playMaker

Author Topic: Are these things possible?  (Read 5368 times)

rubbernuke

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Are these things possible?
« on: June 22, 2011, 03:27:20 PM »
Hi all,

I'm a Blender user who is interested in Playmaker as it is similar to the logic blocks in Blender. I am currently making a racing game like Wipeout and before I start investing time into Unity/Playmaker, can someone say if the following is possible (and which action to use?)

Ships that can do loop the loops (done in Blender by getting the surface normal and aligning to it, and having local gravity).

Race positions of racing ships

Race timer/best lap

Objects that follow defined paths (like splines)

If anyone can clarify these points I would be very grateful.

Many thanks

Paul

justifun

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Re: Are these things possible?
« Reply #1 on: June 22, 2011, 04:09:54 PM »
I'm new to playmaker as well, but from my research i'm pretty sure you can do all of those, many of which using the iTween actions built into it

see here for examples of what you can do including movign objects along pre defined paths like you are hoping to do.

http://itween.pixelplacement.com/examples.php


tobbeo

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Re: Are these things possible?
« Reply #2 on: June 22, 2011, 05:17:50 PM »
Hi all,

I'm a Blender user who is interested in Playmaker as it is similar to the logic blocks in Blender. I am currently making a racing game like Wipeout and before I start investing time into Unity/Playmaker, can someone say if the following is possible (and which action to use?)

Ships that can do loop the loops (done in Blender by getting the surface normal and aligning to it, and having local gravity).

Race positions of racing ships

Race timer/best lap

Objects that follow defined paths (like splines)

If anyone can clarify these points I would be very grateful.

Many thanks

Paul


Yeah, all of these things are possible. In fact, setting up a racing game is quite easy with Playmaker and Unity. When I have time I'll try to put some tutorials together. Personally, I would avoid using physics unless where it really makes sense. Most things can be done with trigger boxes, FSMs (Playmaker's graphs) and animations. There's going to be a bit of a learning curve unless you already understand how Unity works. Try to break it down into the simplest pieces. Like:

a) get an object (your vehicle) to move forward when hitting a key
b) make so the vehicle doesn't stop immediately when you let go of the key
c) implement left and right movement and break
d) layout the path of you track and have the vehicle stick to it...

and so on. Each step is going to require problem solving, but as you get more comfortable with Playmaker and Unity you'll begin to see how quickly you can make different types of games. Also remember that all the best racomg games out there, especially the arcade ones, have assists that help your driving (but is subtle enough for the user not to notice you are helping them). Games like Sega Rally, Wipeout etc. all have a lot of assists.

You just have to dive into it, and try to first get the simplest of things to happen. These are my suggestions.

To repeat my answer though, yes, a game like that is very possible to make with Unity and Playmaker without the need for any scripting (in my opinion, the more script oriented people on this forum might disagree but I've "converted" (re-done) my game from all my previous C# script code to Playmaker with little to no problems).

LordShaggy

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Re: Are these things possible?
« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2011, 06:52:51 PM »
If my website was not constantly being assaulted, I would point you to it.  When it gets sorted, I will be more than happy to assist. =)

Xtopher

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Re: Are these things possible?
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2011, 08:33:15 PM »
All of that and more is very possible.  I've seen so many eager people trip on this same expectation though that I'd offer a word of perspective... Making things happen in a 3D program is very different than making them happen in a user-driven game engine.  (For instance, your example of aligning to a surface normal...)  Be bold and go forward, because Playmaker is your best option for learning this stuff and making it happen.  But be prepared to re-think some of your current solutions.  Besides, it will be fun!

rubbernuke

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Re: Are these things possible?
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2011, 11:33:47 AM »
Hi all,

Thanks for the replies!

I am torn between changing now, as I would be using 3DSMAX for modelling (I'm not keen on Blender as a modelling tool, and MAX importing is a doddle in Unity) and Unity plus Playmaker has some nice features. But I have started to look at the action api to see what parallels it has with Blender (plus researching demos etc) and I cannot see an easy way of doing magnetic F-zero style cars. Thus, new question time!

I would be making good use of the raycastinfo action, what does the normal return as a variable? Is it the angle of the polys normal?

If the above is true, how could I apply this angle to the car? I assume passing it to the cars delta rotation would work?

I can disable gravity on the car, and instead use a local -z force of 9.8? The car would also need to be fixed at a certain distance from the track, by using get distance I could have  if >5 add -ve force (e.g.), but is there a constraint that does this automatically?

Lastly, auto levelling- I have researched this and found solutions that involve using four or more corner thrusters to push an object level-  but again, is there a constraint to automatically do this?

Don't get me wrong, from what I can see Unity is powerful (the particle functions are fantastic and the engine is better optimised) but for this project, Blender seems to have features that do the above (i.e., material physics that push on objects, autolevelling objects, fixed distance constraints).

As far as Playmaker goes, is there a demo or project that has the above working I can look at and see work?

As always

Cheers!