Just thought i'd do a little post with an inital description of the new 'Cutscenes' feature that will be added in the next client.
You can trigger a cutscene from you ServerGameScript.mts. The cutscene is defined in a file on the server that the client will download. Cutscenes allow you to control the camera and player, add models and graphics, add UI text and (in time) do things like play music and control effects.
e.g. You might have a cutscene triggered when a new player joins, that might pan the camera around to show them their environment, while displaying text introducing the player to the world.
Or you might have a building (or item) that when accessed triggers a cutscene giving the user a storyline or clues that would lead to other gameplay on your world.
The reason you're getting this feature is mostly coz i was having a bit of fun experimenting with scripting stuff (and fixing up the game's camera code), hence the cutscene is defined using a new custom object orientated language, an example of which below..
Code: Select all
section(1)
{
playerpos = Vector();
playerpos.SetToLocalPlayerPosition();
modelpos = playerpos;
modelpos.Add( (1,0,0) );
campos = playerpos
campos.Add( (0,2,1) );
camposEnd = campos;
camposEnd.Add( (1,1.5,0.9) );
AmbientLight( #808088 );
DirectionalLight( (0.2,0.4,-0.7), (0.8,0.75,0.6) );
Model( "Data/Models/Bldgs/StdHouse02.atm", "Data/Models/Bldgs/StdHouse02.bmp", modelpos, (0.0,0.0,0.8) );
cam = Camera( campos, modelpos );
cam.BlendTo( 10.0, camposEnd, playerpos);
caption = Caption( 0.5, 0.65, "This is an example of a cutscene", 1 );
caption.FadeIn( 1, 2 );
caption.FadeOut( 5, 6 );
}
You might also ask why its not done using the existing scripting language.. but i was just having fun experimenting, you see

Anyway, its hopefully the sorta thing that can perhaps make the worlds a little more 'rich', and no doubt lead to a few interesting feature requests..