my question is how to make the player "slide" on the ice like the warthog does. Ive been looking around in the globals tag and biped tag and I have not found anything pointing me in the right direction.

edit: 1 minute after posting I just remembered the physics tags. In it was ground friction, not sure if physics tags can be applied to bipeds, too late at night to try it out.

Second question, I was trying to create a "sprint" for the chief but one that times out. Many ways to do this but I was thinking modifying the flashlight effect to the double speed powerup. Only thing is im not experienced with this. I figured it would be similar to adding boost to a ghost.
Edited by goyanks135 on Nov 5, 2008 at 09:21 PM

About the second question:

Make a script that gets activated by the flashlight button and drops a double speed power-up on your location, causing you to sprint till it wears off.

game globals > running acceleration

if you half or 1/3 that number, you can give the impression MC is slipping on the ice, but beware as this will affect all surfaces for MC, therefore it could look like hes slipping on metal

Double speed doesn't increase player action speed by two, it splits the entire game's speed in half except for player actions. So, there wouldn't be any sprinting. I was about to say use faster sprinting animations that could be scripted in easily, but that wouldn't work because of the player speeds in the globals that override the movement in the animations.

I did the ghost-boost type thing to a biped. Even when lightly pushed, the momentum builds up and the biped ends up splattered on a wall before the flashlight battery is drained.

not exactly what I want. I want the double speed to turn off when they hit the flashlight button or it runs out. The way ur talking about it doesnt

Hey Bobbysoon, how'd you do that? I tried copying some stuff from the H2 Ghost to the Spartan and nothing happened.

And goyanks, double-speed power makes it like bullet-time: half-speed, which is kinda cool I guess...

ya that was said above, not what I wanted to do. I wanted to implement a sprint system like the boost of the ghost or the flashlight button (or similar funciton which can be ended by pressing again/releasing the button)

Maybe, instead of like the ghost that uses a damage_effect directly coming from an effect, you can use a projectile that comes from the effect that has no gravity or velocity, but (invisibly) detonates with a very short-range damage_effect radius.

The radius would have to be just enough so that, at full walking speed forward, when the timer hits 0, it just touches the biped from behind to push it forward. Once the bipeds at a sprinting speed, it's too fast for the timed explosion to reach the biped so it decelerates until the speed is slow enough to get back into its radius, and then it's pushed forward again, repeat, repeat, ....

I think it could work, it would just look like intermittent bursts of speed instead of a constant speed because it'll constantly be boosted forward, then slowed down, then boosted again. You would just have to work out the projectile timer and damage_effect radius just right so it pushes you forward at the right speed and at the right times.

It would still let you turn it on or off, at least. It should be tied to the flashlight.

I think im gunna try something similar to the ghost's boost. I dont understand how to "attach" the effect to the player and how would I get it to take effect while the person is hitting control or uses the flashlight
Edited by goyanks135 on Nov 6, 2008 at 05:27 PM
Edited by goyanks135 on Nov 6, 2008 at 05:53 PM

Mine's broken right now, but I uploaded a test map a while back, with a biped booster, flashlight controlled. You can extract tags from it
http://files.filefront.com/testzip/;10182954;/fileinfo.html \
backup your cyborg_mp.biped and cyborg.gbxmodel
extract the biped and gbxmodel, as well as
levels\test\bgi\effects\75.effect
levels\test\bgi\effects\75.damage_effect
the marker is attached to the head, adding limited up/down control
the effect tag specifies the marker ("75") location, as also does the attachment in the biped tag. The damage effect must actually inflict damage for the acceleration to occur. I set it up to only hurt shields. Consequently, while in use, the shields don't recharge, and are slightly depleted over time. Fair enough, I think. Can't get somethin for nuthin, right?
[Edit]
You should mess with the marker's position. Import the cyborg into max with the gbxmodel importer script. Link it to bip01 pelvis instead, because you want it to go forward only, not lifting off the ground. Type "in coordsys parent $.pos" to get the position relative to the node it's linked to. $.rotation gives you quanternion rotation. Use those numbers to edit the marker position in the tag
Edited by bobbysoon on Nov 6, 2008 at 06:06 PM

Awesome, I'm downloading this right now. Thanks!

im gunna check into it, maybe find something helpful out

np, I hope it helps. I edited my post and added some tips ^^

ya I was trying to link my damage effect to the pelvis, except my effect would not work when I activated the flashlight, thanks for the help though

edit: wow, i completely forgot to link my marker at all. thats why it wasnt working
Edited by goyanks135 on Nov 6, 2008 at 06:25 PM

It's tricky. If the marker is too far away, it won't work. The effect, and the attachment that references the effect, need to specify the marker's name. If you're getting nothing, try blowing up the damage radius, or attaching another effect to help indicate if the function is working

I got my biped set up in gmax now. Only thing is exporting it. Couple Questions:
1) U dont link markers/nodes to frame?
2) U dont need materials set up for the gbxmodel?
3) I need a new node checksum?

You actually don't need to export it. Just use the imported model to figure out the position and rotation of the marker
Were you to export anyways, nothing wrong with that learning experience,
1) link marker to node/bip01
2) you'd need to put something in each shader's diffuse, next to color. A small box. Checker will do. Bluestreak will error if you don't, even though it doesn't really need to access diffuse to export :/
3) use the same checksum. Adding a marker is a minor alteration. The nodes are unchanged
if you have only 2 materials, delete it all (xcept the new markre) and re-import, but uncheck the Attach within regions. You should then get all materials imported with it. Idk why
Edited by bobbysoon on Nov 6, 2008 at 07:34 PM