Rotating an interior cell

[PaladinRider]

What I'm trying to do is to simulate the revolving cocktail lounge in the Lucky 38, or see how feasible it is.

 

I had originally hoped that there was some sort of object outside the windows (Of the cocktail lounge) that simulated the mountain ranges seen. However this obviously isn't the case. The Cocktail lounge and penthouse reside in their own worldspace which produces the exteriors seen out the window.

 

I was was just wondering how feasible it would be to rotate every static object, including the floors and walls, in the cell.

 

Actually scripting the rotation (and the math behind it) shouldn't be too difficult for me, provided that GetAngle, SetPos, or SetAngle works as well as I hope. (I haven't experimented with these yet).

 

What I'm most concerned about is whether the game engine can handle it. I'm also doubting that the NPCs and objects in the cell will simply fall through the ground while it's moving, whether it will create a treadmill effect (where everything moves but the NPCs and objects) or the many other errors that would probably happen.

 

I wish there was some way to simply rotate the image seen outside the windows. The point of this post though is to see if anyone can give me some more information, as the wiki is not very helpful for what I'm trying to achieve.

[davidlallen]

That sounds pretty ambitious. I would suggest moving all the objects outside, in the worldspace, instead of moving the objects including NPCs and the player, inside. However, I don't think there is any way to move the terrain itself. On a flat featureless plain, this might work.

 

I have some experience with moving an object using setpos; there is an ore cart in The Most Dangerous Game near the end, which moves from point A to point B on a track. The animation uses "setpos" to change the X position by one every frame until it reaches the X value of point B; then it reverses. When the object is not moving, it has an expected collision effect, that is, you cannot move through it. The problem is that while the cart is moving, it does not appear to have any collision effect, that is, you can walk right through it.

 

(Edit: to see this, download the mod as below, "coc TDGEpsilonL8", and stand still for a few seconds. You will see the cart moving nearby.)

 

So I suspect that if you were to move all the items in a room, to achieve this effect, then nothing would collide. I don't think they would fall through the floor. It is possible that somebody more clever than me could fix this "bug" but I do not have any leads.

 

One other approach might be a huge amount of work, but may be possible if the number of windows is small. A common trick in movie special effects is to film something, and then play the film behind the actors. Older movies with a scene in a car were often done this way. (Today they shoot the actors on a green screen, the actors never actually see the real background). There are mods which play videos on screens, similar to the Mr House videos in the game. If it were possible to do the renderings beforehand, by rotating a camera and recording the output (multiple screenshots?) then a movie could be created.

Edited March 25, 2011 by davidlallen

[PaladinRider]

That is a good idea. I'm actually working with videos ingame right now too, so I can try something like that.

 

I really don't like the idea of moving the whole cocktail lounge, I'd rather move everything outside it some how.

 

Using videos is a good idea, but even still images may be just as good. There isn't really anything moving outside the cocktail lounge windows, all you can see are lod buildings and the terrain.

 

I also considered taking images and placing them at the windows, then moving the images.. But it would be very difficult to not have a 'hexagonal picture wall rotating around. And I'm not sure how the depth perception would be with the images.