few of the flaws that exist still. Or I need to go back to class and learn the scripting one of these days.

[SickAlice]

Still thinking about this and wondering are there "enter/exit" pointers in this game engine? I used to use these in 2d programming. So easy stuff, character enters pointer A. In game say it was marked by a door sprite so we'll do a door model here. And normally one walks in one side of the door and steps out on the other. But in a lot of old 8-bit games the next room wasn't actually located next to the previous, it was held somewhere else on the map. So basically the character/controller "teleports" though this is never noticed by the player. So that's where I'm going with this. In FF character enters door and there's a pointer there. Character "exits/teleports" to a different area of the map. Utilizing this of course say the inside of said building is on the same map but isn't really visible or accessible from the rest. So we'd create an illusion where the character walks through a door and is then inside a building even though in reality they never crossed the threshold.

[hmarrs]

I think somthing can be done using the last map...As the Time Master Map.