How to make a SIMPLE stomp sequence - Tutorial (a quick & dirty one)

How to make a SIMPLE stomp sequence - Tutorial (a quick & dirty one)

Version 0.2

!HEALTH WARNING!
This document contains strange words and obscure sentence constructions! Use it at your own risk! :-)
I will give my best that you can understand what i want from you. My english is only that, what i've learned some years ago. :-(
'Im kompletten Stzen bitte! Und ohne Krcken!'

Ok, please use THIS FILE as a basic level. It's just a simple level, but enough to teach some things.
Create a directory called BASIC under the drakan directory and unzip BASIC.ZIP into the created directory.

And in THIS FILE you will have  the completed tutorial level. You can use it from time to time to check some things out.

Load the BASIC level into the editor and you will see a house, some trees, camera, player and a sky box. Nice!

Now we will create some 'actors' for STOMPing. Go to your database window and select the tab CLASSES and the level database TUTOR. Add a CHILD GROUP, name it Actors.Under this group add a new CLASS, name it Wartok and open properties for Wartok and set the model to NPCs->TROLL->TROLL PLATE (h) and the type to
GROUND OBJECT->BUILDING. Now place the Wartok somewhere on the layer.

The wartok should carry a hammer, this hammer will be the second actor. Under the Actors group add a new CLASS, name it Hammer and open properties for Hammer and set the model to
RESOURCES->NPC WEAPONS->AXES->TROLLBATTLEHAMMER and the type to
GROUND OBJECT->BUILDING. Now place the Hammer somewhere on the layer.

>>>>You can give the Actors child group any other name. Also the Wartok and Hammer can have any name you
>>>>want.

Go to the tab SEQUENCES in your database window. (the level database TUTOR should be selected)
Add a child group called Movie. Under this group add a new SEQUENCE and  name it Act1
Make a doubleclick on Act1 and the STOMP window appears.

First we need a camera. Click on  to add a new actor. Name the new actor to Camera. Now we must assign the right model to the actor. To do this, click on the camera object in the topdown view, then click on USE SELECTED button in the STOMP view. (picture)

Now we add a keyframe track to the camera actor. Keyframes are points in a movie where a action starts or ends. I hope
that i have this described right? Click on  to add a keyframe track. A run/stop track must be added or the camera will
not work correctly. The run/stop track activates or deactivates a actor. (I think Click on  to add a run/stop track.

Uhh, ehh, this part of the STOMP view is the time window. (I call it so)

Here you can control the start or end of actions, set events at a specific time and so on. 1.000 is 1 second.
With this  slider you can move to a specific time, where you want add a sound, a keyframe, etc
Leave the slider now alone at 0.000. At this time the camera should start working. Be sure you have selected the
run/stop track and click on . This will add an event on the timeline. A small lightblue triangle appears and in the
lower region of the STOMP view you can see properties settings for the run/stop event. It must be set to false.
If you can not see the properties or nothing is set, click on the small triangle so that it have a black border. Now
you can edit the properties.

The camera must now be placed (keyframed) at a start point. Click on the keyframe track and hit the  button.
In the appearing window click on RECORD and the Riot Engine View appears. That's not the normal 3D view,
that's the view from the camera actor or any other actor

The control in this view is similar to the normal camera movement. You can control it with the cursor keys and
with the numeric keypad. With 7 and 9 on the numeric keypad you can roll the camera/actor. You can also
press space to control movement with the mouse.
The View from Behind Actor is useless for moving the camera, switch now to View From Actor. And now
a little bug appears to me. I can't control the movement anymore. I must click anywhere on the main editor window
and then i click back in the 3d view window. Now the control works again for me. I don't know why this happens! This
happens every time i change something in Control.
OK! Move the camera a liitle over ground and let the camera look at the house. Then press INSERT key on the
keyboard or click on Record Key Frame in the Control menu. Now let us moving the camera to the house in 4 seconds.
Move the  to 4.000 or near it. Now move the camera near the house and Record Key Frame. Now you can
Stop Recording.
You can rewind the sequence with  and play it with . Go to the second keyframe event and set Relative To: The World
and Interpolation: Linear-Linear.  Setting the Interpolation to Linear-Linear prevents unwanted camera movement after the
second keyframe event later in the sequence. If you make longer sequences later with more keyframes you must
experiment a little with the other interpolation modes to get cool results.
NOTE: For all non-camera actors you should always use linear-linear!

It's wartok time!
Add a new actor and name it wartok. Dont' forget to set the model to the actor! Now add the following tracks to the wartok actor: keyframe,animations,sounds,attachments,run/stop ai, show/hide (picture below)

At this time you may also add the actor Hammer. No tracks are required yet. When you have done this, go to actor Wartok, set time to 0.000, click on attach actor and hit . Set Channel to Weapon_R and Attached Actor to Hammer. (picture above)

Placing the wartok
Go to Wartok and keyframe track. It's enough to place the wartok into start position at time 4.000. So move the timeslider to 4.000 and click . Now set Control to View Behind Actor and also set Constrain Actor To Ground. This will stick the
Wartok to the ground, so that it not flying around. Move the Wartok near the tree (see picture 1) ,Record Key Frame then move the time slider to 7.000 and move the Wartok straight near the edge of the house (see other picture 2) and Record Key Frame. Stop Recording
1 2

When you play the sequence you will see that the Wartok is moving to his start position. Let's hide the Wartok until time
4.000 is reached. Go to Wartok and select show/hide track. Move the timeslider to 0.000 and hit . Properties
of this event mus be set to false. Now move the timeslider to 4.000, hit and set properties to true. Ok!
You will also see that the Wartok is flying to the house. Select the animations track, move the timeslider to 4.000
and hit . In the appearing window select TROLL and click OK. In the properties set channel to Troll and Animation
to Alphawalk. Now the Wartok will walk to his new loaction. The Wartok should make a laugh an run out of the screen.
Select the animation track, then undertrack Troll. Move the timeslider to 7.000 (last keyframe) and set an event ().
Set the Animation to LI_laugh.
The timeslider should be on 7.000, then record a keyframe (descibed earlier) at this time, move the timeslider so, that it
matchs the end of the LI_laugh and record a second keyframe. Stop Recording.
So it must look:

The Wartok laughs! But the sound is missing..
In your database windows select the tab SOUND and the NPCs database. Under Wartoks select/mark WK_LLlaugwav.wav.
Now go back to actor Wartok, select sounds track, move timeslider to the beginn of the LI_laugh animation and hit .
(the sound is added)
Let run the Wartok out of the screen. Move the timeslider to the end of the LI_laugh anmation, add a animation event, set
Animation to alpharun.Then record a keyframe at the start of alpharun, move the Wartok to the opposite tree and add the second keyframe.

Last steps! Add a show/hide event at the last Wartok keyframe, set it to true. This will hide the Wartok.
And you must stop the camera, do this at the latest keyframe (the Wartok keyframe). Add a run/stop event for the camera
and set it to false. That's all! .all in the STOMP view!

To tell Drakan that a STOMP must played we need a Stomp Player
Go to the tab CLASS. Make sure the tutor database is selected! Make a new group and name it Stomp
Add a new class in the Stomp group and name the class Stomp Player
Here are the settings for the Stomp Player:

Place the Stomp Player somewhere in the level. With only a Stomp Player in the level, the sequence will be play
automaticly on level start. There are other ways to play a sequence, but for now it's enough.
OK! THAT IS REALLY ALL!

(c lOnDo
tonyk@debitel.net