Synchronizing Objects - Howzawhatzit?!

[Justin Hopewell]

I'll warn you in advance that this is going to be kind of long-winded, but the concept is complicated and I'll need most of this to get the situation and my questions across. I've bolded the questions I'd like answers for and hopefully someone can solve my issue for me.

All right. I've figured out most of the quirks of the editor, but one of the few things left that I just don't understand is the sync option.

Part of the problem is that there is no counter or timer/stopwatch in the editor once you hit play.

Let me start back a little further. My understanding is that Sync, Pause, and Speed all relate to each other.

I just realized the other day that speed is the amount of time your object takes to complete an entire cycle (point A to point B, then back to point A), rather than just from point A to point B.

And Pause is the total time your object pauses at point A and point B, not just at the end of each point.

And I think Sync is just basically the "start" time for an object. So if I have three objects moving at 4 seconds a piece, but I want one to alternate, I would set the off-time, alternating one's sync time to 2 seconds.

In theory this all makes sense. In practice, I get completely random results that I don't understand.

The main problem is that I can't tell where point A is, where point B is, and at what point time actually begins after you hit play.

Let's use one box on a piston, all on its own as an example. I have the box's minimum length at 1.0 and its max at 10.0. And lets say that while time is paused, the box is floating somewhere between those two lengths. The sync time is 0.0 on this piston.

I hit Up on the D-pad. The box starts moving.

1. Is it already in the middle of a cycle, or is it trying to set itself to its starting position, point A?

2. And does time begin once its found point A or has time already started counting as its moving to point A, throwing everything off?

3. And is the Pause attribute taken into effect as soon as the piston reaches the starting position, or does it wait until it travels to its second point in the cycle?


Since I have no way to judge when time actually begins, since there is no in game counter, I can't tell if its working properly. I could just assume it is, but then when I try to setup something more complicated, like the three block example, it won't work properly.

Here's an example of an object I've tried to create but just can't get to work (you'll need to use your imagination a bit, not hard for you guys, being LBP players):

------------------------------------
|OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO|
|OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ' ' OOOO|
|OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO==OOOO|
|O__||.................................|OOO|
|O ||......______________.....|OOO|
|OOO|......|OOOOOOOOOO|....|OOO|
|OOO|......|OOOOOOOOOO|....|OOO|
|OOO|......|OOOOOOOOOO|....|OOO|
|OOO|......|OOOOOOOOOO|....|OOO|
|OOO|......|OOOOOOOOOO|....|OOO|
|OOO|......|OOOOOOOOOO|....|OOO|
|OOO|......|OOOOOOOOOO|....|OOO|
|OOO|......_______________....|OOO|
|OOO|..................................||__O|
|OOO|..................................|| O|
|OOOO==OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO|
|OOOO '' OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO|
|OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO|
------------------------------------

Pretend its a perfect square and that everything is equilateral. The "O" sections are two planes thick. The dotted (...) space between the "O" areas is just one plane thick, so you've basically got a large square with a sunken track that runs around the middle in a track.

== __||
'' and || on the four corners are pistons. Picture a cube being placed in the track. Each piston moves the cube to the next piston, so that the cube is constantly being pushed clockwise inside the sunken track. As I'm writing this I'm realizing that because of gravity, one of the pistons would be unnecessary, but lets just pretend there's a no gravity mode, or we're using a bouyant floaty material that only moves when its pushed.

We'll call the upper left piston "Piston 1", upper right "Piston 2", lower right "Piston 3" and lower left "Piston 4".

I've tried synchronizing the pistons to start at different times to make this work but it won't. I want "Piston 1" to start the motions and just as it reaches piston 2, piston 2 starts moving. This would continue around the track over and over. Each piston would reach the next and the next piston would start immediately. According to my calculations, if the pistons start their cycles WITHOUT a pause, then I come up with these numbers:

Piston 1
Speed 4
Pause 8
Sync 0.0

Piston 2
Speed 4
Pause 8
Sync 2

Piston 3
Speed 4
Pause 8
Sync 4

Piston 4
Speed 4
Pause 8
Sync 6


I spent an entire Saturday trying to figure this out, seriously, the entire day; about 8 hours straight. I could not make it happen.

If someone could solve this for me and maybe create another example of their own with a pretty detailed explanation, I would be incredibly grateful, as this is holding my ideas back quite a bit.

And just an FYI, I know this can be solved easier by using mag switches, but I need to know how to use these attributes, because there will be cases where I can't use mag switches. Its like putting a piece of black tape over the "Check Engine Light" in your car.

And if anyone wants to hit me up on PSN, my name there is also Justin Hopewell (or maybe JustinHopewell without the space.. can't remember).

Thanks in advance for anything you guys can tell me!

-justin

And as an afterword, let me express how displeased I am that the sync attribute is explained in neither the manual, the strategy guide, OR the in-game tutorials. At least not to any significant extent.

[ClankXIII]

Didn't bother reading the whole thing, but if you synched something after pausing, and the hit play, it will adjust itself by pausing for a moment, possibly at an awkward time, or at an awkward angle, but it will fix itself. Hope that helps. :)

[Whalio Cappuccino]

I have syncronized pillars, that move in my level. Don't know if it's similar but I'll try to help you out with how mine works, the pillars are attached to pistons that are attacked to the ceiling ( dark matter above ) I have set the pistons at:

Piston 1 : 58.0 = Max Length
0.9 = Min Length
10.0 = Strength
Sync = 4.5 seconds

This piston is the first of several ( 6 )

Piston 2 : Has the same exact settings except that the sync is 5.0 <- half a second later.

Piston 3 : 5.5
Piston 4 : 6.0

ect,ect...

Mine works perfect, it causes a wave effect if you will. I'm not sure what is wrong with yours, maybe you don't have the pistons stiff? Or would it ruin your object, as for the sync's I dont believe they work at 0.0, just try them starting from .5

See if it works and get back to me, or if this didn't really help, then I'm sorry. Hope it helps though! :)

[Justin Hopewell]

Any help is good help. I'll try replicating that last example and see if I can make it work. The pistons are set to stiff, so that's not the issue, and there's enough space where there shouldn't be any friction issues.

And I thought 0.0 sync just meant that it starts immediately, but maybe i'll give it an arbitrary starting sync like you did, and adjusting the others based on that.

Is there any kind of formula I can use to quickly determine the values for sync, speed, and pause to make things move in a constant seamless cycle?

Thanks again, both of you.

[Whalio Cappuccino]

Any help is good help. I'll try replicating that last example and see if I can make it work. The pistons are set to stiff, so that's not the issue, and there's enough space where there shouldn't be any friction issues.

And I thought 0.0 sync just meant that it starts immediately, but maybe i'll give it an arbitrary starting sync like you did, and adjusting the others based on that.

Is there any kind of formula I can use to quickly determine the values for sync, speed, and pause to make things move in a constant seamless cycle?

Thanks again, both of you.

I'm not sure what you mean but, I just tried it with 0.0 and put .5, 1.0, ect, ect... And it worked, so I seriously don't see what is wrong, but when you pause it, they do set themselves back correctly, as Clank said, it may seem a bit akward at how they move at first, but they synchronize. I'll try to find out some more on this and help you out.

Can you explain to me what it is your trying to make exactly? I'll try to duplicate it and see if I can get it to work. The diagram you gave just confuses me even more. :eek:

[Justin Hopewell]

Yeah, sorry, it was nearly impossible to draw using ASCII.

Picture a vinyl record that's grossly thick. And instead of having several grooves for the needle to run through, there's only one groove that creates a middle circle and an outer circle.

Now take that example and convert all those circles to squares. You have an outer square ring and a square trench that sinks in, then a middle square thats the same depth as the outer square ring.

There's a piston at each corner of the trench that's sunken in to the Outer Square Ring enough to make the piston's moving piece flush with the trench. There's a floaty cube (the bouyant one, not the rising one) that should get pushed along the track in a clockwise fashion without stopping, just a continous motion. I'll draw a pic when I get home and submit it for you if you still don't understand. Its kind of a complicated object to describe.

Thanks, man!

[Whalio Cappuccino]

Don't really get it still, got an image don't know if it's right though, so your basically saying that there is a huge square, and a piston has dug a square shape in the middle of it? Sort of like a disk, but halfway through the disk is a big hole shaped like the disk? Am I picturing this right or what?

EDIT : I believe I understand now, you have what I just explained above, and inside the middle you have a smaller cube, that is being pushed clockwise inside, and you have a top left piston pushing it to the top right, then that piston pushes it to the bottom right, then that to the bottom left, and that one back to the top left. Correct?

[RAINFIRE]

this is all kinda hard to explain but it all makes perfect sense if you just step back and take a look at it.

do not use a pause and test another theory with me

lets say you want to make a repelling platform

easy right, we are going to use a system with sync, just not with pause feature in it:

ok if you just lay like 6 platforms like:

————
I........I
I........I
I........I
I........I
I........I
I........I
I........I
I........I
I........I
————
.....I....
————
I........I
————

and then line them up one after the other and lets set the ENTIRE cycle time to 6 and we want these to have thier cycles 1 second apart in sequence, so here is how you do that:

Pusher1:
cycle time: 6.0 seconds
sync: 0.0 senonds

Pusher 2
cycle time: 6.0 seconds
sync: 1.0 seconds

Pusher 3
cycle time: 6.0 seconds
sync: 2.0 seconds

Pusher 4
cycle time: 6.0 seconds
sync: 3.0 seconds

Pusher 5
cycle time: 6.0 seconds
sync: 4.0 seconds

Pusher 6
cycle time: 6.0 seconds
sync: 5.0 seconds

ok now that that is all good just make sure they are glued to the floor and let them go around and you should see a loose wave pattern

but i want to let you know that hey it is not like syncing your watch to the online time where you have to let it go at the exact time you are supposed to. no the game automatically puts them together and lets them run at normal just like you synced them, for the ENTIRE cycle to be in this case 1 second after the next one in line but how do i prove this, this is how
after you have let this run for a little bit you should be able to pause and they are at different lengths, that is all good for me to prove my point.

copy that set of 6 that you already have there and copy it so you have 12, now go back and put the interval of sync for every sequential one to .5 seconds instead of 1 second so you should start at 0.0 seconds and end up at 5.5 on the 12th pusher

now the origonal pushers should reset themselves to fall in line with the other 6 and you should now see a tight wave pattern

if you want to go above 12, lets say 13 with the same cycle length then number 13 should be set at sync: 0.0 because if the cycle length is same as the sync then that piston's ENTIRE cycle will be 6 seconds after that of the first but that is the same thing as the cycle length so basically setting it to 0.0 and 6.0 are exactly the same thing but the 0.0 looks better and is easier to copy the sets of 12 that you have set up already

basically the game sets it all up for you and the ENTIRE cycle of the piston is determined by sync and by the 0.0 set piston

Oh and do not use pause, it messes it up, and i have not worked with that yet but i will get back to you on that

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

[Justin Hopewell]

EDIT : I believe I understand now, you have what I just explained above, and inside the middle you have a smaller cube, that is being pushed clockwise inside, and you have a top left piston pushing it to the top right, then that piston pushes it to the bottom right, then that to the bottom left, and that one back to the top left. Correct?

You're very close if you don't have it already. Imagine this in 2d for a moment. Draw a square. Inside this square, draw another square. Inside that square, draw a third square. Put a number 2 in the outermost square (the first square we drew), and inside the innermost square (the third square we drew). For the square that's between the two other squares (the second one we drew) put a number 1 inside it. These numbers represent how thick the squares are in 3D. Its all one piece, but the inbetween square (the one with 1 thickness) is sunken back, so it creates a groove or trench, like the thing Luke flew through before he blew up the Death Star.

Each corner of that trench caves into the outermost square a bit, and has a piston with a small wood piece that's flush with the trench. This would allow a small cube to be pushed through the trench, if you could stick your finger into the trench and just slide it around. The pistons with the small wood blocks push the cube through the trench one at a time the way you described it.

And, of course, the whole thing is facing the screen, because if it was lying down on the ground the way I described it, the cube would be unable to move through the trench since LBP doesn't allow objects to move between planes.

I hope this clears it up. I don't have a good way to illustrate it right now.

Thanks again!


this is all kinda hard to explain but it all makes perfect sense if you just step back and take a look at it.
...

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

I think I probably wouldn't have too much trouble with that example. That definitely helps me understand it a bit more, though.

I'm thinking that maybe the example I used was probably not the best example to use, because I probably don't need pauses in that contraption as it runs in a continuous cycle, and thinking about it now, it seems like that would work.

I'm going to see what Whale says, and then I'll pop another question at you guys about what I really need to finish. I mainly built the contraption I explained above because I was working on something much more complicated but wanted to understand sync before I started messing with it, as a lot more factors will come into play involving weight, wobble bolts, strength, pistons, and switches all being used together.

Can't believe the quick responses I'm getting, you guys are all great!

UPDATE: I tried your 12 piston example and that worked fine. I definitely have a grasp of how to use sync without pauses now, so I'm halfway there.