Ebon Hawk Doors for K1

[SithNadd 3]

For reasons I can't explain, ever since I played TSL for the first time far longer ago than I care to admit, I've always wanted to have the interior doors in the Ebon Hawk in the first game. I noticed nobody else had added this feature in as of yet, so I decided to take a crack at doing it myself:

All of the doors are added in and working, but obviously once they've opened, they stay that way. This feels like it makes the mod a bit pointless, so I'm currently working on a way to have each door automatically close once you move a certain distance away from it. 

I originally planned to use an OnHeartbeat script attached to each door to close it once you move a certain distance away, but it didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped:

It’s a bit janky and doesn’t always seem to work as intended, so I’m not sold on this method.

I did try using a trigger instead, having the doors open/close using the OnEnter and OnExit scripts instead and it’s a LOT smoother, so I think I’m gonna switch to that. Setting all those triggers isn’t going to be the quickest process in the world though so… that’ll be fun!

As you can see, since the doors were originally intended to only be seen from one side in TSL, so once you pass through, you can see some of the door geometry poking out the wall on the other side. I'm not too bothered with that though, since it's unlikely anyone is going to be stopping and turning around to look up every time they walk through a door. I did show it at the end off the video though, just as a point of interest.

I’ll hopefully get all of the triggers set tomorrow, give it a thorough test and then maybe put up a new test video before I create an installer and package it up for release.

Edited 21 hours ago by SithNadd
Update added.

[Salk 392]

Hello!

Question: what kind of issues have you encountered with the autoclose via heartbeat?

[N-DReW25 1,460]

@SithNadd I believe the K1 Enhancement Pack contained a feature that allowed for this, since it is a modder's resource you can study how SpaceAlex made his doors work for when you make your own.

[SithNadd 3]

4 hours ago, Salk said:

Hello!

Question: what kind of issues have you encountered with the autoclose via heartbeat?

The doors would sometimes stay open for an excessive amount of time after moving away from them and would sometimes snap shut as soon as they were opened.

1 hour ago, N-DReW25 said:

@SithNadd I believe the K1 Enhancement Pack contained a feature that allowed for this, since it is a modder's resource you can study how SpaceAlex made his doors work for when you make your own.

I've had a look through the files and it looks like SpaceAlex did it in near enough the same way I did, give or take. It's pretty close to the effect I want, but there's still that little bit of jank and inconsistency which puts me off, so I think I'll still go for the triggers instead. The triggers will allow for a smoother and more consistent auto-open as well as the close too, since I think having to manually open all those doors every time you walk around the Ebon Hawk could get a bit stale after a while. 

Good thinking, though!

Edited 11 hours ago by SithNadd

[Salk 392]

Yes, I'm using myself a version of the autoclose on heartbeat in my modification, inspired by SpaceAlex's. It needed some tweaking. I extended this to practically every door in the game that can be opened.

[SithNadd 3]

14 minutes ago, Salk said:

Yes, I'm using myself a version of the autoclose on heartbeat in my modification, inspired by SpaceAlex's. It needed some tweaking. I extended this to practically every door in the game that can be opened.

Every door? That must've taken a while! 

I've set out all of the trigger positions in 3DS Max and used DarthParametric's MAXScript to get the vertex offsets I need for the trigger geometry, so it's just a case of plugging those into the .git file now and hoping it all decides to play nicely. I'm not such a fan of the Holocron Toolset module editor for this type of work, it feels a little too clunky and imprecise for my liking. Unless I'm missing a trick and using it incorrectly, obviously.

[Salk 392]

Well, the number of doors in need of the autoclose is not tremendously high, really. Going the trigger way may be a better result in the end but that would have taken too much time, in my opinion. I have also tweaked the OnEnter for areas with autoclose doors to make sure that they get closed upon returning if they were open when leaving the area. There were also other things to consider to try to reduce the number of glitches (like trying to not make them close if there is a body lying at close distance from the door and also checking the distanace between the party member to make sure that the door wouldn't close when one party member is following the leader is at a certain distance from the door. In the end, the result is decent but far from stellar. I'll be certainly using this once you publish it. Best of luck!

[SithNadd 3]

The triggers have been placed in the game and I think the effect is about as smooth as I'm going to get it:

Much happier with this iteration of the mod than I was the previous one, so I think this going to be the approach I go with for the final product.

I've done a little play-testing to make sure cutscenes aren't broken by the doors stopping NPC's moving etc and it all seems to be ok. The triggers all work as they should. There might be the odd bit of jank with NPC's getting lost for a second and turning on the spot while they wait for a door to open,  but other than that, it's all good. Not that there are many proper cutscenes aboard the Ebon Hawk, anyway. At least not in ebo_m12aa, which is the only module I've added the doors to. The other stunt modules, I've left alone.

I was mainly concerned that this would interfere with things like Sasha leaving the ship, but she just acts as above. Some of the doors go a little nuts if you try to follow her directly, as multiple creatures are entering/exiting the trigger areas at once, but don't do that it's fine. 

I think I'm happy enough with this to release once the installer is done.

Edited 2 hours ago by SithNadd