Animation Timer

[Vampiro]

I would like to have an animation timer on animated scenery objects. I will try to explain :

- The canon was not animated in Alpha 1, but it became animated in Alpha 2, and now people are requesting both versions.

- When i put 3 animated pieces in my game and i restart the game, all 3 will start at the exact same time. When i want to make a "canon shooting" scene its weird to see 15 canon's all shooting at the same time.

My suggestion would be a timer on animated objects. When i set canon1 at timersetting 5, it will restart 5 seconds after the first animation finished. when i set canon2 on timersetting 7 it will fire 7 seconds after finishing the last fire animation. This would prevent them firing at the same time and it would kinda look like they shoot at random.

Timersetting 0 would mean don't start -at all-.

This will NOT make the scenery item a ride event (like lights going on when a train passes or doors opening when a train approaches) But it would solve the other 2 problems of stuff animating at the same time and fulfill the request of making all animated object static as well.

 

[Palaber1984]

Or you m just select the objects you wanna sync and then select one of different timers for example Pulse!

Yeah we need all that stuff. Generally I believe that Planet coaster could be a new kind of minecraft or something else. You build, animate, sync.

I believe that this could be a spin off the regular game!

 

[gregorburns]

I think this is a must. What theme park do you go to and see cannons firing randomly around the park and random barrels rolling down hills? Everything is always timed with everything else to form what Disney refer to as "show" in their parks. A timing feature would take this game to the next level for me. After all it does say "simulation evolved" on the website.

 

[Mr Deuce]

Isn't it quite likely that at least most of these things will be triggerable in some way upon completion anyway? I'm thinking of the various SFX, all of which are kinda reminiscent of what they made for the RCT3 mixmaster. It would strike me as odd that the guys who made the mixmaster would create all these items now and not give any thought to timing and activation of the event. So I'm pretty confident that will happen. The same goes for SFX and other items being triggered by ride events etc.

But things like the cannon and other non FX type animated objects might be treated differently. Indeed, at present the sequence starts when the item is generated, so on loading a park all are generated simultaneously. Whilst a timer function would be useful, a much more likely fix is just a little code behind the scenes to throw in a random offset upon generation.

So I would be surprised if they extended timing control to all animated items. But I would also be dissapointed if they didn't at least give us control over the obvious ones as it would be a step back from RCT3.

Luckily I get the distinct impression that from the start, Frontier probably committed to not taking any steps back from RCT3

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Additional: I made a jumping jet fountain the other day, and I would have loved the ability to time the jets operation - or even to make each one a ride event so they go off in sequence as a coaster shoots past!

 

[Vampiro]

Isn't it quite likely that at least most of these things will be triggerable in some way upon completion anyway? I'm thinking of the various SFX, all of which are kinda reminiscent of what they made for the RCT3 mixmaster. It would strike me as odd that the guys who made the mixmaster would create all these items now and not give any thought to timing and activation of the event. So I'm pretty confident that will happen. The same goes for SFX and other items being triggered by ride events etc.

But things like the cannon and other non FX type animated objects might be treated differently. Indeed, at present the sequence starts when the item is generated, so on loading a park all are generated simultaneously. Whilst a timer function would be useful, a much more likely fix is just a little code behind the scenes to throw in a random offset upon generation.

So I would be surprised if they extended timing control to all animated items. But I would also be dissapointed if they didn't at least give us control over the obvious ones as it would be a step back from RCT3.

Luckily I get the distinct impression that from the start, Frontier probably committed to not taking any steps back from RCT3

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Additional: I made a jumping jet fountain the other day, and I would have loved the ability to time the jets operation - or even to make each one a ride event so they go off in sequence as a coaster shoots past!

I 100% agree to what you said. And for certain things a mixmaster kind of solution would be perfect.

The reason i asked for a timer is because the "old" mixmaster didn't have a looping function. Once the mixmaster completed, when does it start again? If this could be triggered by a train approaching or anything it would be perfect!!

I just suggested the counter as a very simple solution to prevent stuff from happening all at once and without orchistrating a complete show. And give a possible solution to have an item -never- animated.

Maybe both options could exist [happy]

 

[Mr Deuce]

I 100% agree to what you said. And for certain things a mixmaster kind of solution would be perfect.

The reason i asked for a timer is because the "old" mixmaster didn't have a looping function. Once the mixmaster completed, when does it start again? If this could be triggered by a train approaching or anything it would be perfect!!

I just suggested the counter as a very simple solution to prevent stuff from happening all at once and without orchistrating a complete show. And give a possible solution to have an item -never- animated.

Maybe both options could exist [happy]

I guess the ideal would be for all animations to have optional triggers via a 'mixmaster' type system. If no trigger is set then they just run randomly or not at all.

If the above were possible then it would mean the 'mixmaster' sequences could themselves be activated by a train. So just like PC manages multiple buildings, it would manage multiple 'mixmaster' assets, one for whatever the player needs to setup. And any one 'mixmaster' could control one or more FX.

This solution would actually replicate real theme park ride and display FX, where the the activation signals and outputs to FX are controlled by a PLC relay or similar. Essentially a compact computer that remembers a choreographed sequence and repeats it on demand. This would make entire complex ghost train/coaster type ride very possible. I think the YouTube videos we see already would become more imaginative and captivating than ever

 

[Vampiro]

I guess the ideal would be for all animations to have optional triggers via a 'mixmaster' type system. If no trigger is set then they just run randomly or not at all.

If the above were possible then it would mean the 'mixmaster' sequences could themselves be activated by a train. So just like PC manages multiple buildings, it would manage multiple 'mixmaster' assets, one for whatever the player needs to setup. And any one 'mixmaster' could control one or more FX.

This solution would actually replicate real theme park ride and display FX, where the the activation signals and outputs to FX are controlled by a PLC relay or similar. Essentially a compact computer that remembers a choreographed sequence and repeats it on demand. This would make entire complex ghost train/coaster type ride very possible. I think the YouTube videos we see already would become more imaginative and captivating than ever

Ahh, you might be right...

Adding everything to a mixmaster show might be the best option in the long run.

They already hinted about ride events, so there are chances we might get something like the mixmaster.
This could make awesome effects with the lightings we have

 

[Mr Deuce]

Ahh, you might be right...

Adding everything to a mixmaster show might be the best option in the long run.

They already hinted about ride events, so there are chances we might get something like the mixmaster.
This could make awesome effects with the lightings we have

Yup. And I could also automate these jets!!!!

 

[gregorburns]

I guess the ideal would be for all animations to have optional triggers via a 'mixmaster' type system. If no trigger is set then they just run randomly or not at all.

If the above were possible then it would mean the 'mixmaster' sequences could themselves be activated by a train. So just like PC manages multiple buildings, it would manage multiple 'mixmaster' assets, one for whatever the player needs to setup. And any one 'mixmaster' could control one or more FX.

This solution would actually replicate real theme park ride and display FX, where the the activation signals and outputs to FX are controlled by a PLC relay or similar. Essentially a compact computer that remembers a choreographed sequence and repeats it on demand. This would make entire complex ghost train/coaster type ride very possible. I think the YouTube videos we see already would become more imaginative and captivating than ever

Yeah definitely, I think that would be great. Just a timeline thing like MixMaster (a little bit easier to use though I'm sure) that can be triggered by events. It would be quite cool to actually have PIR sensors and stuff that we can use to trigger sequences, but that might be too much for the casual user.

 

[Mr Deuce]

Yeah definitely, I think that would be great. Just a timeline thing like MixMaster (a little bit easier to use though I'm sure) that can be triggered by events. It would be quite cool to actually have PIR sensors and stuff that we can use to trigger sequences, but that might be too much for the casual user.

Could probably achieve most of what would be needed by simply selecting ride start as a trigger actually. Select ride "carousel 1", select sequence start "ride starts/rides completes".

All these triggers will in fact already exist, they will trigger things such as an update to peep thoughts when a ride completes for instance, or the gates to close when a ride starts. All that is required is to build a basic timeline tool that can pickup on the existing triggers that must already be in the game, and on the chosen trigger, run its sequence overriding whatever routine currently controls the FX and animations.

Wouldn't take much, and wouldn't have any notable effect on performance either.

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Just a thought... It would in theory be possible to use something like to cheat engine to detect the on/off state of an intermittent SFX while the game is running, and then override it with a script to create a sequence.

I think I can do this by freezing the game without anything on the map, taking an image of the PC.exe process, and then adding a single SFX item and taking another image. The difference between the two images should reveal the new entity I added and the control state (on/off) for it.

I'll go do some playing!

 

[TheKiwiKingdom]

Okay the mix master set can be done remember frontier developed RCT 3 and in their it was the fireworks mix master system i hope they add that mix master a better fully developed mixmaster into planet coaster

 

[Mr Deuce]

Okay the mix master set can be done remember frontier developed RCT 3 and in their it was the fireworks mix master system i hope they add that mix master a better fully developed mixmaster into planet coaster

I have strong reason to think they will

Those SFX pieces aren't just for plonking down. I'm really confident there is more!