FPS Engine Trigger Library - Use it as your own!

[BacklitAvenger]

NEW: Check out the latest post of mine in this thread. There's a new release with a really huge host of new features, as well as a youtube video showing you how to implement it.

Hey there. I hope this doesn't count as advertising. I've got a working FPS engine and I wanted to put up a link because the purpose of making it was to put it out for public use. After SCII came out I went looking for an FPS engine to use during my campaign, and I idn't find any of them available to my liking. I realized other people would probably have the same problem. So I figured the only thing to do was to develop one myself so that other people looking for an engine and not finding any to their liking have another option.

Here's the link.

There will be a demo map later tonight or tomorrow. Just import the library, close the library, and then make a camera. set its properties to be appropriate for an FPS. I suggest field of view of 25 to 30, distance of 1, z offset of 0.7, pitch of 0. There's a global variable called 'Camera'. It has no default value yet. Click it and navigate to the tab labeled 'value' In that tab will be your camera you just made listed along with any other cameras in the map. Select the camera you just made with the above specs. Hit okay. You just assigned the camera you made to be the default value of the global variable 'Camera'. Hit the 'test map' button. Right click to zoom in, spacebar or left mouse button to fire, wasd to move, mouse to look around.

I suggesst before you test the map you make some clifs near the camera you made. Give it a ramp too. Also, place a goliath or two, a siege tank in tank mode, and some marines. For a building try an orbital command, one landed and one flying. and for a good measure, put a science vessel and some marines. The reason I list these units is because the way the traceline works, you have to save a real value under the string of a unit type's name for the unit to be hittable with a projectile. The value you are saving is the unit's height. So a marine is about 0.8 tall, whereas an orbital command is about 2.8 tall. The units I listed above (marine, tank mode tank, science vessel, goliath, orbital command) are the only ones I've put in values for yet.

Anyway the purpose of the cliffs and those units:

When testing the map, try walking into a cliff. Then try walking into a unit. These won't happen because of my built in pathing system. Now try walking up the ramp. That will work, because of the pathing again. Now try shooting. Use the period and comma keys to cycle through the weapons. There's four weapons right now, one for each type of weapon. There's instant weapons, demonstrated by the rifle, that are so fast there's no visible projectile. Then there's projectile weapons, represented by the rocket launcher. There's AoE constant weapons, like the flamethrower (constant means as long as you hold down the firing key/button it will cycle through a period of firing followed by a short cooldown), and finally linear constant, demonstrated by the autocannon, which is basically the projectile operator but instead of being a one shot weapon it will continue to shoot projectiles out for as long as you hold the space button.

The trigger library is filled with comments t explain what things do.

It is easy to make a new weapon, becaue there's a template. Copy it and then adjust the values to what you want. Make sure you increase the number of the [WEP] array variables by 1 every time you add a weapon. And then finally in the weapon library folder go to the initialization trigger and set the [WEP](Newweapon ID) to [Newweapon] etc. You'll see examples of what I'm talking about in that trigger. That trigger is also where you go to see how I input the heights for the units and to add your own values for units I haven't gotten around to.

Finally, none of the weapons does damage, because the damage effects I made for them don't export with the trigger library. You can do a quick and dirty job by setting the '[weapon's name] Damage' effect game link variable to a unit's damage. However, that will make its own impact graphic appear as well. So what you really want to do is create or copy a new damage effect, set the damage to whatever for whatever weapon, and then erase its graphic actors. This wil do damage without showing any effects, because the impact effects are handled by the weapon operators and the weapon data variables as '[weaponname] Projectile' and '[weaponname] impact'.

Let me know if you have any problems. I'm downloading a screen video capture program right this minute to create a youtube video of how to import the library and how to implement it. Creating a camera an setting one single variable is a small price to pay in work for a full FPS engine to work, but for newbies that don't know triggering a video might be just the trick. Also there's gonna be that demo map.

Like I said do let me know if you're having any issues with it.

EDIT: Also I feel I should mention I also have a WASD trigger library that just sets some booleans that can be integrated into any map, an FPS camera system without weapons or tracelines, and soon to be uploaded also a pure traceline library, and a standalone version of the weapon library I use in this FPS for use in side-scrollers, dungeon grinds, or with other FPS/TPS engines. The WASD and camera libraries are already up under my backlitavenger account under assets on sc2mapster, and the trace and weapon libs will be up as assets under my name shortly as well. As soon as enemy AI and vehicles are integrated into this FPS engine (vehicles already working in my main FPS map, just not libraries yet) I plan on releasing the final FPS/TPS engine and then beginning work on a diablo-esque dungeon grind engine.

EDIT AGAIN: V1.1 has some important bugfixes, and that's now up there. Also, the demo map is up, so check it out to see it implemented.

[GnaReffotsirk]

This is awesome. There's some bug though, with the flame thrower, it just keeps firing and changing weapons didn't work anymore.

Also, there's some kind of jitter in moving around. Maybe having the camera smoothed or something would fix this, or having the camera distance less than 1 or the likes?

[BacklitAvenger]

This is awesome. There's some bug though, with the flame thrower, it just keeps firing and changing weapons didn't work anymore.

Also, there's some kind of jitter in moving around. Maybe having the camera smoothed or something would fix this, or having the camera distance less than 1 or the likes?

Can you describe the series of actions prior to the flamethrower actin up? If I can reproduce the bug I'll be more likely able to fix it.

Camera jitter comes from the method of moving the camera while still allowing mouselook. It uses the set camera bounds action. I'm investigating other ways to move the camera while preserving its attributes and still allowing mouselook. I'm certainly open to ideas if anybody has a suggestion.

EDIT: so somebody else out there has to have tried this by now.. I'd dig some constructive criticism here. I have a mod now that goes with the new version v1.2 which will be up tonight... this way as long as you make the map with this mod and set it first in the series of dependencies the weapons will do damage right off the bat rather that you having to assign them some damage effects yourself. I was reluctant to make a mod because I want to keep the installation super simple and the number of files to keep track of as small as possible so that people will actually use it rather than getting discouraged or lazy because its too complex. On the other hand its necessary. The weapons have to work immediately after making a map. Having to assign them damage effects yourself is fine, but for anybody unfamiliar with the editor that's not gonna happen.

Anyway yeah anybody else try it out?

[BacklitAvenger]

Hey everyone. Version 2.0 is out with ammo system, hp system, updated weapon operators, and most importantly enemy units can now fight back. I also have a video up on youtube walking you through making a map with the data mod and then implementing the trigger library.

Trigger Library and Data Mod

Tutorial video

[BacklitAvenger]

[TUTORIALS]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4xkxgefEy4|Tutorial 1 - Making a map using the mod file, making the First Person camera object, and implementing the trigger library. This covers making the map file itself. Watch this first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1PHC...orial 2 Part 2 - This shows what to do once the map is made. Shows how to place units, demonstrates how they behave in the map, demonstrates the ammo system, shows how to place ammo-refill items.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvVh7...orial 2 Part 2 - This is just the finishing few minutes of the above listed Part 1.

There's now two tutorials total. The second tutorial is split between two videos because it was a little longer than the 15 minutes total that youtube allows. At the end of tutorial 2, you will have witnessed the creation of the FPS Engine v2.0 Demo Map listed on the FPS Engine asset page. Right after I ended the video recording program I saved the map, and that map I then uploaded as the demo map. So basically it shows from start to finish what the steps are to make your own FPS map with my engine, from the creation of the map with the mod as primary custom dependency to the importation of the trigger library to the creation of terrain, ammo items, and enemies, to finally testing the map. Hope these tutorials help.