exclude characters from shaders

  • #1, by constantinWednesday, 13. December 2017, 11:40 6 years ago
    is there a possibility to exclude characters from shaders? in a sceen the player can use a smartphone-display to phone characters. but when the player is in darkness, of course also the characters displayed on the smartphone are dark. (the smartphone is a special interface)
    (i also tried other solutions (special lights, setting characters as animations), but it gets too complicated.)
    thanks!
    constantin

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  • #2, by afrlmeWednesday, 13. December 2017, 12:23 6 years ago
    Not to my knowledge, sorry. I believe characters fall under scene as they are part of the scene & you don't seem to be able to exclude scene, only: interfaces, text & cursors. Can't you add a shader light where the character on the phone is displayed or just disable the shaders while having the phone displayed?

    Would you share a screenshot, so I can see what you are doing please?

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  • #3, by constantinWednesday, 13. December 2017, 14:29 6 years ago
    Thank you. I tried to put in a shader light - but I am not able to make the light so that it only effects the smartphone-interface. 
    In the first picture there is the scene in the cellar. (shaders active, small light from the back)
    The second picture shows it in the aisle. (no shaders active)
    When I put in a shader light, not only the character is effected, but also the room, even when i try to make a really sharp-edged light. 

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  • #4, by afrlmeWednesday, 13. December 2017, 14:52 6 years ago
    Thing with the shader lighting is that activating it makes it so that everything is dark except where the light sources are/bleed light to. Think of it like lighting in real life or how light in 3D game engines/animation software works.

    What you could do for your basement scene instead is create  scene object containing a solid black image the size of your scene that is displayed above the rest of the scene object images/animations. Adjust the opacity to suit & it should darken everything in your scene. Or create an alternative dark version of the scene. I'm sure you will be able to figure something out. Creating the character as an animation attached to a interface button would also work. You could easily do display text (background text) then start playing the talk animation, then add a wait until character stops talking action part, then switch back to the idle character animation. So many options...

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  • #5, by constantinThursday, 14. December 2017, 07:49 6 years ago
    thanks again. the first solution you suggested doesnt work, because i need to use the shader - there is also a flashlight i have. 
    the other solution is tricky, because there is a complete dialogue-system with every character. i tried the following: 
    make characters invisible with only one invisible frame for "standing" and "talking". in this one frame i wanted to trigger animations, which were displayed on the smartphone-interface. it worked for one character, but when i changed to the next, no matter how i tried, the animation were not shown, although i did exactly the same. 
    i believe it is a too "dirty" solution. ;-) 
    but thank you anyway. i really appreciate your ideas and the exchange within the forum.
    constantin

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  • #6, by afrlmeThursday, 14. December 2017, 12:57 6 years ago
    You mean using the built in dialog system? You do know that you can tick the "alternative text for dialog" checkbox & leave both that & the answer box empty & just add a bunch of action parts to be immediately executed in "execute action" bit on the right hand side. With that bit you could control animations linked to interface buttons amongst other things.

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  • #7, by constantinThursday, 14. December 2017, 13:30 6 years ago
    Oh! I actually didnt know that. I will take a look at it. Thanks for this information.

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