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LittleBigPlanet: Water! Kraken Infested Pirates of the Caribbean Levels, 12-22-09
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I use sensor switches quite a bit and I haven't had that problem, so I'm not sure. I'll see if I can duplicate it when I get home though.
On another note, anyone have any idea how to make a sort of gelatinous gooey creature? I want something that sort of... pours as it moves, but I can't think of how. I know a bunch of little balls can make water downhill, but I'm not sure how to make it work for a moveable creature that goes on level ground.
PSN: SAW776
Also when I make direction switches they're always lit up, even when they're not activated.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
*I'm still having newbie level creator anxieties *
It's usually not an extremely detailed drawing though. Just the basic layout of the stage and maybe a small note about what type of obstacle I want in a certain area.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Regarding the switches, I haven't had that problem either, but I have had the problem where shit just stops working. Also I would try it in play mode, and also look at front view to make sure the zone you're setting is really where you think it is.
Regarding the goo, I wonder if you could use emitters as the creature moved to simulate the pouring. IE emit a thin panel of material in front of it as the similar panel disappears behind. It might not "pour" but I bet it would be creepy and disconcerting. I might need to try that . . .
Also - SAW I can't wait to try whatever levels you come up with. You're always in here asking how to do something interesting and all these wacky concepts. You're building up my expectations for something great . .
Wait wait I might be on to something.
Okay so I don't know exactly how this is gonna work but make a bunch of balls and push them with piston. This will make them slowly tumble foward. Then, in addition, have another piston somehow follow the balls from below and pop up every now and then. Their forward momentum and the backside piston will make the balls move on top, keeping the blob from ever becoming just a straight line of balls.
It's not perfect but with some tweaking I think you might be able to get this to work.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
But the idea I'm working on so far is mostly just an epic opening scene:
The worlds of Little Big Planet are being invaded by this nightmarish goo stuff. You're flown in on a helicopter, getting a view of the scene, and dropped off on the top of a building which hasn't been fully infected/infested. Once you land though, as your helicopter goes to fly off, it gets caught in like a gyser of the goo and infested, which causes it to turn on you and attack you, forcing you to run inside the building, which causes the outer layer of the floor you're on to dissolve so you can actually see what's going on inside.
Once you're inside though, the helicopter crashes down into the roof, knocking a hole in it spreading goo as it makes its way all the way to the bottom floor. You jump in an elevator, but it too becomes infested in short order, causing it to attack you and preventing you from using it as a way further down and out of the building, so you have to climb through ventilation shafts or other such things while fighting infested people and even infested office equipment, to eventually make your way down into the basement of the building to kill the goo puppeteer thing (the pouring creature mentioned above) that is uses the fallen helicopter as armor.
That's the vision I've got in my head--I haven't even begun to see if I can pull it off.
PSN: SAW776
I do have one more question. I want to set up a proximity sensor to a dissolve block. Only thing is, I don't want it to dissolve right as proximity is breached. Is there some way I can do a timed release of it?
I use this a lot. Make a tall open tower made of dark matter, with a magnetic switch at the very bottom, and the key at the very top which is sitting on a dissolve block. Attach the sensor switch to the dissolve block, and the key will fall down towards the lock. The taller the tower the more time it will take for the switch to activate. That's the way I do it, not sure if there are better methods.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Well, a way to slow down the key without a huge tall tower is just to have alternating glass slides. The lesser the incline, the slower the key goes.
I like. Thanks a bunch!
More than likely.
I tried using the pistons and stuff, but it was just frustrating me--I may have come up with an alternative though. Making a cut out of the thing on a back layer covered with emitters that basically emits the balls in the shape of the thing, and it could move on wheels and use pistons to have a sort of undulating motion, and the balls being emitted/dissolving should follow at least somewhat. I'll just have to test it later to see for sure.
PSN: SAW776
We even both set up port forwarding to our respective consoles, and nothing works. Any suggestions?
PSN:RevDrGalactus/NN:RevDrGalactus/Steam
I wouldn't use the tower suggestion, too iffy for timing and difficult to adapt if you want a different timing. I'd make a block of something on a piston (stiff ofcourse), get a magnetic trigger at the top of the block/piston setup and put a magnetic key on the block (set it up so the trigger triggers when the piston is extended. Attach whatever you want to dissovle to the magnetic key.
If you want the player to stand withing your prox. sensor for a set time until the block dissolves: attach the prox sensor on directional setting to the piston. If you want it to do a delayed trigger when the player gets inside the prox sensor setup something like the suggested tower, only al small as is practical and set that magnetic key (directional) to the piston
I always use pistons for my timing, easy to adjust, build, move around and they can be made pretty small. Sounds more complicated than the tower, but it is so much less work to fine tune and so much more robust.
I hope this post makes sense :P
On level design: I work out (in my head) some theme and a basic story. This is combined with some mechanics I'd like to do (like my stone driven elevator) and then I just start building my level, block by block. I create my levels out of a number of blocks, each creating his own room/hallway/whatever, switchboard, emitters everything included. Each also floating on his personal blobs of dark matter. I keep the blocks slightly apart until the level is totally complete to avoid glueing issues and just before I publish I shove them together. This also makes sure any room in my level is easily copyable and that I can even switch out the rooms by just adjusting the entrance/exit to the room.
Woops big post
PSN: SAW776
EDIT: Oh wait I actually read what you said and those won't work.
I guess just a bunch of segmented blocks attached with elastic?
http://www.audioentropy.com/
you know how "No Smoking" signs have that red slash through the middle?
You could try giving your wheel one of those and putting a psychotic motor bolt on the slash.
This could all happen in an invisible back layer
you seem to have deleted your post, making me appear foolish
So whats new?
I deleted it because I thought I had the solution but it turns out I did not!
I know what you're talking with the red slash, but I don't quite understand what your suggestion is.
Also for other people:
So my end boss is a HAL-style computer. He's a big grey panel with a red light in a black hole for an "eye." When he takes a hit I want the red light to shoot out to the edge of the hole and roll around it, as though he's rolling his eye from being stunned. How can I achieve this? My thought was to have the light attached to the inside of a large, hollow wheel by a piston, but this doesn't work because the piston goes all out of whack for whatever reason.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Ah okay I see. That's essentially what I tried to do. Doesn't work. I thought of something else though that might. I'm gonna have a wheel bolted to something behind it, which is rigged up to a piston. The light will be stuck to the edge of the wheel and the whole thing will be positioned so that the light is at the center of the eye. When damaged, the piston will extend, centering the wheel in the eye. The wheel will do exactly two revolutions and then stop, at which point the piston will retract and reposition the eye.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Yay, LBP!
It might glitch at a couple different points, because one out of every, like, 13 plays I did of it, something just wouldn't work at some point. So let me know if there's a problem.
All in all, I like how it turned out. There's no monsters, just a get to point to point to point level, as I didn't want to go balls-out for my first level, but I will admit that it's probably a little bare, even though that's sort of the point.
If anything, I'm just glad that I finished the thing. >.>;
Sidenote: I think everyone is past this point (unfortunately I'm not) ; are there any people who still need to get a few of the Co-Op parts done for the Story Mode?
I'm a short a few stickers/objects/etc.
But I'm working on my level right now. Maybe we can play through some levels some time tomorrow.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Me too! I wouldn't mind playing the co-op levels with some guys from here; the biggest reason I don't have the co-op stuff already is because A) I hate waiting for random internet people joining the level I'm in and
I'd say you guys are a little above random internet people, of course, since the whole community thing. And I know what we're all going for.
So, if you guys want to shoot me Buddy invites for LBP fun, I wouldn't mind at all.
I'll check out your level after BSG, Darth
The level is very good for your first try! Everything looks real nice and the hoverbike made me smile.
Two things though. When getting out of the ship, I missed the escape pod and fell to the planet instead. You might want to put a wall on the front layer or something to stop the player from doing that.
Also, the security thing on the planet takes a while to make the screen come down, and while I was waiting I was fiddling around with it and it fell on top of it and killed me. Glue it down and make the screen come down faster.
Other than that though, very good, if short.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Thank you for playing and for commenting. I kinda ignored the ship part towards the end, since, for a while, whenever I would add on or something, it seemed like everything fell apart, so I got frustrated, went "I think that works" and went with it.
And you mean the terminal fell on you? I thought I glued that down, but that's a nice, clean fix if nothing else. Thanks for the ideas!
Edit: I'm probably going to redo the screen entirely 'someday'. I ruined a part of it, putting the background up, and it wouldn't line-up when I fixed the part, and I was just getting fed up. As a note, for when I get there, is there a way to deactivate my piston overall for the screen once it drops down?
Edit 2: Kay, Egos. Don't be offended if it doesn't get accepted til tomorrow, though, since I'm probably going to be on here til bed, and then do somethings after I wake up before turning it on again for some LBP fun.
We knew that the thinnest size of dark matter is invisible.
I knew I liked the look of glass (as ice) but not the slipperiness.
Coat the glass in invisible dark matter? PROBLEM SOLVED
These patented Non-Slyp Ice Qubes(TM) will work wherever glass is needed
Darth - I actually liked the level a lot. As others have said, it's just really too short to pass a firm judgment on. I did have trouble getting through the vent. But stuff like the scripted lights falling was aces. I think you'll make a great level.
I was thinking about it just now, and I'm glad you mentioned the vent. As an open question to the people who played my level:
Did you go for the vent first, or did you try the door first?
Obviously, I -wanted- people to try the door first, but the more I think about it, I imagine people see sponges in LBP and think instantly to go for them off the bat.
Also, thanks much for the praise. I'm glad that it's being enjoyed and it is short, but I really didn't know anything else to do. I wanted to make the Ship longer, but I couldn't think of any more room gimmicks, and it was becoming a pain in the ass to keep adding to. (Though if I were to re-do it, I certainly know -now- how to do it.)
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I'm trying to emit something that emits itself.. but of course, you can't actually do that. Instead you can only have it emit something one generation below itself, so the copies will eventually end up without working emitters. Very annoying.
PSN: SAW776
There's some places I haven't smoothed out the edges so much and the endings a bit wa-hey, but it was either get it out now or delete the whole thing.
I'm not sure which I'd vote for out of the two current entries!
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Because my jackass brothers are hogging the TV 24/7 :P