I am trying to set up a module intro and maybe some pertinent 'breaks' in the module in the manner of Masterpiece Theater.

In the cutscene, Alistair Cooked, a ghoul of much refinement, will sit in his easy chair by the fireplace (preferably holding a book, if I can get a rigger to help with that) and start talking.

The camera will zoom in to his head and shoulders while he talks.

Once he finishes talking, the screen will fade to black.


I've never done anything like this before, but I know it involves placing the player character on a certain spot, facing the narrator, going in first person mode, locking the controls, and using the game zoom functions, or perhaps just a conversation since zooming is built into that.

The major problem to my mind is the timing loops and the pacing of things, as well as rigging props.

Can anyone give me a rundown of what I will need to do, scriptwise, and maybe give me a bit of a framework?

I'm hoping to learn something groundbreaking through this

I have been working on the same thing recently, and I can offer some pointers based on this. Also you had asked in another thread about a cutscene involving two NPC's fighting.

The main idea is to use a timer script with stages. I have seen a geck tutorial on this somewhere, but where I learned about it is from http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/280328-coordinating-multiple-npc-actions/page__view__findpost__p__2538366 on newvegasnexus. This allows you to write the basic "stage directions" like: wait 2 seconds and start this animation, wait four more seconds and trigger this dialog, etc.

To play animations, use existing idle animations which you can browse by creating a new idle marker, and selecting "new". This allows you to preview animations and find stuff like people sitting down, waving arms with certain emotions, using a microscope, etc. Then you use "actor.playidle " in the timer script.

To play a conversation between two NPCs, use "startconversation" and a conversation topic. This is described in a http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/How_to_script_conversation_between_two_or_more_NPCs.

To start or stop combat, use actor.startcombat or actor.stopcombat. I have used this recently to make some turrets take action only when the player breaks some rule, and also to trigger attacks at the end of a certain line of dialog.

What you have described as zooming into the character's head and shoulders is called a "force greet" and this is described in the same tutorial about two NPC's I mentioned above.

Fading to black can be done by using a command like "ApplyImageSpaceModifier FadetoBlack2sISFX" as one step in your timer script. It is handy to fade to black, when moving props around to indicate the passage of some short time. Start the fade, wait one second, then move your items. When the fade finishes the items are now visible, without blipping around as the player can watch.

These are a bunch of individual pointers. If you have some specific questions please let us know. (I read newvegasnexus more, but either place is fine.)

Well, in Fallout 3 I had a lot of problems getting actors to obey the packages even when I forced them on them. Can you help me set up a package and script chunk that will force the actor to stand still until my fadein is complete, then walk to his chair and sit down and then STAY there the rest of the time, then initiate a forced greeting?

"setrestrained" is a very strong way to force actors to remain immobile. If you follow the idea of a timer script, you could have several stages with delays between.

1. setrestrained 1
2. start fadein
3. setrestrained 0 ; actor.addscriptpackage
4. setrestrained 1
5. .startconversation player

One problem with any cutscene is to consider what happens if the player gets bored and wanders off.

thanks, I'll see what I can come up with based on that flow!

That's what disableplayercontrols was invented for :biggrin: . Less drastic btw. are locked doors if they make sense.

Anyone know how I could play a small video clip on a tv screen or projected on a wall?

I know a huge mod did this in fallout 3, made all tvs work, but all i need is to play a little clip and have the player camera zoom into the tv...not sayign Im gonna do this for sure, but I'd like to look into it.

I think it was an FOSE set of commands

There are two known methods for playing video. One is the TV method you are talking about which works with giant textures bas icily and is pretty complicated. The other one is playbink where you need a bnk file encoder.

There is no 'normal' method of playing a video ON an object. Only a very weird way that NillaCakester was messing with, but it is incredibly complicated. Then there is playbink, as sesom said, where you just play a video on the screen. You can download the RAD video tools for free and make your own .bik (bink) format video's for free out of any standard avi file.

Anybody know how Yesman and House are projected on the screen in Lucky 38? Playbink takes over your screen, it does not get projected onto a TV object in the game.



Then we have to make a different assumption which may not be true. What if the player is standing a little far away, or facing the wrong way, when the stage directions start? Disabling controls means they cannot turn around or walk closer.

'Videos' on objects (like House, Yesman or the FO3 TV mod) are all made with the giant texture method. This method allows you short clips but is a lot of work. The author of the TV mod (not Nilla who used a different method which needs a NVSE like exe extension) made a tutorial as far as I remember.


Setting up the stage can be made before the disableplayercontrols take place (for example a activator which starts the action as soon as the player is in the right position) or you can always move or rotate the player as soon as the controls are gone. So no big deal. I use this a lot in 'See you .. Time for Bed'. The player is in this mod the camera which watches a clone of him/her self sleeping.

Hows this sound...let me know what I'm forgetting!

-Set up a quest with a high priority and starts enabled (say 75 priority?)

Detect if player has completed character rebuild 'quest' (VCG04 I think?)-not sure how to do this.

Black screen (fast)-need to know the sfx for this one
freeze player controls
move player and rotate.
screen fade in.

Ghoul standing in front of player.
ghoul says something (whats this command...not a dialog conversation, just a 'say it to him' thing)
Ghoul moves to chair and sits.
Ghoul enters 'true' conversation mode.

"Our story begins with our hapless hero diligently scouring the western wastes for wrongs to right, rights to wrong, and a pair of spurs that actually jingles and jangles. Little could he suspect that, 500 miles seaward the bleakest cloud of his weathered existance was gathering.

And now, we proudly present, "Dream a little dream"...

Screen fades to black, player is returned to where they were.

Play a 5 second timer to give the system time to settle down.

Spawn an NPC 700 units behind player, invulnerable, ignores combat, package set to intercept player and do a forced greet, initiate dialog. (not sure on this one either).

NPC is a wanderer like the player.


NPC talks to the player, offers to trade, offers some rumors.

Most rumors are things the player already knows or will know anyway (vanilla stuff), but one rumor is about how the wanderer sighted a group of ghouls in full combat garb piling out of a vertibird in a remote area of the wasteland and entering an old Poseidon Oil building. Player gets a map marker, yadda yadda.

End conversation, player is free to do as they wish.
---

On reaching the location, player is captured and stuffed into the vertibird. Shift to knockdown/stun animation, fade to black. Fade back with player seated in vertibird. Player gets to talk to a few people.

After conversation, play liftoff sounds, shake the screen a bit (how do you do this anyway?), fade to black.

Fade back in, player is told 'we has arrived' and is given option to exit vertibird.

Player exits vertibird and is hit with the bright sun FX like when leaving docs house in goodsprings. Scene fades in to the island...


cue epic adventure, boss.


What have I left out?

Hey Elanthil01, boy am I late to this party. I like to think of myself as a 'cutscene' expert, as the mod I just finished has 3-4 HUGE cutscenes in them. I'm pretty sure I can help you 100% on this. So here goes, I will comment on every layer of your above post:


-Set up a quest with a high priority and starts enabled (say 75 priority?) ; Is this to run the cutscene script from? I generally do it from a nearby object, perhaps what the player activated to begin the cutscene. (like a switch or computer) Is this a cutscene that is randomly triggered no matter where you are in the world, or from one specific place?

Detect if player has completed character rebuild 'quest' (VCG04 I think?)-not sure how to do this. ; You could use a http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/GetStage for this, and look in the geck to see what the stage is if they have completed it, also perhaps a http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/GetQuestVariable if its a quest variable that determines this.

Black screen (fast)-need to know the sfx for this one ; You need to set up an http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/ImageSpace_Modifier for this. (Under Special Effects in the object window) That page describes all the parameters for setting one up.

freeze player controls ; This can be done with http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/DisablePlayerControls.
move player and rotate. ; Set up an Xmarker heading where you want the player, then use a http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/MoveTo to place them there.
screen fade in. ; Time the above ISFX (Imagespace modifier, or Effect) to fade in now.

Ghoul standing in front of player.
ghoul says something (whats this command...not a dialog conversation, just a 'say it to him' thing) ; This is done with http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/SayTo.
Ghoul moves to chair and sits. ; Give the ghoul two packages, one to stand there and one to sit in the chair. Then in your timed stage script (which I can explain later if needed) swap the variable controlling his package and use http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/Evp to make him do it immediately.
Ghoul enters 'true' conversation mode. ; Give him a http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/Dialogue_Package and again use http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/Evp to make him use it.

"Our story begins with our hapless hero diligently scouring the western wastes for wrongs to right, rights to wrong, and a pair of spurs that actually jingles and jangles. Little could he suspect that, 500 miles seaward the bleakest cloud of his weathered existance was gathering.
And now, we proudly present, "Dream a little dream"...

Screen fades to black, player is returned to where they were. ; Again, another ISM, and MoveTo.

Play a 5 second timer to give the system time to settle down. ; This can easily be added to the script.

Spawn an NPC 700 units behind player, invulnerable, ignores combat, package set to intercept player and do a forced greet, initiate dialog. (not sure on this one either). ; For this you just might want to have it enable a pre-placed NPC somewhere in the wasteland, so it takes some time for them to get there, but they wont be out of bound or through a wall or in a building or something.

NPC is a wanderer like the player.



I have some things to go do at the moment, so I cannot help you with the rest right now, but I'll be back later to do so. Let me know if you have any questions of what I have explained so far.

To reply to you in order:

1. Cool, I definately need the help! You are even welcome to join the team officially if you would like.

2. This is a script that will fire between the vertibird taking off and landing, sort of a comical cutscene..a nod to Masterpiece Theatre with Alistair Cook (Alister Cooked...a ghoul).

3. Getstage sounds like the ticket, or GetQuestVariable. VCG04 grabs a marker with a script, moves it to the player, activates it, then (I think) disables and RemoveMe's the marker once the char has exited the rebuild menu. Reason I want to detect this questline is to make sure I'm not letting a brand new player into a high level area!

4. Imagespace Modifier? ok, I've done that before, although I'm not very good at it.

5. Freeze, move/rotate/fadein: Right, thats what I was thinking.

I'll start basic work on the parts I think I can do now, and then hit back for what more I need.

The pest of all cut scenes which transport the player:

:flamethrower: The followers.

Original ones are easy to detect but mod added...

I added a two doors for the dream sequence in my sleeping mod. Which leads the follower to a separated room in my dream space so that the player couldn't see him/her. After the dream was over and the player was brought back the follower could run back through a connected door in the Springfield farm.
It's not the best solution because the follower needs time to get back to the player (especially if he/she slept 100 miles away ) but it was the only 100% compatible one.

Hrmm, I would be glad to be your official 'help you set up cutscenes and anything else I can help with when you need it' guy, if you wan't. I do have my own mod I am making, and another I'm writing, and I go to school, but I should still have PLENTY of time to help. Just send me a PM with any questions. I have been using the geck for about a year and a half now, and I push myself to the extreem, so I know almost everything that isnt SUPER complicated (like generating LOD), or FOSE, which I have little experience with.

We all appreciate helpful posts. I suggest to put threads here with questions so others like me can see and learn, rather than PM's.

Gunmaster, welcome to the team. How about you, David? you interested too?

What I will do is make a list of the team and get everyones forum handle and as I write out things, I'll PM them off to everyone.

I will toss off the first PM tomorrow, containing the same outline I sent Esrafael, updated with his comments, so we can discuss it.

I will also make available from his cloud sharing site the basic island file so everyone can critique it before I get to work on putting the base in the Caldera.

Thats a darn good consideration, Sesom. I'll see what I can do to accomodate that. I DO know followers (actually all npcs) can get out of and into cells that do not have doors in order to reach the player...at least that could happen in FO3, but I'm not sure about from worldspace to worldspace, so I'll probably hide the cutscene chamber in the new worldspace.

While this is entirely true and I agree, in the interest of helping him, sending me a PM is more gurenteed. If he makes a topic, I may not read it, if he sends me a PM I definitly will. If anything, I think he should make a topic, and PM me, and at worst he can just copy my response to the topic to help others, or just PM me saying, "Hey, I need help, go read this topic." so I know to check it out.



Sounds good.