Cutscene attempt: Worlds of Rhun

[Baaleos]

               This is the original I was going to try and match.




This is what I got with Gesalt Cutscene System.



Merged this with nwnx areas - so the cutscene can be replayed over and over, per player/party - in an instanced area.


Storyline behind this - is that there was an instanced dungeon on my server - and at the end of it, the main character/quest giver dies -  this is a 'Sending' ceremony, to lay his spirit to rest.
Worlds of Rhun - 31.132.2.110:5222
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_FunkySwerve]

               Out of curiosity, how do cutscenes work in a PW? Can you limit them to only one person seeing at a time? Been half-assed planning one for a while now, but haven't gotten around to starting on it.

Funky
               
               

               
            

[Baaleos]

               Gestalt system allows you to specify whether the PC, the Party , or All people on server see the cutscene.

The only thing that the system is missing is a syncronize system.

Eg- If one PC Gets into the area before the others, the cutscene could easilly be half over by the time someone else gets in the area.
I've had to do some manual sync by checking to see if all party members are in the area before starting.

After that - I needed to make a function that Ports the entire party to location X

After all - the cutscene invisibile party members are the camera view point/fixture - so they need to be ported around alot - unfortunately Gestalt didnt seem to have an OOB  function for porting the entire party for camera movements.

I merged the cutscene system with nwnx areas - so its modular.
One person can be watching the cutscene, and another player can trigger another cutscene - it will play in a duplicate of the area.
When they are finished tue cutscene - it (the area) deletes itself to free memory.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

FunkySwerve wrote...

Out of curiosity, how do cutscenes work in a PW? Can you limit them to only one person seeing at a time? Been half-assed planning one for a while now, but haven't gotten around to starting on it.

Funky

"Cutscene" has always been a poor term in NWN. There isn't actually a little film or anything that plays. A cutscene is no different than any other aspect of NWN. All the creatures, placeables the area etc... are in game which means that in a PW if the area in which the cutscene is happening was accessible to other players, those PCs could potentially interfere with it.

Still I think it can heighten the drama of a situation during a multiplayer game to temorarily focus the PCs camera on an important subject or pan over the whole area or some other cinematic trick. The key - if you are not jumping PCs to a sequestered cutscene zone - is to enable the player to retake control at any time, and thus exit the cutscene manipulation you are doing to their camera etc...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 13 janvier 2013 - 02:04 .
                     
                  

            

[Baaleos]

               I suppose its for each PW Admin to think about it themselves.

My reasoning is -
The player is given the option of seeing the cutscene through opt in choice.
But - once they are in - they must watch it to the end.

If another PW Admin wanted to make the cutscenes abortable - then the module event.
OnCutsceneAbort must be properly scripted - to cancel the cutscene.
BUT - The downside of that - is that each cutscene must appropriately impliment a cleanup script that is able to account for the possibilities of premature ending.

Eg- Say you have a cutscene, and at the end of it - a Boss Appears - as part of the cutscene.
If the players abort it -  the boss wont appear.

Or in my case -one of my NPC's needs to die as part of a RP Story.
If they abort out of it - then the script will be broken, and the NPC Wont be killed.

Creating one Abort Script to account for all cutscenes seems unrealistic -
Would require at least one abort script per cutscene - to properly set all the var states and Actor positions/states that would be expected by the end of the cutscene.

In my opinion - if the cutscenes are less than 2 minutes, and are entertaining enough - I'd rather not make them optional - for simplicity sake: Otherwise the focus is taken away from writing the cutscenes, but on actually accomodating the people who dont want to see them.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Quillmaster]

               Hi Baaleos.

I like the inclusion of cutscenes, and know what a pig they can be to work with from personal experience, so kudos to you for having a bash.  Just a couple of observations - it might be nicer if for the start at least, the camera was closer and rotated around the performer to help add the feeling of movement to the ritual, and the latter half where you see the audience, have those on the right twisted slightly so they look like they are watching the performer.
               
               

               
            

[Baaleos]

               Hi Quill -
Unfortunately, Panning, and rotations are difficult to do.
Because the player character is the fixed point where the camera revolves around  - I would need to have the PC Characters walking around the performer -  and depending on character speeds etc - it might get messed up.

Believe me - if there was an easy way to get smooth rotations around a fixed point - I'd do it.
But for the time being - dramatic jumps are alright for the purpose of the cutscene.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Quillmaster]

               If you can make the PC invisible you could jump them to the performer and spin the camera around quite easily (although I forget the gestalt command that does it).  I can look into it further if you want.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_FunkySwerve]

               Thanks for the tips, guys. Sounds like it's gonna be a pain to do what I had in mind. One of our bosses is a crazed gnome, a priest of Mechanus, who we wanted to fire a Mechanus Cannon at the party, with a cutaway to the gun (props to you if you recognize the spell from a certain game). The gun's been built for years, and looks great, but no player has actually seen the damn thing yet. '>

Funky