Static Mesh Matinee Help

[Samurai Fox]

Hello guys, I'll get straight to the point.

I have a lever, like a pull lever that goes up and down, and I was wondering how on earth in matinee do I make it so the lever only goes down, not the entire entity/static mesh?

If you'd like I can post a picture of the model, I asked a question before and I used this lever as an example before, and the person said to make the lever (stick part) have a pivot point. So if anyone could shed some light on this I'd be very grateful.

Also I've been playing Borderlands lately (Waiting for Borderlands 2) and I was wondering how they did they're static mesh animations, was it with matinee? are they actually Skeletal Meshes? so confused because it'd be great to know how to do stuff like that for draws and such, like in amnesia (just press 'use' button though).

Thanks
-Samurai Fox

[Max Power]

The base of the lever would be a static mesh. The moving part, the lever itself, should be a separate interpactor (mover). Then you can rotate it in matinee. Plenty of tutors out there on all that.

[Samurai Fox]

so they're both seperate static meshes? are you sure that's the correct way?

any also can anyone answer the question about how the people that worked on Borderlands did they're static meshes opening (like the toolboxes and Safes, or the gun cabinets)

Thanks
-Samurai Fox

[Sims13]

i think they are skeletal meshes which were animated by bones...

[JessieG]

You would need a skeletal mesh for it all to be one piece, but it's probably way easier to just have the base of the lever as one mesh and the lever as a separate mesh so you don't need to worry about creating anim sets and triggering different animations.

[Max Power]

op just read any documentation. it's super easy to google. this is the most documented engine ever.
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/KismetExamples.html scroll down to the door example. A lever works the same as a door as far as visual feedback goes.

Again, NO, the moving part has to be an interpactor. It's still a mesh, but most be converted to a mover or placed as one initially.

[Samurai Fox]

Thanks, I guess I'll just do them as 2 seperate meshes.

Max Power, Your mod "Old Town" has Notes that pop up on the screen, is there a tutorial somewhere for that, or could you explain it possibly?

Thanks
-Samurai Fox

[Max Power]

That map is a few years old when UDK still used it's UI system. That was removed for scaleform, which is much more powerful. Off the top of my head, don't know of any tutorials for that, but they do exist.

It's also depends on how in-depth you want something like that. If, for example, you just wanted to put a simple message on screen now and then, you could switch a camera over to a "message scene" that just shows that. However, while that's used a lot in levels (especially intros/outros) it's considered kinda hacky.

[Samurai Fox]

yea, I don't think I'd want to do that 'message scene' hacky ****... aha

I'll look into that stuff with scaleform, I'll just worry about it later one while I work on my menu.

Thanks
-Samurai Fox