Patching bad Stairs

[madrussian 347]

Looking for ways to remedy bad staircases in a few particular (older) building types.

 

Using forced movement (via _unit disableAI "PATH"; _unit disableAI "ANIM"; _unit playAction "WalkF";), and the unit sometimes passes through the stairs and ends up trapped in the area below the stairs.  (Poor soul.)

 

I have a looping floor detection remedy in place for cases in old buildings where the unit falls half-way through the floor, in which case it pop... pops him back out.  The floor detection remedy runs at a low frequency, so isn't really designed to catch cases where the unit falls (or otherwise passes) completely through the floor (like with these stairs).

 

I'd like to try to place an invisible object with a walkable surface under the stairs to see if that catches the AIs that would otherwise fall though.

 

The questions are:

1. Anyone know of an object type in the game, which is invisible and has a walkable surface?
2. Anyone know way to make an (otherwise visible) object invisible but still walkable?

[madrussian 347]

Quick update, I think I can use setObjectTextureGlobal to hide my object, doing something like this:

_texture = "#(rgb,8,8,3)color(0,0,0,0)";
_obj setObjectTextureGlobal [0, _texture];

Only I just tried it and that texture is apparently black.  Anyone know where this texture format is defined?

 

Edit:  OK I found these "procedural textures" defined here.

 

Edit 2:

 

So my object (for starters) is "Land_VR_Block_05_F", a giant VR block.  By default it's light grey with white trim.

I confirm it has two textures via getObjectTextures.  Now I can turn the object completely black via:

_obj setObjectMaterialGlobal [0, "\a3\data_f\default.rvmat"];
_obj setObjectMaterialGlobal [1, "\a3\data_f\default.rvmat"];

_clearTexture = "#(rgb,8,8,3)color(0,0,0,0)";
_obj setObjectTextureGlobal [0, _clearTexture];
_obj setObjectTextureGlobal [1, _clearTexture];

 

Of course though, I need it to be transparent!  Reading up on "procedural texture", I find the (0,0,0,0) part is (Red, Green, Blue, Alpha).  My Alpha is 0, so seems the object should be invisible.  But unfortunately it's still visible (again completely colored black).

 

Any ideas?

 

 

[.kju 3239]

try the rvmat and texture used in arsenal for the transparent vehicles

[JohnKalo 657]

Isn't it possible to place the hotel stairs vanilla object and hide that one?

[johnnyboy 3741]

17 hours ago, madrussian said:

Of course though, I need it to be transparent! 

Hey madrussian, long time no chat, I hope you are doing well.  😉

 

Empty quotes will set the texture to transparent.  This is how I completely hide a zodiac in JBOY_LongBoat:

 zodiac1 setObjectTextureGlobal [0,""]; 

Edit:  Another suggestion would be to use pallet or plank objects.  Both are walk-able but not hide-able via setObjectTexture (I've tried in the past).  But you can set them just below the stair surface so not visible, but still should prevent falling through.  I've used palettes as a floor in a burned out CUP bus object before using this technique.

 

Or the plank you could use as visible, and us players will assume the home owner repaired his shitty stairs with a plank.

[madrussian 347]

1 hour ago, johnnyboy said:

Hey madrussian, long time no chat, I hope you are doing well.  😉

 

Back at-cha. 😉

 

1 hour ago, johnnyboy said:

Empty quotes will set the texture to transparent.  This is how I completely hide a zodiac in JBOY_LongBoat:

 zodiac1 setObjectTextureGlobal [0,""]; 

 

 

OK, I just tried this for both selections on my VR box (with and without that setObjectMaterialGlobal from my snippet above), and unfortunately both main part & trim stayed original colors (grey and white).  Good trick to know though, will try that first next time I need to hide something.  Also, makes me wonder what the difference is in objs that will hide with "" vs ones that won't.

 

Also, I agree since putting this obj under the stairs, don't necessarily need to hide it.  Only, I think one end may have to come up above stairs level slightly to work... not sure on that bit yet.  Will try those pallets too!

 

3 hours ago, JohnKalo said:

Isn't it possible to place the hotel stairs vanilla object and hide that one?

 

That sounds intriguing, will have a look.  (Happen to know the obj type?)

 

12 hours ago, .kju said:

try the rvmat and texture used in arsenal for the transparent vehicles

 

Good idea, will try it thanks!

[JohnKalo 657]

Needed some searching but here it is:

Quote

 

Structures (Altis):

Class Name: Land_GH_Stairs_F 

Display Name: Ghost Hotel (Stairs)