New COMMS officer idea: problems?

[JB2005]

B'Ob T. Kessok? it has a nice ring to it.

I agree =p

Also, quick question, is it possible for a mutator to override a TGL file? As - for the life of me - I cannot work out where the code is which tells BC who is called what in their tool tip...

EDIT:

A new character on the Bridge!

(JL Studios' EMH Model btw!)

[Lurok91]

is it possible for a mutator to override a TGL file? As - for the life of me - I cannot work out where the code is which tells BC who is called what in their tool tip...

Not quite sure if this is what mean, but character voice is determined by (character name py) in Scripts/Bridge/Characters folder.   Setup character config at top of py, def LoadSounds at bottom.  For example, I created a new all-male Klingon crew (new mp3 soundfiles and TGL) which is activated by mutator.   Character pys for that crew all direct to /Klingon Crew General.tgl.    Hope that helps or even resembles what you were enquiring! 

[JB2005]

Sorry should have been more clear! The TGL "CharacterStatus" is what tells BC - for instance - that in Saffi's tool-tip her name is "Commander Saffi Larson" and I can't find the script that tells BC to look at that TGL to find this out...

So my question is, is it possible to set a mutator so that when the game looks for "CharacterStatus" it overrides it to find a custom TGL...

[Morgan]

I think the EF2 bridge crew does something like that.

[JB2005]

It does thanks *cookie*

Turns out I've been staring at it all along...but kept missing the forest because there were all those bloody trees in the way! Ah well, that's another stock file I won't have to overwrite now - which is always nice!

In addition, I'm trawling BCFiles looking for character models etc that I can use in this mod to try and expand the number of additional hailables/crew-persons...

Trouble is, I'm currently going through the Nemesis Crew Total Conversion...and this was released in 2003 by Cap'n WesByte...long shot I know...but is he still about/does anyone know how I could contact him re: permissions?

[JB2005]

Cracked it! I wanted to do this for Captains Orders 4 years ago, but I could never work out the coding! Turns out it was a lot simpler than I had led myself to believe!

[JimmyB76]

awesome!  well done! 
*cookied*

now the hail and viewscreen sfx for different bridges can finally be of use

[JB2005]

Thanks Jimmy! Insomnia tonight has led to a breakthrough:

&feature=youtube_gdata [/youtube]

In case it's not clear from the video - the Doctor is in a shuttle, you hail him and a cutscene starts, he says hello and then a menu appears with options (currently, close channel, "Chat" and Beam Over), you press beam over and the channel closes, another cutscene starts and the camera turns to watch Brex walk to the console, transport the Doctor aboard and then walks back to his chair and sits down - the doctor meanwhile is riding the turbolift to the bridge and the camera changes to follow him as he steps off and walks to his seat! You then try to hail the shuttle, but you can't - because the Doctor isn't aboard anymore!

You may also notice the "end transmission button" which is now in Kiska's menu...this was added because it turns out when the menu is up, if you switch tactical view - the menu vanishes and you're stuck with the Doctor on your viewscreen! I'm sure there's cleverer scripting ways of stopping it from vanishing - but that was so much easier!

[JimmyB76]

very cool!!
but this could only work on the sovereign bridge tho right?  since those animations are bridge-specific?  this wouldnt be possible (as yet) for like the Enterprise-A bridge or the Prometheus bridge, etc?
it is really cool to see unused character animations finally being made use of...  tho it does seem kinda funny for brex to get up from his chair, walk all the way over to the other console to stand there and announce shields being lowered, then walk back to his chair and sit down lol  i know this is nothing to do with you and is purely the game (prolly nothing you can do about it), but you are on the right track!  if he had some animations to make it look like he is actually pushing some buttons on that console or something, but that would prolly be difficult to do...  adding character animations is i think the most difficult thing to mod in BC...
nevertheless, you are really breaking ground on this aspect of bridge modding and no one else ever has done anything like this (or knew how) as yet so please stick with it!  if you master this realm of character animations, you could really open up all sorts of new things for bc bridges and add alot of new life into bridge modding as a whole

[JB2005]

Actually, I got that from Episode 4 Mission 1, when they beam the away team onto the Cardassian Station - that's exactly what Brex does! But I think i'll put in a bypass - not something you want to have to endure every single time! I tried using the push buttons animation, but it made him look like he was doing the macarena for some reason!

Animations...I wouldn't know where to start! I've tried modelling and texturing and such, but to me, that's art - and i've always sucked at art! I managed to get the Doctor's collar to go teal, but it's not exactly the best texturing job in the world! I'll certainly have a look at it, because it would be useful if I could even get something rudimentary!

And as for Ent-A Bridge or Prometheus bridge...I'll have to check, but if they have animations for extras to walk and sit and such, then it might be possible to co-opt those for my own nefarious purposes! One of the reasons I re-released SeatedBrex, was because I wanted to demonstrate how animations don't actually have to be included in the character script, but instead can be imported in another script - I will probably discover reasons why this won't work...but in the back of my mind, I'm wondering if there would be a way for the "Bridge" script to tell the game, ok load the stock Kiska file (for example) but when you've done that, ignore all that stuff you think you know about where she should sit on  Galaxy bridge and instead read what's written here and put her in the write place for the Prometheus Bridge...the first part is definitely possible - the second part will require investigation (which in my case means trial and error, followed by swearing and thanking the Great Bird for the console dump!

Anyway that's a bit of a long winded post! It's a couple of things extra on my "hmmm, would this be possible" list!

[JB2005]

Just tried it with the Intrepid Bridge, if anyone's interested it turns out that you don't have to make a new character file for every new bridge...

[Killallewoks]

It also seems tottaly games wanted to add more bridges too.

[JB2005]

I don't know if they wanted to add more Bridges, the "fix" i've come up with (and I say that very sarcastically, because at the minute it isn't much of one!) basically just puts all the animations files into the Bridges/X.py files, where X is the custom bridge...

It's not something TG intended to be done, it's just something that the game allows because of the way it assigns animations to characters!

[JimmyB76]

I tried using the push buttons animation, but it made him look like he was doing the macarena for some reason!

now thats something id love to see!

Animations...I wouldn't know where to start! I've tried modelling and texturing and such, but to me, that's art - and i've always sucked at art! I managed to get the Doctor's collar to go teal, but it's not exactly the best texturing job in the world! I'll certainly have a look at it, because it would be useful if I could even get something rudimentary!

youre certainly on the right track as far as anims go - no one has really jumped into that realm much but youre already going further than just about everyone who has...  
i am in the same boat as you, as far as not being able to model, texture, anything artistic...   scripting is where ive ever been able to go when it comes to bc modding...  and the doc's collar looks just fine, btw

And as for Ent-A Bridge or Prometheus bridge...

i was only just using those 2 as an example rather than specifically...  but i do understand what youre describing there...

Just tried it with the Intrepid Bridge, if anyone's interested it turns out that you don't have to make a new character file for every new bridge...

very interesting!  id love to see how this would look ingame!


you know where this all could be leading to, right?  perhaps when youve got this all down to a science, it might just be possible to play the SP campaign missions on other bridges than the galaxy and sovereign where unique character anims exist only for those specific missions on those specific bridges ;)
something not able to be done as yet, and one of the "holy grails" of BC (the other one being blinking lcars with damage, another thing not able to be done yet)...  only USS Sovereign (as far as i can recall) has tried to do something so different bridges could be used for SP but then real life took over for him and he couldnt really get into it...

[JB2005]

This script demonstrates how my override works - run the intrepid bridge normally, then drop this into scripts/bridges (back-up first, because this script disables the extras and is only meant as an exemplar!) and see if you can spot the difference!

If you look at the actual code, the override works by changing the configurations so that the game sets up the characters in the positions they would be on the sovereign bridge:

Code: [Select]

        Bridge.Characters.Felix.ConfigureForSovereign(pFelix)
Bridge.Characters.Kiska.ConfigureForSovereign(pKiska)
Bridge.Characters.Saffi.ConfigureForSovereign(pSaffi)
Bridge.Characters.Miguel.ConfigureForSovereign(pMiguel)
Bridge.Characters.Brex.ConfigureForSovereign(pBrex)
but then calls these 5 definitions:

Code: [Select]

       
        Kiska()
        Felix()
        Brex()
        Saffi()
        Miguel()
These definitions are all the animations for the characters on the bridge, if we look at Kiska, for example:

Code: [Select]

def Kiska():
pBridgeSet = App.g_kSetManager.GetSet("bridge")
pKiska = App.CharacterClass_Cast(pBridgeSet.GetObject("Helm"))
pKiska.ClearAnimations() ##This here basically tells Bridge Commander that despite the fact we told it before that Kiska was going to be on the Sovereign Bridge, we lied and to drop all the animations and locations, in favour of the animations below...I can't really take credit for innovation here, because it's something the game always does when you switch bridges, only in this case I've co-opted it so it "tricks" Bridge Commander into setting up the character for the Intrepid Bridge, even though it thinks we're on the Sovereign Bridge!

pKiska.AddAnimation("IntHelmTurnCaptain", "Bridge.Characters.IntMediumAnimations.IntTurnAtHTowardsCaptain")
pKiska.AddAnimation("IntHelmBackCaptain", "Bridge.Characters.IntMediumAnimations.IntTurnBackAtHFromCaptain")
pKiska.AddAnimation("IntHelmGlanceCaptain", "Bridge.Characters.CommonAnimations.GlanceRight")
pKiska.AddAnimation("IntHelmGlanceAwayCaptain", "Bridge.Characters.CommonAnimations.SeatedM")
pKiska.AddAnimation("EBHelmBreathe", "Bridge.Characters.CommonAnimations.SeatedM")
pKiska.AddRandomAnimation("Bridge.Characters.IntMediumAnimations.EBHConsoleInteraction", App.CharacterClass.SITTING_ONLY, 25, 1)
pKiska.AddAnimation("PushingButtons", "Bridge.Characters.IntMediumAnimations.EBHConsoleInteraction")
pKiska.AddAnimation("IntHelmReactLeft", "Bridge.Characters.CommonAnimations.ReactLeft")
pKiska.AddAnimation("IntHelmReactRight", "Bridge.Characters.CommonAnimations.ReactRight")
pKiska.SetLocation("IntHelm")
pKiska.SetLookAtAdj(-30, 0, 50)
pKiska.AddPositionZoom("IntHelm", 0.5, "Helm")
pKiska.AddRandomAnimation("Bridge.Characters.IntMediumAnimations.HLookAroundConsoleDown", App.CharacterClass.SITTING_ONLY, 1, 1)
pKiska.AddRandomAnimation("Bridge.Characters.CommonAnimations.TiltHeadLeft")
pKiska.AddRandomAnimation("Bridge.Characters.CommonAnimations.TiltHeadRight")
pKiska.AddRandomAnimation("Bridge.Characters.CommonAnimations.LookUp")
pKiska.AddRandomAnimation("Bridge.Characters.CommonAnimations.LookDown")


Kiska's is the shortest (not counting the Extras obviously).

There's no real reason for Bridge Modders to use this, and there are benefits to having seperate character files for seperate bridges - for example, in theory we could change the uniforms of the crew depending on the bridge, but in practice this hasn't been done much.

However it always seemed like the characters folder was getting cluttered by a ridiculous number of scripts which create the same character over and over again!

[Lurok91]

Congrats on successes.  Seems we've been thinking along similar lines (improving stock game), only you can do the script/coding stuff that sometimes eludes me     This has given me more impetus to carry on updating and adding new EF2 characters, viewscreens and other stuff I've been doing (once I get new PC) and sure our two efforts will go well together.   As for new animations, that's not a huge problem as both Baz and I capable of making them.  Indeed, as I hope to replace the stock Sov bridge with my Nemesis WIP (which has different crew seating, dimensions, etc)  I'll probably end up doing  a new batch of Sov anims anyway.   

Looking forward to seeing what else you come up with 

[JimmyB76]

just out of curiosity, why did you remove the extra characters?

[JB2005]

Having Extras in the script makes the viewscreen stop working! Which is...odd, to say the least! I think it's something to do with the way in which extras work which causes some difficulty, so I'm going to do some research to see if there's a way to fix this!

[JB2005]

Apologies for the lack of meaningful updates to the this for what seems like ages! I have been tinkering with various things and tonight have completed what might be considered slightly groundbreaking, but I want to make very clear - isn't!!!

Basically, I'm giving the option to replace Saffi - with none other than the Emergency Command Hologram!

I had a longer video where it showed the ECH performing all of Saffi's functions (without sound I'm afraid - but that's just because I haven't made a TGL for them yet!) but there was a problem in the way he was sat in the chair (long story short, I wrote an animation function to move the chair - my first animation script!)

So that's what I have for now!

[JimmyB76]

very cool!!