Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 6:37 pm
hmmn. this is hard to explain, cos youre asking about a quite advanced editor concept, without actually knowing *anything* about the editor. so, here goes;
A mover and a karma actor can be anything. UED uses "actors" called static meshes to make up levels - these are the trees, rocks and stuff that populate the level. ok?
Right, a Karma actor is mearly a static mesh that has collision and gravity scripting so that it can be effected by forces such as bullets etc. A mover is basically the same, but you have to control directly what and where it moves, using keyframes, alomost like an animation (but a lot less frames are needed - max of 8, and that would be well complicated for a mover mesh).
The difference between Kactors and movers is that a K actor can move randomly, and collies with other meshes to form realistic physical movement like in half life 2 (albeit less complicated ).
Also, what i meant about the meshes not having to be linked is this -
if you open the editor, and place a mesh inside a level, even if it is floating, the game will retain its position. the difference with a K actopr is, that if you placed it floating, it would only retain its postion until soething (ie bullet) hit it and forced it to move. It would then fall according to gravity, and change due to directional forces. A mover wuldnt, it would only move if triggered, and even then, it would only move using the specified keyframes.
The confusion can occur when a mover is set to be damage triggered, like a K actor. But the two function very diffferently.
The problem with your idea to have walls crushing players etc, is that K actors cannot kill the player or crush him/her ( i think so anyway),whereas movers can. The problem is that movers are unrealistic and would only move in a certain way and a certain direction if hit. The fact that they also cannot do comlicated movement is also a draw back, cos it would basically look crap with a mover mesh, thus destroying the whole effect.
sorry if this sounds like some sort of physics lecture, but it is fairly hard to explain, without just mucking about in the editor, trying things out.
hope this helps a bit more...
* sigh. i just opened up the editor with the intention of wirting you a quick tut on how to do kactors. seems i cant get them to work anymore. cant remember. Ill play around l8r and figure out how i did it b4*
A mover and a karma actor can be anything. UED uses "actors" called static meshes to make up levels - these are the trees, rocks and stuff that populate the level. ok?
Right, a Karma actor is mearly a static mesh that has collision and gravity scripting so that it can be effected by forces such as bullets etc. A mover is basically the same, but you have to control directly what and where it moves, using keyframes, alomost like an animation (but a lot less frames are needed - max of 8, and that would be well complicated for a mover mesh).
The difference between Kactors and movers is that a K actor can move randomly, and collies with other meshes to form realistic physical movement like in half life 2 (albeit less complicated ).
Also, what i meant about the meshes not having to be linked is this -
if you open the editor, and place a mesh inside a level, even if it is floating, the game will retain its position. the difference with a K actopr is, that if you placed it floating, it would only retain its postion until soething (ie bullet) hit it and forced it to move. It would then fall according to gravity, and change due to directional forces. A mover wuldnt, it would only move if triggered, and even then, it would only move using the specified keyframes.
The confusion can occur when a mover is set to be damage triggered, like a K actor. But the two function very diffferently.
The problem with your idea to have walls crushing players etc, is that K actors cannot kill the player or crush him/her ( i think so anyway),whereas movers can. The problem is that movers are unrealistic and would only move in a certain way and a certain direction if hit. The fact that they also cannot do comlicated movement is also a draw back, cos it would basically look crap with a mover mesh, thus destroying the whole effect.
sorry if this sounds like some sort of physics lecture, but it is fairly hard to explain, without just mucking about in the editor, trying things out.
hope this helps a bit more...
* sigh. i just opened up the editor with the intention of wirting you a quick tut on how to do kactors. seems i cant get them to work anymore. cant remember. Ill play around l8r and figure out how i did it b4*
Anyways, I just got an idea from god-only-knows-where that it would be cool to shoot the floor out from under an enemy. But thanks for the ideas/help/etc. 
