Chameleo and the Grappling Hook!!!

[jb]

Dave,

thats great to hear about getting it to hook onto certian actors, again any thing we can do to help, just let us know.

Keep up the great work!

[Chameleo]

Thanks Joe... I do have another question for you... do you know a way we could make the tongue/grapple more flexible or dynamic??? We don't want it to whip it but it would be nice to have it look a little 'softer'?

Oh and by the way, we are planning on releasing the game/demo to everyone. It should only be about 10 min. or so of total gameplay but it will be FUN! Hey, it's fun already!

Thanks,

Dave

[R.Flagg]

Looks very neat!

Hope you guys are having fun and doing well.

[jb]

Thanks Joe... I do have another question for you... do you know a way we could make the tongue/grapple more flexible or dynamic??? We don't want it to whip it but it would be nice to have it look a little 'softer'?

Dave not sure I follow 100%. Did you want it to act more like a bungie cord where it bounces some when its pulling? Or did you want it to bend around things? Is that what you ment by Dynamic?

[jeditobe1]

For bending.

One way you might be able to approximate it is to do a trace between the player and the attachment point. If there is something in the way, use that as the attachment point until both it and the original attachment point are visible, then swap back. Or something along those lines.

For bungie-ing.

Right now the grapple maintains a fixed maximum distance when swinging, just vary this distance based on the players velocity in the direction away from the attachment point. Ie if the players velocity away from the attachment point is positive, add some fraction of it to the maximum length

[Chameleo]

Thanks guys, what we were thinking would be to have the tongue come out of our chameleon's mouth with a curve or bend to make it look more 'tongue-like'. With a bend at the beginning and then straighten out to it's attatchment point. We are limited by time and would consider this to be a 'polish' feature and are happy to leave the grapple as is for now. Codewise we were thinking of creating an algorithm that would draw a line from the origin to the attatch point, like a sine wave.

The grapple has turned into a great swinging feature... you can really fly with it!

Thanks,

Dave

[jeditobe1]

As your screen size is more or less fixed.. might try making a mesh for the tongue instead of the straight-line cylinder, then scaling it so that it works?

[Chameleo]

We'll take a look at making a mesh for the tongue this weekend, thanks Chris.

We are running across some wierd 'gravity well or something'... there are times when we swing around an object (plant or tree) and Chameleo gets pulled downwards, towards the ground. We commented out some of the restritction placed on the pawn's velocity which allows our pawn to swing upwards and continue with the momentum gained during the swing. (does that makes sense?) And now this weird stuff starts happening... and it's not constant which is the hardest part to figure out. Sometimes the effect is so strong we can't swing past the 0 on the horizontal. It's like he's wearing lead boots or something.

Oh ya, who's 'MyDaddy' hehe (code reference)

[lord_kungai]

We are running across some wierd 'gravity well or something'... there are times when we swing around an object (plant or tree) and Chameleo gets pulled downwards, towards the ground. We commented out some of the restritction placed on the pawn's velocity which allows our pawn to swing upwards and continue with the momentum gained during the swing. (does that makes sense?) And now this weird stuff starts happening... and it's not constant which is the hardest part to figure out. Sometimes the effect is so strong we can't swing past the 0 on the horizontal. It's like he's wearing lead boots or something.

This is due to the curvature of space and its effect on the nature of the superstring flux quotient upon all nonlinear metaphysical Unreal mods...

Oh ya, who's 'MyDaddy' hehe (code reference)

That would be a reference to your direct male progenitor...

[Chameleo]

This is due to the curvature of space and its effect on the nature of the superstring flux quotient upon all nonlinear metaphysical Unreal mods...

Ahh yes, the superstring flux quotient... I'll pass that on to my coder to clear it up. I'm sure he'll have some fun with that one! I'm learning that this is a very love/hate relationship with the Unreal Engine... you know, you make a small change to an object in your level and don't alter the code to match and you start getting critical errors!!!! Love those.

I think the whole vertex of hell thing has something to do with the grapple points that we created (to help aim the tongue) and how the are placed in relation to the object that we are grappling to.

Dave

[jb]

We'll take a look at making a mesh for the tongue this weekend, thanks Chris.

We are running across some wierd 'gravity well or something'... there are times when we swing around an object (plant or tree) and Chameleo gets pulled downwards, towards the ground. We commented out some of the restritction placed on the pawn's velocity which allows our pawn to swing upwards and continue with the momentum gained during the swing. (does that makes sense?) And now this weird stuff starts happening... and it's not constant which is the hardest part to figure out. Sometimes the effect is so strong we can't swing past the 0 on the horizontal. It's like he's wearing lead boots or something.

Oh ya, who's 'MyDaddy' hehe (code reference)

The MyDaddy commit was left over from the old coder back in the orginal UT99 days and yea it was kind of funny

And I have too seen that weird pull down effect and to be honest not sure where its coming from as this code for the grapple was cut and pasted from UT99 to UT2k3 and to UT2k4. I think its a by product of how physics works in UT2004 vrs the older models. I am going to write all new code for the next verions of UT that way we will not have this issue. Working on bendy version now. If you need my help to trouble shoot what you have let me know!

[Chameleo]

Hopefully they will release the editor to all of us... there has been some rumors going around that it will not be realeased for public consumption.

For all of us looking for jobs in the industry and those who just like to make things, that would be very sad.

Joe, are you working on a bendy grapple now or for the future???

[jb]

Joe, are you working on a bendy grapple now or for the future???

Yes


Hehehe

But yes for both sorta. Working on a bendy grapple for now in UT2k4. Not sure how if it will make it into UT2K4. The idea is to work it out here, then if we have time add it to UT2k4 in some from or fashion. But then take all the lessons learned or code and use that in UT2k7. So yes is the correct answer for both

[Chameleo]

So... what I'm wondering is will there be anything useable for use within the next 2-3 weeks? I'm not sure that we will have much time to play with the flexibility of the grapple but if we do I'll pass on whatever we come up with.

ps. so what sort of jobs do all of the forum/admin users have, are they game industry or someting else?

Thanks,

Dave

[jb]

So... what I'm wondering is will there be anything useable for use within the next 2-3 weeks? I'm not sure that we will have much time to play with the flexibility of the grapple but if we do I'll pass on whatever we come up with.

ps. so what sort of jobs do all of the forum/admin users have, are they game industry or someting else?

Thanks,

Dave

Dave.

not sure how well it will go by then. I had not had a chance to work on it for weeks then got a lot done on Sunday. I have the basics working so could have a lot more work left to-go. Just not sure yet how it will take. I would not count on it just to be safe (vrs counting on it and just not get it in time).

I am EE System Engineer. I only do this a side hobby.