Elevator not working? Kismet / Matinee crashes?

[EmeraldTiger]

So I'm following this tutorial: http://bethbeinke.com/blog/2010/04/a...ors-in-unreal/ on how to make elevators in UT3, and it seemed like everything should be working fine. I followed the instructions and I get results that *look* like they should work correctly. Here is a screenshot of what I had set up: (Notice the yellow line, indicating a successful animation path was formed and what path the elevator will take. Animations played back in Matinee work fine, i.e I can see the elevator move like I want)



I follow *all* the steps in the tutorial, up to step 8 with setting physics for the static mesh. (I know usually dynamic meshes have to be animated, not static, but this is what the tutorial told me to do, and if worked for him, then I guess it should work for me) So I go and close Kismet, but I get this error:

"can't open file '..\UTGame\Config\UTKismet_layout.xml' (error 5: access is denied)

I go to close Matinee as well and get a similar error:

"can't open file '..\UTGame\Config\UTMatinee_layout.xml' (error 5: access is denied)

When I close Matinee, the platform drops back down to where it was before (at the bottom of the yellow line in pic) and the yellow line disappears - is it supposed to do that when I close Matinee? And when I build the level and go to play and walk to the platform, it doesn't operate. Doesn't budge. Nothing. All common sense violated...

Has anyone else ever encountered these errors when using Kismet / Matinee? This is my first time using those two programs, and if it weren't for the error messages perhaps my elevator would work just fine. Sorry if I sound kind of paranoid, just need to vent. Any help on this is greatly appreciated - thanks in advance!

[Odedge]

I don't recall getting an error message like thati. It's normal for the mesh to resut to keyframe 0 when you close matinee. You porably need to enable collision on the mover. By default, they are set to not have collision. That should work/

[EmeraldTiger]

I checked the CollisionType on the mesh - it is COLLIDE_BlockAllButWeapons.

When I open up UnrealMatinee it does mention "Tracks (Movement Track) in Group NewGroup are associated with Actor StaticMeshActor_10 whose Physics mode is not set to PHYS_Interpolating. This object may not animate correctly in game! Consider changing the physics type to PHYS_Interpolating." So I quickly changed it to that but then I get a warning when I go to build saying "StaticMeshActor_10 bStatic true, but has Physics set to something other than PHYS_None!"

[Odedge]

After a bit of "looking', I notice you are using a trigger to activate the lift. This is not the best way to do this. This would work fine for a door, but not a lift. With a lift, the players position will change and making that trigger's collision area to match where the player might be is a pain. With what I suggest below, the mover is activated and reversed based on if a player is standing on it.

Try this...

1. Select the mesh in the generic browser.
2. Select floor, right mouse click and choose "Save Interpactor: What every mesh you chose".
3. Keep the mesh selected, open up Kismet.
4. Right click on a blank spot, select "New Event Using InterpActor_?", then "Mover". This will set up a little kismet sequence that works great for stuff you stand on (lifts and horizontal movers).
5. Open up Matinee and you should be able to animate like you did before.
6. Open up the Interpactors properties and set the collision type to "COLLIDE_BlockAll".

You should be good to go, though you will have to mess with lighting the lift later, but it should work.

[EmeraldTiger]

Thanks, the lift works great now. Hehe, only problem is the lighting though, as you mentioned. For some reason movers don't seem to be affected by lighting - I could put a light right above it and it's still pitch-black... is there a way to apply some sort of ambient light setting to the mesh? Sorry if I ask so many questions lol... Again, thank you.

[Odedge]

No worries and asking questions. You are giving it an effort first, which is important.

A standard light doesn't effect mover static meshes. Lights have different channels and the "dynamic" channel effects movers/interpactors.

You can either add a couple of lights and enable the dynamic light channel. Or, there is a section in the interpactors properties that lets you light up the mesh with out using lights. The first option may look a bit more realistic, but if you use too many lights, can reduce your frame rates. The second one doesn't look as nice, but it's more effecient.

[EmeraldTiger]

Thanks, the lighting works great now.

One more thing - the elevators I set up automatically go up and return to their starting points on their own, which is nice - but unfortunately, they stay in their "up" position for a long time, maybe around 5 seconds, before going down. That would slow down gameplay significantly, so I tried adding a "Delay" action by connecting "Completed" on the Matinee to "Start" on delay, then connecting "finished" on delay to "reverse" on matinee. I clicked on Delay and gave it a Duration of 1, but it still stays up for around 5 seconds. I also tried connecting a float with a value of 1 to "Duration" for delay but this didn't seem to help either. Here is another screen showing what I tried:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27277779/kismetprob1.jpg (hopefully it is easier to read hehe)

[VendorX]

You like complicate your life...
Remove your Delay, you don't need this. Click on InterpActor_0 Mover, find Seq Event Mover and fill free to change Stay Open Time.

[EmeraldTiger]

You like complicate your life...
Remove your Delay, you don't need this. Click on InterpActor_0 Mover, find Seq Event Mover and fill free to change Stay Open Time.

I examined this setting, but it was set at 1.5 by default, and decreasing the value did not seem to have any effect on the waiting time.

[NickG]

Open you matinee editor and play the animation while watching both the camera track progress and the elevator. I think you will find that your progress bar continues past your last keyframe. If so, you need to reduce the time of your animation to end at your last keyframe, or to 0.5 second after it and remove your separate delay. You can do so by dragging the carets at the bottom of the track editor.

[EmeraldTiger]

Open you matinee editor and play the animation while watching both the camera track progress and the elevator. I think you will find that your progress bar continues past your last keyframe. If so, you need to reduce the time of your animation to end at your last keyframe, or to 0.5 second after it and remove your separate delay. You can do so by dragging the carets at the bottom of the track editor.

Ahh thanks, it works excellent now. I'll be sure to give shout-outs to everyone in this thread when I release the alpha for my map.