Archive: 14 posts

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I have a very peculiar problem that likely has no fix, but I'm here to ask about it anyway. I made a racing level in which three vehicles compete to reach the right-side wall as fast as possible. The vehicles are fast, so the races often end in runaway victories. At first, these runaway victories posed no problem; however, a problem that just began earlier today has fundamentally flawed my game by not following the first place sackboy when two racers get a screen's length apart. When the first place racer is traveling much faster than his competitors the camera still consistently follows him, but when the second place racer slowly begins to lag behind the camera prefers the losing racer. The racer who gets ahead has little chance of winning, since steering the vehicles requires that you are constantly aware of its orientation (which is impossible to determine while it is off-screen). Is there any way to keep the camera from following the losing player(s)? Thanks in advance for the help, it would make my last few weeks of work in LBP not for nothing.

2010-07-26 04:51:00 Author: MrLongJohn Posts: 36

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You could modify a sackboy tracker to work with magnetic keys and magnetic switches instead. Put a camera on the tracker, a manetic key on each vehicle and connect a magnetic switch to the tracker. This should work although I haven't actually tried it. If you need more info just ask. Good luck

2010-07-26 07:39:00 Author: SR20DETDOG Posts: 2431

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Or just kill those who lag behind too much?

2010-07-26 09:14:00 Author: Chamion B Posts: 124

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modifying the sack track to be a one way magnetic key switch is the superior option of the two offered above. not much of a race if everybody but first is dead right out the gate. Some sort of auto catch up might be a good idea, like if there's a three mag key switch setup on it. frontmost key is facing front, tracking first place and moving the camera forward (ie set to the piston). The rear most (these directions are based on the direction of the race, not layers or anything) is tracking last place, and should be set to boost them, or slow down first place or both. the middle one is set to track whomever may be in between, and ensuring that they aren't hampered by the auto catch up, but also not helped too much.

2010-07-26 15:16:00 Author: MobiusDT Posts: 89

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The best solution might be to make the level copyable and tell people to play it in Create mode so that everyone has their own seperate camera. However its not ideal if you don't want people to republish your level.

2010-07-26 20:21:00 Author: Nuclearfish Posts: 927

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I don't understand why you guys are suggesting modifying a sack tracker to follow mag keys. So we're talking about a relatively linear race here, right? Like the person furthest to the right (or left/up/down/whatever) will always be the person in the lead? The solution is simple. Build a sack tracker (search for sack trackers or check the intermediate logicpack level if you don't know how to build one) and set the sensor switch on the losing side (If you're racing to the right, the losing side is to the left) to "require all". The tracker will always favor whichever player is ahead. Slap your camera object on it and tweak it however you want and you're done.

2010-07-26 20:49:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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I don't understand why you guys are suggesting modifying a sack tracker to follow mag keys. Good point. I really don't know why I said to use mag keys, oh well, 'tis a mystery.

2010-07-27 06:58:00 Author: SR20DETDOG Posts: 2431

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I believe the camera tracking choice has something to do with the locations of checkpoints in the level, although I'm not entirely certain how it works. Rather than building a tracking device, you might find that placing checkpoints in the right places will cause the camera to follow the leader.

2010-07-27 15:05:00 Author: Aya042 Posts: 2870

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The only reason I suggested the mag keys is because if you put three diff colors in each direction you could do auto catchup stuffs. cause frankly I don't like it when someone gets way ahead and then everybody else dies off screen. It makes for a dull race, and is kind of silly when you consider there's rarely any sort of skill involved in being first.

2010-07-28 06:52:00 Author: MobiusDT Posts: 89

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Heh. Gotta' agree with you there. I'm not a big fan of vehicle races or frankly most of the vehicles in lbp (that's why I've worked so hard to make tools for better vehicles. Still, I have to say that I abso-freakin-lutely HATE racing games that use catch-up. It makes winning/losing random. Instead of the best player winning, often the worst, or at least the mediocre ones will win because there's nothing a good racer can do to overcome catch-up. I was a big fan of Motorstorm when I first started playing it, but it got old really quick as I got further into the game and the catch-up got more and more blatant. In some races the only way I was able to win was to hold back until halfway through the last lap and then use the catch-up to shoot past the A.I. drivers and hope that I timed it just right so they wouldn't have a chance to use the catch-up on me before the finish line.

2010-07-28 07:54:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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I can't thank you all enough for the help; I finally had a chance to test the level in a multiplayer setting, and Aya042's solution worked perfectly. Thanks Again! EDIT: I'm not going to pretend to understand the semantics of the camera-checkpoint relationship, but I can at least show the solution in my particular case. The following diagram details the relative locations of the checkpoints and race objects. http://i30.tinypic.com/jrzgpy.jpg Once the "Problematic Checkpoint" was deleted, the camera began following the rightmost player again.

2010-07-30 17:21:00 Author: MrLongJohn Posts: 36

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I'm not going to pretend to understand the semantics of the camera-checkpoint relationship, but I can at least show the solution in my particular case. Yeah. I don't entirely understand it either. Its purpose is to make it such that if one player drops behind, or goes AFK in a multiplayer game, it doesn't prevent the other players from completing it. It's something like: when the camera zone isn't large enough to show all players, then focus will go to one of... The player who is furthest from the currently activated checkpoint. The player who is closest to an inactive checkpoint. The player who is closest to the inactive checkpoint which is closest to the currently activated checkpoint. ...or something like that, so you could probably also work around it by activating other checkpoints with a sensor switch as you progress through the level.

2010-07-30 20:56:00 Author: Aya042 Posts: 2870

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Wow. That's really useful information. Y'know you're pretty smart sometimes

2010-07-31 02:28:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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Wow... I'm so glad I clicked in this post. Ive tried so many times to fix the "camera follows the loser". I've done the sack tracker and was never happy with its movement speed, I've also placed cameras along the race track w/sensors and found it spotty at best. It never even dawned on me that there was a connection with checkpoint(s) and there placement. It makes me want to go back and tweak all my race levels, tonight I'm going to test it out on my newest race level "R1 Racer". Thank you Aya042 for your solution and everyone else for all the excellent feedback. I tend to do all my creating solo, which means when multiplayer (more than one sack) issues come up I can really struggle to find solutions. Thanks for all the info......... This is why I love this place (LBPC) and everyone who supports it.

2010-07-31 05:37:00 Author: pete007d Posts: 58

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