Furniture, Traps, and Lighting

(Back to Containers, doors, Havok objects, and Enemy Placement)

Furniture

Remember the stool we placed at the beginning of this cell? There's a problem with it. We used a static version of the artwork, which means that an NPC cannot sit in it. This is what we want for the one on top of the table, but not for the one on the floor. Navigate to the furniture heading and drag out "DUNStool" to replace "DUNStool01" in your scene.

The CS features a "Search and replace" feature. To use it for this example, select "DUNStool01". Go to Edit>Search and Replace, and Choose "DUNStool" fron the "Replace With" drop-down. Be sure you have "Selection Only" checked.

Also under the furniture heading, drag "BedrollCrawlEntry" into the scene and position these in the tents around the camp area.

The blue ghost characters are animation markers, showing where NPC's will stand when getting onto furniture, and the position in which they will be using it. Be sure to keep a clear path between these two markers, to avoid errors.

Traps

Here's another of the fun ones: let's put a trap in the cell. Traps are Activators, so navigate to that section in your Object Window. (Activators>Dungeons>Caves>Traps/Triggers)

Drag out the following two items from the trap list, and the third from the Actors>Creatures list. (I'll explain why momentarily)

• CTrapSwingMaceShort01
• CTrigTripwire01
• DeadSkeleton

I've chosen the narrow entrance to the large room as the choke point for my trap, but place yours where ever you think it will be most effective.

North is always the top of your screen when you hit the "T" hotkey. There is an exception, however. CS includes a special marker called "NorthMarker", which forces North in the direction it is pointed. This marker is used to keep cardinal directions consistent from cell to cell.

This is where our skeletal friend comes in handy. Place him where you expect the hero to be at the point of impact. Now, direct your attention to the mace trap. Notice the red ball? This is a special marker placed by the artist in 3Ds Max that shows us where the mace will be at the bottom of a swing. It does not appear in-game. In general, we want the trap to hit a player in the face or chest - higher or lower than that and the player may not see the trap coming. We want them to see it just before impact; it's no fun to take damage from a totally unseen source.

Remember to use "F4" to toggle on collision wireframes, and avoid intersecting havok and static objects!

Now, position your tripwire and scale it to fit. Note that some players will run through a cell, and others will walk or sneak. Setting up a trap that will get the best of players takes some luck, skill, and a lot of testing. Plan to experiment with this for a while.

One mace is good, but won't two be better? With your mace selected, use "Ctrl+D" to duplicate it, and position the second mace where you'd like it. Now's the time to set the trap up. First, double-click the maces and tripwire and check "Persistent Reference" in the box that pops up. Now, double click the tripwire again. Select the "Enable Parent" tab, and press the button labeled "Select Reference in Render Window". Notice the crosshair cursor that now appears in the Render Window? Move it over one of the maces and click. Click "OK", and now double click on the mace you just selected, and do the same thing again, this time selecting the second mace with your crosshair cursor.

The crosshair cursor turns white when it is over a suitable object for selection. If the crosshair does not turn white, check to make sure the object is a Persistent Reference.

What we just did is called a "Daisy Chaining". This means that when the tripwire is triggered, it will also trigger it's parent (the first mace), which will in turn trigger it's parent (the second mace) This means that we can theoretically trigger an unlimited number of maces from a single trigger.

Everything about the procedure we just completed is determined by the Scripts attached to the objects. Different objects and scripts may behave differently, but most traps that ship with the CS obey similar rules.

Now for a final touch - Select you skeleton and turn on havok simulation. His collapsed bones are now a tiny visual clue to the player that there may be danger about. Remember that you can use ctrl+alt to scatter the bones in a believable pattern.

Here's my setup (before collapsing the bones) for you to refer to:

An important caveat to remember is that havok objects can trigger traps. If you leave an object such as a sword, another trigger, or bones touching the tripwire then it will be tripped when you load the cell. Remember to use F4 to check for this.

Lighting

Lighting is one of the most difficult parts of level design, due in no small part to how easy it is to get wrong. Luckily, the CS ships with a pallete of pre-tuned colors for cave sets. Expand the Lights section and limit yourself to lights beginning with the prefix "Cave".

However; before we start placing lights, let's place light "motivators". "Motivator" is a term for any world object that logically should cast light. For instance, the blue dome attached to CDoor01 is designed to give the appearance of sky behind the door, making it a motivator for daylight. Likewise, torches are a motivator for fire lighting.

Let's concern ourselves with CRmCornerInside02D, which features light shafts built into the geometry. Drag the following object into the Render window.

• FXLightBeamLong01 (Static > Dungeons > Misc > FX)

Position the beam inside one of the shafts. You may need to scale it to fit. Use "ctrl+D" to duplicate this and place it in the other shaft. For maximum visual appeal, position the objects so that they terminate in the room at different heights.

Now let's dress up "BurntRubblePile01" with a fire. Drag the Activator "ActivatorFlameNode7" into the render window, and position it on top of the fire pit. You may want to place a couple of flames here to get the look you want. Toggle Havok simulation on if you want to preview how the flames look while animated.

Activator flames will do damage to the player, and static ones will not. For AI purposes, NPC's do not take damage from activator flames.

Let's go ahead and place lights for these two areas. Drag these lights out and place them near the specified objects. Remember that "A" toggles lighting preview, and "M" will toggle rendering of special markers, such as lightbulbs, making it easier to preview what the scene will look like in-game.

• CaveDaylightAmb300
  • CDoor01
• CaveDaylightAmb450
  • CRmCornerInside02D
• CaveFire1000
  • BurntRubblePile

In terms of pure logic, this is how our dungeon should be lit, since there are no other motivators for light in the cell. This, however, isn't the case. We can (and should) place more motivators, such as candles and torches, but we'll also have to rely on "Hollywood Lights", or un-motivated lights, to light the dungeon in a way that's visually appealing and useful to gameplay.

I'm going to place some motivated fire lights around the dungeon using the following objects, first.

• CandleFatEvil01Fake
• CandleSkinnyEvil02Fake
• TorchTall01

I'll also use Wisp Stalks, a special indoor mushroom you can find under flora, and CaveGloShroom lights. Spend some time positioning these where they make sense and help lead the player through the dungeon.

Every light in CS has a radius, usually specified by the number at the end of the light name. Use "L" to preview this radius in the render window. Be cautious and avoid overlaps where possible. As more lights hit a polygon, the game has a harder time rendering it, which can hurt framerate

Now that we have a first pass of motivated lights, let's light up any doorways, combat areas, or points of interest that have no light yet. Try to use a mix of warm and cool colors to keep the player's interest and, as always, guide them through the dungeon.

Note that the Daylight and fire lights should only be used with motivators.

After hollywood lighting, here's what my cell looks like with light radii and preview turned on:

Let's move on to helping our NPC's navigate the cell in the next section Pathing and Playtesting