Single-Player Level Entry (No Droping In)

[Ninjabuntu]

One thing that really bugs me, is that when I place a Player Start, no matter what I do, I can never get it to allow me to start the level with out dropping in a short distance.

I've tried lowering the Player Start closer to the floor, But this only causes an error if I move it too far. and if I move it even one Unreal unit down in the Zed axis, when I either rebuild the level or play it (not sure which, never really pay attention to when it happens) the Player Start jumps it self up back to where it's apparently supposed to be in height terms.

This really sucks.

What I want is to have the player start standing on the floor, not falling into the level as if spawned in mid air.

is to be able to switch between the 2D Icon (Classic) or if you're so inclined a 3D Geometry based Volume of some kind, maybe even a super simplified version of characters (sort of like the Hammer level editor or the like) so that we can also used it as a sort of visual reference of the character(s).

I remember about 5 or 6 years ago, I asked this question either on 3DBuzz or here(ish) about this and the solution was in the Properties of the Player spawn by for the life of me, I can't remember how to do this or where/how i asked the question to get an answer.

Can some one please help me?

[ambershee]

I wasn't aware there was an editor solution - I would have expected this behaviour to be very much hard-coded as a part of the example UT style spawn system?

[Ninjabuntu]

Gee i hope they didn't hard code that. that would totally suck. I doubt it's hard coded, other wise, it would be in the Source code which no one using UDK would have access to. That is however not the case as the demo for the Ball and Prometheus would not be able to enter level with out dropping in. Both of these games use UDK.

If it requires UScript to stop doping in to levels, where would this code be? And what is it I would have to do to stop this?

I'm no coder, I'm more the artist then anything. Code make me a little scared, to be honest. But if I have to, I'll do it. I'd rather be making a more Single Player style game anyways.

[xXSLAD3Xx]

You could probably look at the playerstart.uc code. How to change anything in it, I've no idea.. But it's worth a shot

[ambershee]

It'll be in how the game mode handles spawning the pawns, and I'd anticipate that when they are spawned, they are just dropped into the level with the appropriate spawning effects. How individual games get around this may vary - case in example you could simply just hide the fact the player drops in by using a short matinee sequence prior to the beginning of the level.

[Ninjabuntu]

Might have to be that way. Grrr. Okay then.

[BloodReyvyn]

Been browsing around the UScripts and I think that this may actually be controlled by the PlayerController rather than the SpawnPoint actor. I'll have to do a little more digging to be sure though.

[ambershee]

It's possible the controller might be responsible, but I still believe it is more likely to be in the game mode class.

[BloodReyvyn]

Got this working, it was actually very easy.

// Dropless PlayerStart Actor.

class DroplessPlayerStart extends PlayerStart;

defaultproperties
{
	Begin Object NAME=CollisionCylinder
		CollisionRadius=+40.000000
		CollisionHeight=+10.000000
	End Object

	Begin Object NAME=Sprite LegacyClassName=PlayerStart_PlayerStartSprite_Class
		Sprite=Texture2D'EditorResources.S_Player'
	End Object

	bPrimaryStart=true
	bEnabled=true

	TeamIndex=0

	bEdShouldSnap=true
}

Basically, you will spawn at the TOP of the PlayerStart's collision cylinder, which by default has it's height set at 80 (almost as tall as the player themselves!). I just changed the height to 10, which still drops you, but only like an inch or so, it's not even noticeable.

You could have probably left out some of the extra stuff as it would have just been inherited by the original PlayerStart actor anyways, but I like to be thorough... and just in case, I may want to change one or two of these properties for future use.

(BTW, This is my first script EVER and did it with only one minor error, forgot a semi-colon like a newb... but this works! WOOT!... lol)

EDIT: Actually, after looking at the actor in the editor I noticed that your player does not spawn in on top of the collision volume, rather the collision volume tells the engine how far off of the ground your PlayerStart should sit after building Paths. Instead of "hovering" over the ground, my new actor actually embeds the base of the joystick sprite into the ground. Also, your character will spawn with their origin at the center of this volume, so don't try to use a size of 0.

10 seems to be just large enough for bots to still "touch" and use as a navigation point without acting weird while spawning your character so close to the ground that you can't even notice any falling.

EDIT 2 : I also noticed (since I am now using this in my game too, hehehe thanks for the inspiration) that this removes the default spawn sound and particle effects. Those don't seem to covered by the PlayerStart actor class. I didn't want the effects or the sound (as I am making a slightly more tactical game) so this is a non-issue for me. I just thought you'd like to know that.

[Ninjabuntu]

Awesome deal BloodReyvyn, thanks for the heads up and the code, If you improve this any more. please keep me posted, and I'm glad my question could be of some use for you as well.

I'm going to try this out soon I'll be sure to give you the credit if something comes of all this.

Take care...

[BloodReyvyn]

No problem, I am still stoked it worked and got rid off all the glitz and sounds (hard to be tactical when people can hear you spawn halfway across the map).

I haven't done any other work on this yet, I was wondering what you meant by "Improvements."

Like, is there a specific effect or something you want to do?

[BlackHornet80]

CollisionHeight +10 means also, if your spawing on a slope, where the height difference between cylinder center and cylinder radius (on the bottom) is greater that 10...it will cause a spawn collision i think ... (just some thoughts)

[ObSkewer]

Thanks a bunch for this. Hadn't gotten around to it yet, but this was something I needed to do for my project, so you saved me the effort ;-)

[Ninjabuntu]

@BloodReyvyn:
The effect I'm going for? I'm going for a single player UDK prototype/game. The effect I'm going for is more like a real(ish) world location rather then just a fighting arena in some abstract place.

I have also played with the idea of having the players character wake up laying down and standing up where the camera would eventually after the player spawns in and falls to the ground. the trouble is, I not really sure how high the players view camera is located. The rotation and all will be easy enough to plug-in but the view height is not very clear.

If that is the case then all I'll really have to do is prevent the visual effects and spawn noise. and on player spawn, run the movie to hide the dropping in view with a small cinematic of the player waking/getting up, and some one had suggested.

I've been toying with the idea of Doing a camera much like Mass Effect 1&2 where while not moving you can rotate around the player but when running around you can actually turn the player.

Still working out the details of how to make that work. Kismet more then Likely. I sure hope not having to write much code in Uscript.

@BlackHornet80:
It's means we'll just have to be careful where to spawn players/bots into the map then. Being that I'm working on more of a Single Player minded project, Precise placement of the players start location will work out better for me in this case. Just have to avoid spawning the player and enemy on slops and the like.

what may be better is to have a sort of toggle that allows the player/bot to be instantly dropped on to the closest surface below the center, so that they rest on top of it properly. then allow the start location to have a little extra height. that would probably work a little better. but I'm no coder, I'm more of an artist and don't even know where to begin with all that.

As I said before, I remember asking somewhat the same question when I was working with Unreal tournament 2004, and there was a toggle or something in the Players start properties that allowed the player to instantly be dropped onto the ground and spawn without any sound or visual effects. I had kinda hoped this would still be the case but I guess it's not.

If anyone from Epic is reading this, Maybe it would be an idea that you may want to code into the UDK for a later BETA release some day soon.

Anyways back to my project. I still have a lot of writing to do and some sketches to draw up before I even get started blocking out the levels.

[Zortalas]

Well its dropless! WHICH IS AWESOME!!! But I still get the sound and I still get this:



Whatever you wanna call the damn material. I dont know how to get rid of these.

I saved your script as DroplessPlayerStart.uc and placed it in the folder. The dropping is great, but the damn sound and material is pissin me off.

[FlynT]

I think both of your problems could be changed inside the UTPawn.uc or in YourPawn.uc

Jump inside the UTPawn.uc scroll all the way down to the DefaultProps block and search for those lines:

SpawnSound=SoundCue'A_Gameplay.A_Gameplay_PlayerSpawn01Cue'

Here you can change the SpawnSound, you could either point it to a non existing package (you will see a warning after compile) or replace it with a silent audio file.


Scroll up a little bit and look for:

TransInEffects(0)=class'UTEmit_TransLocateOutRed'

You have to play around with it because im not sure if one of those lines will do the trick but at least you know where to search for spawning fx.

Hope it helps

[Zortalas]

Awesome! Thanks so much FlynT! Gonna go look at that right now!

[BloodReyvyn]

Yeah, ever since I switched to the April build, I got the spawn sound and effects back.

Thanks to FlynT, I won't have to go searching for those properties (thanks man) to get rid of it again.

Ninjabuntu, I think that entire sequence you described would best be done with Kismet and Matinee using a skeletalmeshactor and then trying to swap your cutscene actor with the actual in-game pawn at the same time, as seamlessly as possible. Since your guy is just getting up from getting knocked down/out, you could easily hide the swap by making your vision hazy and a little blurry.

[Zortalas]

OK, not liking the April build very much. If you can find it BloodReyvyn, please, let me know.

I found the one for the sound, I just simply made a 2 second muted .wav and slapped it in place. Worked fine. But the dropless wont build anymore and the spawn material is still there. Ive been looking for the last few hours on trying to compile something, but I need to goto bed. So, I will look more in the morning.

[mikesdk]

What steps do I need to take to make this work, or is it even possible anymore?

[mikesdk]

bumping as I really need a reply on this

[theseethrumirror]

I would also greatly like to get rid of this issue. It bugs me so much! If anyone has any updates, that would be greatly appreciated. I haven't attempted to use the script provided or edit any of the PlayerStart.uc type scripts yet, but when I do I will post my progress here.

[Weveran]

Awesome! I managed to get rid of the effects and such by deleting them in the packages, but this is a much cleaner solution! Much appreciated.

Edit: I had a problem with the material as well, but this seemed to be built into the robot mesh. When I swapped it with a custom character it vanished. I'd suggest grabbing another model, there is a development pack on the forums that someone made with basic block dudes to use.

[Ninjabuntu]

there has got to be a better way of Having the player start flat on the ground without messing about with the players collision height.

I've recently played the Prometheus UDK Demo again and it's set up there that the Camera seems to wake up and more into perfect placement then hand over to the player. no drop in spawning. the Removing of spawning effects and sounds is all well and good.

What I'd really like is to place a custom player start or Spawning Point object. one that uses the Player's characters Skeletal mesh or a Box showing the Space that a character fills to basically help position them flush onto the ground. rather then that 2d Icon of a joystick or what ever that is.

Damn I too much artist and not enough, or really any for that matter, code monkey. Grrr, this is getting frustrating.

Maybe I'll try and see how complex the Prometheus Code is and see if I can figure out how they did it. I just hope I can make sense of it. Might help if I had the souse code of it to pick apart. but is fishes were wishes, I would have never even had to ask this in the first place.