GUI and Camera Questions

For toolset tutorials as well as question and answers.
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Teric neDhalir
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GUI and Camera Questions

Post by Teric neDhalir »

Two quickies;
How do you display the yellow "Journal has been updated..." text? I can't find any way of doing it, so assume it must be a GUI thang. Is there a simple bit of code that would let me display text in that position, probably taken as a string variable off a trigger?

Back in the old days use of the cinematic non-NWN1 conversations made DMs become visible. Does that still happen and if it does is it global or just in the area the convo's in?

Thanks!
Zelknolf
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Re: GUI and Camera Questions

Post by Zelknolf »

Point the first: No. You can only put a few kinds of pre-defined text there (journal has been updated, feat has been added; very core mechanical things)

Point the second: all conversations reveal the location of the DM; we generally advocate against NWN2-style cinematic conversations for a number of reasons. I can't say if DM visibility is still one of them, as we have a fairly-limited sample size, as we intentionally limit our use of the conversation style.
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Teric neDhalir
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Re: GUI and Camera Questions

Post by Teric neDhalir »

Hmm. So making a caravan-type system that steps through static camera views to simulate your travel is contra-indicated?
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Re: GUI and Camera Questions

Post by Zelknolf »

It would be a pretty painful implementation to write, and DMs following it would definitely be known (as the conversation had by the DM will still post to all nearby players' server windows, whether or not they spot the avatar).

If you're super keen on making a caravan system that shows the exterior of the wagon, I'd probably combine a wagon+walk commands with autofollow and cutscene invisibility.
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Teric neDhalir
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Re: GUI and Camera Questions

Post by Teric neDhalir »

I think we're at cross-purposes. I don't mean will a DM become visible if using a convo. I mean if a PC uses a convo will any nearby DMs become visible? Considering the convo in question there's not likely to be any DMs about, but just checking.

Also; "It would be a pretty painful implementation to write". Uh, you can assign a different camera view to any node of a conversation, what's painful about that?
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Re: GUI and Camera Questions

Post by Zelknolf »

Don't know if conversation cutscenes reveal now or ever revealed DM avatars-- plenty of reasons to discourage their use, even if against that.

And, of course, conversation-based cutscenes are different camera views with the same actors in the same area; you can add ATs, which will complicate the implementation (ATs tend to close things and have variable timing, which means race conditions and a need to pause/resume the conversation while accounting for them), and you can also make very large areas (more client crashes, harder on the server) and can move the camera far away from the PCs (which means tech rezzes-- pretty much regardless of how carefully you implement; if we design cases where players can't see their characters, they die from inability to control the character).

It's really a better tool for single player. These things are much more predictable there, and thus much more manageable. Not impossible in multiplayer, but there's a lot more to handle.
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Teric neDhalir
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Re: GUI and Camera Questions

Post by Teric neDhalir »

Just one more time round the houses with this one...
The caravan is to get across the dull bits of our travel servers, so no ATs involved and it's a big area anyway. Who/why/how do you think a PC is getting killed by if she's stood by the caravan vendor with "In Transit" or somesuch over her head?
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Re: GUI and Camera Questions

Post by Zelknolf »

Dragged spawns, leftovers from DM events, and other players are the most common sources of "why was anyone dying in this area at all?"
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