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Hello all,

I am currently a grad student and am planning on using FPSC for some psychology experiments examining spatial and object memory. Our plan is to have participants navigate an environment where they'll view various 3D objects and later be tested for their memory on the locations of these objects. The memory test will involve showing them first-person views of the environment as well as bird's-eye views of the entire map.

The rub is that we'd like to encourage people to build up an allocentric representation of each level as they navigate (you can think of egocentric representations as first-person perspectives and allocentric as third-person perspectives of the entire environment). Generally this is done by including a bird's eye map in the corner showing a person's location as they navigate. This would allow them to remember parts of the map independent of viewpoint, similar to how you think about a city you're very familiar with. Now I know from reading through the forums that an in-game map is either not possible, or at best, incredibly tedious to do in FPSC.

I was wondering what my options would be. Someone had mentioned making a HUD map with your location marked that basically changes every time you pass through a new trigger laid throughout the level (http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=114797&b=21). The trouble with this is that it would involve a ton of triggers and HUD images. However, we'll probably only use about 8 levels, each consisting of 4-6 small rooms connected by corridors. Would that still require too much work to be worth it? Another problem mentioned was a limit on scripts. Hopefully this wouldn't be as big of a problem in our case as we'll have no enemies or objects requiring their own scripts.

At the very least, I'd like to include a map HUD showing each level, even if it just remains static. Would I just map to an image of the level (I've just taken a screenshot from the map editor) in place of the lives/ammo/health HUDs during the build process?

I apologize for my ignorance on game design and scripting, I'm very new to this. Let me know if anyone has any ideas. I'm open to putting in a decent amount of tedious work (it's part of the gig) if someone can help point me in the right direction. Otherwise, if scripting that is above my level is involved to do what I need, maybe I could compensate someone for assistance? Not sure quite sure how that is usually done, but possibly for course credit if you are a student or payment if not? Unfortunately my funds are rather limited as a student myself, but I'd like to know what the options are.

Thank you for your help,
Jeremy

WOW you are asking something big there hmm i am sure there will be a way to fix this let me think for a while

Cheers


NORION

Wow finally, not a post that is asking for help with 5 words and a dozen quesion marks

I think it can possibly be done if you get the Project Blue mod for scripting but im not entirealy sure. I will have to leave it up to everyone else to tell you though because I don't do much scripted in FPSC. Best advice I have for you is if you can never get anything working even with help, I would try UDK, it's a free game engine that will do the job you want (Not trying to start a flame war here btw)

Hope you achieve what you need to do and welcome to the forums

As nurion said, this is something very big you want to do here and it may be possible but it may not so yeah.... Just wait and i'm sure help will come soon

I'm still horrible at scripting, but I think this might be able to be done by finding what lines of code in the source code gather the x,y,z coords of the player and the facing direction, than use some sort of script to draw an image on a hud based upon the coords gathered. I used to have a way of doing this when I used to use gamemaker 7.0 and it used a similar method to what I described. Maybe someone here better at scripting can fill in what I've missed.

Hi all,

Thank you very much for the replies. I looked back over some other threads and wanted to run a couple ideas by you all.

A couple people have mentioned that there is a mini-map in debug mode. I've tried this but only see the yellow squares where I've been, no map. Is this a feature that was removed? For our purposes, it would actually be fine to run in debug mode if it's possible to display the mini-map.



If these coordinates are spit out, would it be possible to have a second image consisting only of a dot whose position is determined by these coordinates overlayed on the map? The coordinates of the full map would then need to be translated into the smaller area bounded by the mini-map. I'd think this could be done by setting the origin as the center of the mini-map and then reducing any coordinates out from this point directly proportionate to the full-game:mini-map ratio. Again, I have no idea if these things are possible in FPSC, but thought it would be worth bringing up.

Thanks again for your help everyone,
Jeremy

That would only be 32 to 48 rooms total, so triggering a hud for each room would be doable enough.


Right, no problem.
You would need a unique script for each trigger, but only one display script for each level for what I have in mind.


I could possibly whip up a minimap for your levels that would indicate which room they are in, but that would not involve modding the engine.
I'm not into the x,y,z dot thing which would require a modification.

It seems that the rooms would suffice if you are testing for which part of the map the object was in, because it would be in one of the rooms.
You know where the objects are in the room and the player can remember it too (hopefully), so I don't see where you even need the dot thing.
I mean asking them which area of the room or anything can be done without them having a dot minimap. (follow me?)
However, it is your gig so maybe I am not understanding the intentions of the test well enough.


Is the test itself going to be done in FPSC or an external program?

Hi Conjured Entertainment,

Thanks so much for this response. I think that what you're proposing would definitely work.


If this method is significantly easier (which it seems to be, especially in regards to modifying source vs. not) then it should work well enough. While displaying a player's location in the room would provide some additional information I think you're right that just knowing what room they are currently in would do the job.


The test will be given using a different set of software, so we'll most likely just take some screenshots to cue a particular location.

If this is something you'd be able (and willing) to do, would it be something like a template that we could modify ourselves for each level by adding triggers and corresponding lines within the script? Whichever is preferable and minimizes the grunt work that you or others would need to do. Feel free to respond on-list or e-mail me offlist at jelman at berkeley.edu if you'd like to discuss specifics.

Thanks again!
Jeremy

Hello Jeremy,

This sort of minimap is perfectly doable with PB, since it has direct access to coordinates of the player through scripting. To add polish to the end result, only a couple additions would be made to the Mod itself. (That would include an additional HUD manipulation command for scrolling a HUD through a smaller viewing pane (for displaying a small portion of the map in the corner of the screen), as well as HUD rotation (for showing player orientation on the map), but these are both very easily accomplished through the source)

Modding what you're after into the engine would not be painstaking at all since what you're asking is fairly simple and straight forward.

If modding is out of the question for you, then scripting something close to what you're after shouldn't be terribly difficult. If you're familiar with code in general then the scripting should be straight forward after laying down a plan. The way I would do it via scripting would be along the lines of the following:
- Set up triggerzones just inside the entrances of each room
- Each triggerzone will activate a specific script that will display that room's map in the corner of the screen (along with the player's dot positioned accordingly in that image)

That's the simplest map I can come up with and can be fairly easily scripted with PB (Project Blue Mod). Note that PB would only be required for use of the player coordinates so that placing the player's location dot on the map would be smooth and precise.



Absolutely not. You can make your own HUD and display/hide it at any time. No need to override anything already in place.


If you would like, you may email me about this (same email that's in my profile) and I can help you work through the nitty gritty of setting it up as well as scripting. We can also talk about the pros and cons of modding the engine versus scripting. I'm fairly consistent about replying to emails, as I'm on the computer practically all day.

[EDIT]

You're just wanting to grab some screenshots from FPSC in-game to be shown via another piece of software? If that's the case, then what purpose would there be in making the minimap dynamic and functional in FPSC? Would it not be better to take a screenshot from FPSC, then add in a minimap in an image editor?


The one and only,

I have a less fussy idea instead of making an in-game mini-map why don't you make two version of the game one version is the normal version in first person view and the other version is in third person view (or birds eye view) to make the birds eye view thing work you'd probably need a 3d modeling program(i.e Blender) and add an entity to the player camera (what the player sees) to change the camera angle either do it in the 3d modeling program or find a weapon's gunspec and test with the "forward" "horiz" and "vert" options dont use "align x y z" that just changes where the muzzle flash is also the "forward" "horiz" and "vert" options control where the chosen weapon is also make sure that the entity character is made as an fpsc weapon because otherwise this idea wont work.

Like Plystire said, it's possible with Project Blue.

It is possible with any mod. It is also possible without a mod. As Plystire detailed above, one can do it with triggers, huds, and scripts (no mod required).