Setting up scripted sound files and timed lights in a cell?

[Guest Messenjah]

So, I'm piecing together a strip club and things seem to be coming along reasonably well. The big issue now, is that I need to start setting up sound and lights. With my previous attempt in FO3, I created a radio station, however when I placed my "radios" in-game and attempted to use them as speakers, I found that I had to use a bunch of them to get a nice enough effect sound-wise, which caused the game to slow down significantly. Now, what I do know is that if you use a sound marker and place the music files in-game this way, you can select the range and volume. Not just how far the radio signal would reach. Also, a radio station doesn't exactly make a great deal of sense in a strip club anyway. I would also like to create a nice light show on the various stages. What I would like to do even more, is set up the lighting so that it works well with the music.

 

Basically, my idea is to set up a bunch of sound files that are actually mp3 songs and then script them so that they all run in a particular order.

 

With the lights, I would like to have 3 working spot lights with beams included. I only plan to have 3. Blue, pink, white. Basically the lights will flash in this order: blue, pink, white, pink, blue..... etc. Something rather simple. I was thinking that perhaps the faster songs could have 3 flashing spotlights while slower songs will have a simple, steady white beam. The animated lights would be somehow linked to start animating at the beginning of faster songs and then end at the end of that song. When a slow song starts, a single, white, steady spotlight will shine down on the dancers.

 

Does anyone know how to set up something like this?

 

I've made simple door activation scripts before but nothing on this scale and that was a year and a half ago, so some help with scripting would be great!

[Guest Messenjah]

Pretty please? ;)

[TallgeeseIV]

Well, doing most of that is over my head, or at least until I try, haha. But I can tell you that they didn't include any functions for returning a value if a certain song is playing. What you'll likely need to do is set up a timer to time each song, give each song a toggle switch to start playing itf it's at a certain time, and set the timer to change songs exactly as the old song goes off. if you set up a small dead period between songs, like when the actors on stage are changing, it will lessen the chances of getting an innaccurate start. i can think of how to do it, but it's not easy to explain. i'll try to work together something useful to you when i get home from work tonight. good luck.

 

EDIT: ok, after looking through the geck's options with activators and lighting, it's definitely possible. however i really don't have the time to set up a demonstration as to how, it would take me several days just to do that. but, here's a starting point:

 

create an activator, either on an npc or something, whatever starts the show.

 

use an OnActivate block to start the show in your script, attached to the activator. make several unique lights by copying ones used by the game and create references to them in the script. then you'll want to get the exact length in seconds of each song you're going to use. i recommend starting with setting up one song with lighting, then when you get it working, use it as a template for the other songs.

 

once you have the exact length in seconds, define a float variable called "Seconds" or something and create a gamemode block with nothing in it but "set Seconds to GetSecondsPassed" this insures an accurate timing as opposed to using "GetSecondsPassed" everytime you need to add to the timer, because GetSecondsPassed returns the seconds passed since the last time it was called. if it's called multiple times in different places, it throws off your timing.

 

now there's a music already in the game called "1NoMusic". because there's no way to stop a specific song from playing, you set a float variable called something like "SongOneTimer" or something and use "set SongOneTimer to SongOneTimer + Seconds at the beginning of a second game mode block. then make an if statement that sates "If SoneOneTimer == 240.0" (for a 4 minute long song or whatever your song is, change the number to the number of seconds) then make it play "1NoMusic" which will stop the current song and start playing nothing, which you can set another timer on before switching songs, to give your actors a chance to switch out, you would also turn off most of, if not all of the lights during the break, i assume, but that's all up to you of course.

 

i would create a short variable called "SwitchSongToggle" then put all of song one'sscriptwork into an "If" statement such as "If SwitchSongToggle == 0" so at the end of the script, you have it "set SwitchSongToggle to 1" which you then make another if statement for the next song that's "If SwitchSongToggle == 1" that way it will start the next song as soon as your first song finishes.

 

as for controlling the lights during songs... i'm not sure if you can disable a light or not, no idea how to turn them off, i just haven't played with it. but each light, or set of lights would need it's own timer similar to the overall song timer.

 

that's pretty much as far as i can think of. also, something that might be of concern to you. you can't upload copyrighted content, sooo, your songs would have to be included with the game, or be composed by you. whatever though, i don't really care, it's up to you what you do with it.

 

that's about it. this is a very complex thing to set up, good luck to you!

Edited December 3, 2010 by TallgeeseIV

[Guest Messenjah]

that's pretty much as far as i can think of. also, something that might be of concern to you. you can't upload copyrighted content, sooo, your songs would have to be included with the game, or be composed by you. whatever though, i don't really care, it's up to you what you do with it.

 

 

I agree and that is exactly my concern with setting up timers. Originally, I planned to set up the songs just as: "track01, track02, track03" and then point people out to some suggested music tracks to listen to so that they, at their own discretion could download the songs legally and use those.

 

I'm also looking into independent artists and royalty free music as well. Mostly, I just wanted to have about 1-2 stage shows, maximum on the main stage area. Probably a dance, showing off all of the various dance animations and another for a performance of some sort.

[simplywayne90]

I'm not exactly sure what your looking for since I'm not a modder in any way yet, however I do think there is something similar to what you want.

 

In danthegeek's Underground Hideout mod for New Vegas (Which isn't up anymore) he had a light switch system, and the once he used in the armory was special however, you'd activate the switch and the lights would flicker on after a few seconds, like the long bar bulbs found in "hidden" armorys, I'd suggest perhaps messaging him and seeing how that particular effect was created as it was very good. (I'd turn the lights on and off going "its just so cool!")

 

I'll post a screenshot later if I can to give you an idea of what I mean

 

Edit: I didn't want to repost just yet until I have more useful info, so I'm editing a link to my 3D models thread, since a lot of those sites have random objects you may want to use in your mod your makeing.

 

Modelers Contributions Here

Edited December 4, 2010 by simplywayne90

[Guest Messenjah]

Sweet, that effect would also be good for the underground suite I'm planning. :)

 

As for music, this club is very jazzy and dark so I'm thinking maybe of using the jazz music that is already in-game and I'll ask around.

 

 

Most of the songs I've picked are pretty much about the same in pace and sort-of slow jazzy stuff or slow blues. So, I'm thinking maybe just simplify it a bit. Maybe just have a constant back and forth strobe effect....

What I'm looking for would be basically a solid white glow from the bottom stage lights and then have two spot lights, shining down that would blink on different timers so it would go, pink, blue, pink, blue, pink, blue. Maybe even just a subtle pause in the middle?

[Interfer0]

Jamendo has good creative commons music that you can use. I have used them for a few different projects.

 

They have dance and club specific genres.

[simplywayne90]

Found The Underground Hideout mod,

I encourage you to check the armorary light switch and see if thats similar to what you want to accomplish.