UT99 TriggerLight that specifically acts (not triggered by) when more than one given animated texture is set to 'on'.

[R3plicant]

Is This Possible?

A Triggerlight that recognises names of an animated texture (a_00, a_01 (in a certain texture package, inc' 'My Level') etc) and acts (changes light settings on-the-fly, so to speak) at two separate levels of brightness when that textures on a mover are 'active' (or 'on'),.. It's all to do with critical texture timings and light-source accuracy.


What?!

I tried TexturePaletteLoop to no avail even with custom various 'on-off' black/white textures; gave only highly inconsistent results - I tried with various types of B&W 'measures'. It's an exercise in futility. Timings of light and texture alignment never matched perfectly.

In my map, I have a blinking monitor on which a mover appears (a blinking screen page) with two textures [1] and [2] evenly repeating on n off, on said triggered mover, so when active the two textures are on - off - on - off etc. I need the Triggerlight to recognise those two specified textures and produce light only when they're 'on' because there's a pseudo light source (i.e. a monitor screen) that should in practice (not theory) be 'emitting light' as the textures alternate between each other (0.5s IIRC). E.g. 190 brightness and 120 brightness - alternating while the TriggerControl in the Trigger is active.


Example: Mover activates and moves into place,.. First: BlinkTexture_a00 = Light activates, set to 190 brightness. Second: BlinkTexture_a01 = Light drops to 120 brightness. Enemy threat is neutralised and mover deactivates, light is then triggered off. Mover disappears, light shows no light.

I heavily suspect that if they did not use my theorised method, the light would mismatch the textures, so before long, the two differing light brightnesses wouldn't match what the screen textures were showing; it'd look a right mess pretty quickly.

When activated, the one Triggerlight should have two alternating brightnesses. The animated textures are both (and have to be given the location and situation) on one triggered mover which comes on (to the monitor) when enemy approach/enter the base and goes off again when the threat is neutralised / when players leave the circle of the trigger.

Currently, the Trigger, Mover and relating Triggerlight are all both set to Trigger Control.

FWIW, There are two monitors in the map but I only said one so as to avoid confusion, the desired principle applies to both monitors' lighting needs.


Why's It Needed?

In terms of critical timings, 'Texturepaletteloop' cannot accurately differentiate when a specific texture (to be lit or shown as emitting light) is active and when it isn't,.. the timings would not ever match. 'Blink' isn't 'equal on - off - on - off etc. 'Flicker' is all over the place,.. You get the idea.


--

Can this be made or does it even already exist exactly how I've described?

Any accurate help appreciated, thank you. :)

Oh - hi all,. Happy New Year, I hope you're all well, I've been LONG absent - I hope you all enjoyed Christmas etc. :)

[Barbie]

Why don't you use events risen by the mover?

[R3plicant]

Hi again Barbie.

Ok, so, one side of the monitor (there are 2 sides on 2 monitors) the mover moves once in,.. (alternating textures on the movers suddenly are 'on' due to having been triggered),.. and go out,. (when they disappear with the mover, then they're off/out),..

The mover's textures are x 2 (1 x [LARGE] "ENEMY ON BASE!" and 1 x [SMALL] "ENEMY ON BASE!").

The textures rapidly alternate between each other as long as the mover is in the 'monitor' screen as long as an enemy player is in the circle of the Team-Trigger that activates the mover.

The trigger cannot do this task AND also activate the alternating brightness Triggerlight (one) at the same speed and time that the textures alternate. Doing two trigger lights for this purpose would almost certainly result in a mismatched timing with the textures and their 'light sources'. It may be possible set timing for the lights to be on and off and on etc etc but that may not run in sequence with the exact moments the textures are alternating - I wish to avoid that possibility.

Plus, there are other trigger lights as activated by the same TeamTrigger WITHIN the monitor to light up the alternating textures (from behind) on the movers (the monitor is two-sided, not one as is normally seen IRL).

So, two front and back facing movers per monitor,.. 2 textures per mover (same textures both sides of each monitor, just alternating as described above). 2 monitors in the map, 4 movers, 2 Triggerlights that need to run in perfect harmony with the alternating textures.

I want to accurately give the illusion that the monitor is lighting the surrounding base geometry with its screen (its light source). Make sense? Sorry, I'm articulate obviously but not always able to express myself exactly how I want.

[Red_Fist]

Only thing that comes to mind is the property flipper. Trigger that and set it for "texture" and will inject the texture, then another one is needed to turn it off by a new texture, then toggle the whole thing.. Try Barbies version, might be a little nicer.

The reason the timing is hard is because the texture size has nothing to do with time.

[sektor2111]

The reason the timing is hard is because the texture size has nothing to do with time.

Not a problem - you can have TWO textures.

2 textures per mover

There can be even TWO movers with TWO Textures toggling their movement with "TriggerControl".
Triggerlights can be also Not only activated with a "TriggerControl" setup, but they also can be attached at said movers.
In other hand big triggers might slow-down the game.

PropertyFlipper - good stuff concerning actors that are using replicated fields/variables... I'm afraid that if it comes to a light "bCorona" is something not replicated On-Line and I used this issue in my favor. If you can see "coronas" in game, it's because that light is held in map as it is - ORIGINAL - because it's "bNoDelete" and so it's not recreated in network clients. As result - other sample stage - if you want to turn off a light at once with said corona and making map for ON-Line gaming, it will simply need the light to be moved into BSP in order to no longer be seen. A simple way in moving a light is attaching it at a mover. Either way you will need an injection in client for turning it off based on lightning considerations - this is not loved by ACE for no reason.

Next subject concerning lightning is writing your own light - that solves in big parts all requirements - I wrote various types in patch plugins for NavAdder... and I edited maps where lights are adjusting their radius/intensity for simulating a burning fire.

[R3plicant]

As I said previously, adding a Triggerlight to a scene with two alternating textures (on a mover set off by trigger) won't guarantee that the changing textures and lights will activate at precisely the same time AND state (i.e. bright light for the 'brighter' of the textures).

Adding two movers doesn't guarantee this either.

Attaching a Triggerlight to the mover also does not have a guarantee the light brightnesses will match with the textures 'brightnesses'.

I'm willing to write my own light but I'm certainly not able to. I want to activate a specific state (of the light) when a specific (blah_a00 then blah_a01 etc) texture is called but I know NOTHING about Unreal script and no offence, but I'm not about to start learning all there is to know just for one light (c'mon, the last time I touched UT at all was in 2018! For this very same map, no less! lol).

If someone has a resource where I can read up on Unreal script PURELY for (UT99) lights calling on specific textures then I MIGHT have a look to see if I can make it work but really, the odds of success are extremely low - I couldn't even grasp basic HTML back in the day!

[sektor2111]

Attaching a Triggerlight to the mover also does not have a guarantee the light brightnesses will match with the textures 'brightnesses'.

This is fine tuning, they won't match first time. I did all sort of explosions at this point. If mover and light are triggered in the same time I don't see what would be out of sync. If somehow they need a bit of delay as separate Events, a Dispatcher can do that delay. As far as I recall I did a sort of Traffic light using these stock assets in MH-BattlingLottery. Switching from Red-Light to Green-light when first stage was completed and opening lift to next room. Instead of red and green I could use something else - but I went only for stock. The other things were customized over there not the lightning show. TriggerLight has a couple of settings, I don't get the point for not doing their timing normally.
TriggerLights can also work in a pair per spot: one is normal, the other is "bSpecialLit" aiming a Texture. If Texture doesn't need to be dark/back, it can be used the third normal light having a very low value of lightning.

[R3plicant]

In my map, it's not just the mover and light timing that matters; if the light (and mover obv) are activated together, there's still no way to be sure that the textures (on said mover) are at syncing the same time point as the activation/lights.

Sure, the textures may be swapping over at 0.5s (in their holding area in the editor/map),.. and the Triggerlights also swapping at 0.5s intervals, but they all need to be in perfect sync before (and during obviously) they're activated or they're not gonna look right, the illusion of the monitor 'light source' is broken - and we know the Engine isn't fallible.

Do you now see what I mean? I've laboured to express this (and failed, obviously) but no one's seemed to have seen it. Maybe now.

[sektor2111]

Then play around with a Dispatcher in a temporary environment. You can compensate any timing with said actor, I did these else I would not talk.
Mover can be delegated to move in/out within 0.005 seconds - does this delay matter ? NO, it really doesn't matter.

[Barbie]

Does a demo map exist? I still have no idea of how that will look like.

[sektor2111]

There are similar samples of handling(/mangling) lights with/without involving decorations (tubelight as example) - I did not see major issues at timing... Who cares anyway:
- MH-AbsoluteZero_whatever - turning on Lights at begining - stock tubelights go shiny as well;
- MH-SK_Godz - turning on Lights in first hall with Teleporters and "rats" - lamps are getting brighter;
- MH-BattlingLottery - Computers from some Level are getting BlueScreen after some electric shock is happening (lightning shocks can be seen in some servers with decent load of mods and not full filled with craps) - here is probably something closer to the topic's request - using movers;
- MH-Brutality_Bot - something like a fire burning is being used here;
- MH-FloorWays_whatever - explosions when doors to next Level are blown up by killing specific "Boss". Yes, there are used TriggeredLights and Dispatchers.
- and you can do more if you are a bit creative.

Let's see. When Player is triggering something, Mover comes in stage or it moves away instantly and turning on whatever light (even blinking). When Mover is going out or in stage, also it will cause a sort of changing of texture in place. There can be used "SpecialLit" or not depending on how things are looking like. One frame delayed really doesn't matter. On-Line over network timings are going different anyway.

TeamTrigger - not sure how well does this work - it uses a timer, so perhaps we cannot speak about TriggerControl stuff... it needs to be tested with something simple.

[R3plicant]

I probably ought to mention that the monitors have a default texture (on a regular brush inside) which shows the 'LIANDRI' logo,.. this is covered instantly when the TeamTrigger is activated (by the mover with its two alternating textures), but it too needs two lights each with an effect (a 'Non-Incidence' to bring it nice n bright and a 'Interference' to light the 'scrolling' TV scan-lines texture in front of it).

Also, for the record, I tried using two separate movers but this created no end of troubles with shadows and light being unable to pass through one to light the other (yes, I tried tweaking the 'Dynamic Light Mover' settings, nothing worked) WHILE ALSO keeping the regular default texture (brush) lit when the trigger lights weren't active (they weren't alternating, just on attempting to light the movers, besides, looping them? How? I only have a 'Trigger Control' at my disposal).

[sektor2111]

Let me tell you something funky. If you want by example to create a door that is a bit "naughty", you can forget TriggerControl and set it as TriggerToggle with a small moving interval. "Nasty" door (broken on purpose by design) can be multiple times opened by a Dispatcher which will use timers in relation to Mover times. Here you can open door two times for 0.7 seconds and closing it, before opening it normally and keeping it opened for let's say 2 seconds. This way you can deal with other sort of panels that are "blinking". Dispatcher also can be relaunched (can be chained with a second Dispatcher).

[Red_Fist]

You have to find the texture size that corresponds to the TIME, as in "period" So if the time is set to 255 or 32 , how wide must the texture be to use in texture palette loop.

In other words if the speed is 255 compared to a 255 speed of another actor in game, those actors go to 16536 or 32000, light period only goes to 32 as the fastest 255 as slowest. I think lower than 32 don't work for things.

BUT if I made a thin lined texture it would flash very fast. need a time scale for all size textures and setting light period. it will work easy once you have it.

and the flicker is from making the texture wrong, and I don't know how to do this palette stuff.

"Light period" vs texture width.

[Terraniux]

Except for the texture part, I did this in CrystalMine4. Cost me a couple of hours to configure it right. Although i'm not sure which version of the map due crashes while testing. It might be in final. It's the part where you go onto big mine lift to "downstairs" (figuratively speaking).

There is also two triggerlights in the list, 1 of them isn't working properly, at least at that time. You might find a part of what you are looking for in my map. If not, I tried to help. Good luck!