Did you know that... (tidbits of logic I learned)

[Antikris•]

Also, regarding an earlier post, why are you shutting off a sequencer that works on positional input? Wouldn't it be easier to just control the positional input using an and gate and a battery you can turn on and off? That way the '0% is your 'off' position, and when you want to activate the sequencer, just turn on the battery (it can be on a powered microchip to make it easier...) so that your wanted analog signal passes through the and gate to the sequencer without having to actually turn the sequencer on. If your control signal is digital-only, you can do away with the battery and just connect it directly to the and gate.

This gets you around the need to actually turn on the sequencer. It's always on, but uses '0%' input as its off state. (alternatively, you can use '%100' as the off state and use an 'or' gate.)

So you can turn batteries ON and OFF? That I did not know. I thought they were output only.

[Jboy1995]

I already posted this as a separate thread, but it got buried, but here's a neat little trick I discovered:

If you hook up the outputs of a direction splitter to the opposite (+ to -, - to +) inputs of a direction combiner, the direction combiner's output now inverts the direction put into the direction splitter!

lol whats the point you can just invert it.

[cheesemuffins99]

I don't know if this has been posted before but you can activate control seats by placing them in a microchip and activating the microchip.

[EliminatorZigma]

lol whats the point you can just invert it.

It works most effectively if you hook it up to a DCS or want to change the movement style of the same object.

[Sehven•]

... "signal strength" output type on game cameras...

I've messed with this quite a bit and I really liked the results, but the downside is that, unlike in lbp1, in lbp2, hooking a wire into a game camera causes it to ignore its zone. This means that a triggered game camera will affect all players (even in versus levels), rather than just the one using the camera.

[Aya042]

...in lbp2, hooking a wire into a game camera causes it to ignore its zone.

It does? Strange, I found the zone always applied when I was testing it yesterday. Movie Cameras, OTOH, seem to ignore the zone.

[Vandalite]

So you can turn batteries ON and OFF? That I did not know. I thought they were output only.

Normally, that's true, but if you stick the battery on an embedded microchip, the battery will shut off if the signal to the *bottom* of the chip is shut off. This allows you to use an analog signal (such as the one coming off a timer or player sensor) to generate a clean digital "on" that doesn't mess with the AND gate's logic. I'll try to map it out below

inputs:
1) Sequencer positional signal
2) Sequencer control signal

1 --------->|---|
            |AND| --> sequencer
    Chip -->|---|
2 ----^

The chip just contains a battery set to 100% output. This is how you can turn a battery on and off.

If your control signal is a perfect digital signal (%100 on), you can do away with the chip and its battery completely.

The reason you're doing this is because if the control signal is analog and if you do *not* use it to power a relay, the control signal can interfere with the positional signal when they both hit the AND gate and the weaker of the two signals will always be the one picked. This will probably cause results you don't expect. Switches are an example of a clean digital signal, but timers and sensors in particular output analog signals depending on the proximity of the sensor or the remaining time on the timer.

[jdteather314]

I've messed with this quite a bit and I really liked the results, but the downside is that, unlike in lbp1, in lbp2, hooking a wire into a game camera causes it to ignore its zone. This means that a triggered game camera will affect all players (even in versus levels), rather than just the one using the camera.

I assumed this would be the case, and figured it would only be useful in one-player applications anyway.

It does? Strange, I found the zone always applied when I was testing it yesterday. Movie Cameras, OTOH, seem to ignore the zone.

Wait.. So are you saying that this could have potential implications for multiplayer gameplay?? What were your testing condtions?

[Aya042]

Wait.. So are you saying that this could have potential implications for multiplayer gameplay?? What were your testing condtions?

Just re-tested this.

My application is to create separate camera views for all player in a versus level. I attached a Controlinator to a piece of hologram, added an Advanced Mover hooked up to the left stick, and a Game Camera tweaked to zoom out to 50% with a very tight zone hooked up to the X button. When played with two players, each has their own camera view, and can zoom out their own view by pressing X, without affecting the view of the other players.

[jdteather314]

That's incredible.
So.. Versus levels are the only ones where players can have independent cameras, correct?
And you just set the camera activation zones to sit tightly around the controlinator, yes?
Did you experiment at all with crossing the streams? Like what would happen if two players' camera zones overlapped?

[Morelyn]

lol whats the point you can just invert it.

maybe because you would still need a combiner to combine the two outputs to a single input for a mover etc?

[Aya042]

So.. Versus levels are the only ones where players can have independent cameras, correct?

Sadly, yes. Would've been nice if they'd made the game scoring system independent of the camera control system. Plus it'll still be an epic fail case for two local players. I suppose you could do a bit of math to automatically zoom out as they get further from each other, and add something to prevent them from straying to the point where one of the two starts getting counted out.

And you just set the camera activation zones to sit tightly around the controlinator, yes?

Yes.

Did you experiment at all with crossing the streams? Like what would happen if two players' camera zones overlapped?

Unfortunately when you "cross the streams" each player's camview becomes an average of the two views (which is how Game Cams have always worked).

Obviously the tighter you can make the zone, the less likely this is to happen, and I suppose you could add some additional movers to attempt to repel the holograms so you can't cross the streams, but I'm not sure that would be any better than just leaving it as-is.


Edit: You may also be interested in reading this thread about a bug with Game Cams which makes them a little less flexible than they ought to be.

[Balorn]

inputs:
1) Sequencer positional signal
2) Sequencer control signal

1 --------->|---|
            |AND| --> sequencer
    Chip -->|---|
2 ----^

The chip just contains a battery set to 100% output. This is how you can turn a battery on and off.

If your control signal is a perfect digital signal (%100 on), you can do away with the chip and its battery completely.

The reason you're doing this is because if the control signal is analog and if you do *not* use it to power a relay, the control signal can interfere with the positional signal when they both hit the AND gate and the weaker of the two signals will always be the one picked. This will probably cause results you don't expect. Switches are an example of a clean digital signal, but timers and sensors in particular output analog signals depending on the proximity of the sensor or the remaining time on the timer.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but you want the positional signal to be passed to the sequencer as-is if the control signal is digital 1, and be off if the control signal is digital 0, right?

Why not just make a chip with a circuit node and pass the positional signal through that? If the enable wire is connected but digital 0 it makes all the chip's wires go to 0, otherwise the signal passes through unaltered (except for 2-way/3-way issues but that's another can of worms entirely).

I use that all the time to control a signal without otherwise changing it; this picture has 4 of them around the middle and lower right.

[Vandalite]

... why didn't I think of that?

but yeah, you still can use the chip to turn a battery off. that feature is still handy in certain cases.

[Sehven•]

Just re-tested this....When played with two players, each has their own camera view, and can zoom out their own view by pressing X, without affecting the view of the other players.

Ah, that's cool. I had problems with it in the beta and did some experiments and I thought that the conditions I described were true. Either I didn't experiment enough or it's been fixed since then. Either way, good to know it's possible, 'cuz I had really wanted the independent camera control.

[Autochton]

lol whats the point you can just invert it.

Inversion doesn't work that way, not on analogue signals. If your ingoing signal to a NOT is 100%, it outputs 0. If it goes in at -100% (negative 100), it gives... 0. It basically returns 100 - |input|, that is the absolute value of the input, subtracted from one hundred. So if it goes in at -45%, you get 55% out.

The trick EliminatorZigma gave will return the negation of it. So if you give it -55%, you get 55%, if you send in 100%, you get -100%, etc. This is useful for things like movers or rotators, or other cases that take a signed signal.

[sny]

I don't know if this has been posted before but you can activate control seats by placing them in a microchip and activating the microchip.

I just tested this in create mode and could not get it to work. Even when the controlinator's trigger range was 5000 and auto-enter was enabled, activating the microchip did nothing.

Has anyone had any luck with this?

[Bloblblobl]

I just tested this in create mode and could not get it to work. Even when the controlinator's trigger range was 5000 and auto-enter was enabled, activating the microchip did nothing.

Has anyone had any luck with this?

You have to have it be a receiver that is either controlled by a transmitter or nearest player; normal controllinators only work if you put them inside the level, not in microchips. Otherwise, the MC would either have to open up and sackboy (or bot) would be riding in a contorllinator within an MC. (Not that this is possible)

[sny]

I see, thanks for clearing that up.

[Tygers]

Once you create a circuit node on a circuit board, you can move it off the circuit board into the level; but you can never tweak it to be invisible in play mode.

When you delete a circuit node, all the connections through it become direct connections; this can be used for temporarily organizing wiring while working on things.