Thegide
02-25-2009, 07:27 PM
Having just spent a lot of time recently working with remote-contolled magic mouths to generate cinematic effects, I thought I'd give a few pointers for those working with them since the system is a bit bugged.
First, let me say cutscenes are a great way to make your LBP level feel like a true independent game. Whether it be for plot or for showing your players where their next objective is, cutscenes are great production value.
Cutscenes are easy to make. Stick a magic mouth at your scene location, and enable the camera option, set the angle. Since magic mouths can be triggered by switches, you can trigger them by any number of means, even if the magic mouth is in another location.
We all know that the amount of text that fits into a magic mouth is fairly short, so it's common to use multiple mouths in one location to string together longer text.
There are a few considerations when stringing together multiple mouths, and this is really what this post is concerned with.
First, mouths placed close together will trigger in a particular order.
- If not using switches to control them, they will trigger in the order in which their sensor radii are entered.
- If using switches, they will trigger in the order in which they are connected by wire. If you detach any of the wires, you will have to rewire everything or your text order can be changed.
Secondly, triggering multiple mouths at once causes all of the messages to pop up at once, in the form of a message queue. Message queues can be buggy, though, and sometimes messages in the queue will disappear before the player has a chance to read them. This post exists to help you understand why this happens and how to fix it. I'll explain further...
Messages disappear from message queues usually when the mouths are located far apart from each other. Of course, to have messages in the queue from distant mouths, we have to be triggering them by SWITCH. The criteria for whether a mouth's message is permanent or temporary is dependent on whether the mouths of the queued messages are visible on-screen.
If you have two mouths activated (one message on screen, one in the queue), the queued message will not disappear if its mouth is visible on-screen while a previous message is being displayed. The criteria holds for multiple queued messages (they will not disappear so long as their mouths are visible in all cutscenes preceding them). (Note: "visible" here is applied only in the sense of location. It does not matter if your mouths are set to visible or invisible).
Keep this in mind when placing your mouths for cutscenes that jump to different on-screen locations. Physical distance for mouths doesn't matter that much... Messages can still disappear from mouths that are placed close together, depending on the camera angles you use! Locate the mouths in a central "area" that is visible in all cutscenes, and your messages will last.
If you have to cut to an area which is very far away, and you cannot possibly keep the other mouths on screen while doing so, you should modify your storyboards/text accordingly so that the far away message cannot be queued with other text bubbles.
Hope this helps!
First, let me say cutscenes are a great way to make your LBP level feel like a true independent game. Whether it be for plot or for showing your players where their next objective is, cutscenes are great production value.
Cutscenes are easy to make. Stick a magic mouth at your scene location, and enable the camera option, set the angle. Since magic mouths can be triggered by switches, you can trigger them by any number of means, even if the magic mouth is in another location.
We all know that the amount of text that fits into a magic mouth is fairly short, so it's common to use multiple mouths in one location to string together longer text.
There are a few considerations when stringing together multiple mouths, and this is really what this post is concerned with.
First, mouths placed close together will trigger in a particular order.
- If not using switches to control them, they will trigger in the order in which their sensor radii are entered.
- If using switches, they will trigger in the order in which they are connected by wire. If you detach any of the wires, you will have to rewire everything or your text order can be changed.
Secondly, triggering multiple mouths at once causes all of the messages to pop up at once, in the form of a message queue. Message queues can be buggy, though, and sometimes messages in the queue will disappear before the player has a chance to read them. This post exists to help you understand why this happens and how to fix it. I'll explain further...
Messages disappear from message queues usually when the mouths are located far apart from each other. Of course, to have messages in the queue from distant mouths, we have to be triggering them by SWITCH. The criteria for whether a mouth's message is permanent or temporary is dependent on whether the mouths of the queued messages are visible on-screen.
If you have two mouths activated (one message on screen, one in the queue), the queued message will not disappear if its mouth is visible on-screen while a previous message is being displayed. The criteria holds for multiple queued messages (they will not disappear so long as their mouths are visible in all cutscenes preceding them). (Note: "visible" here is applied only in the sense of location. It does not matter if your mouths are set to visible or invisible).
Keep this in mind when placing your mouths for cutscenes that jump to different on-screen locations. Physical distance for mouths doesn't matter that much... Messages can still disappear from mouths that are placed close together, depending on the camera angles you use! Locate the mouths in a central "area" that is visible in all cutscenes, and your messages will last.
If you have to cut to an area which is very far away, and you cannot possibly keep the other mouths on screen while doing so, you should modify your storyboards/text accordingly so that the far away message cannot be queued with other text bubbles.
Hope this helps!