Has anyone ever pathed a vertical lift? Meaning, zombies walk onto the lift, wait till it's at the top and get off. Zombies wait at the top of the lift until it comes up, steps on, and rides the lift to the bottom? I've done it in other Editors. I just don't want to waste my time building a lift, pathing it, and adding zombievolumes just to test it out. I'm asking because pathing in this game and monster navigation are glitchy as hell. So has anyone done it?
Pathing Lifts
- Thread starter Boxxxed
- Start date
I haven't done it yet but am planning to. One thing you'll have to find out (and please enlighten me if you already do) is what kind of mover+trigger you should use, so that the zeds can operate it. Will they set off an ordinary trigger with their movement? Or if you use a KFUseTrigger/"door", would the zeds understand they need to press their zombie use key for it to work? You also want to consider that you want the elevator to be full of zeds when it moves, so strategies can include putting the trigger at the back of the elevator and/or putting a delay on the trigger (if you can do this?) Now, something that I was thinking so that zeds may *choose* to ride a lift, is to put a path node at the top and bottom of the lift. Naturally these nodes will be a long distance apart from each other and won't automatically connect. So put a forced path in. Then, to make the path more attractive, muck around with its cost property to make it seem like a very efficient option to the zeds.
I also considered the problem of getting it to work so the zeds 'wait' for the lift to come up so they can get in. When I'm faced with a problem that sounds like the proper solution will be complicated and buggy, I look for ways to simplify/cheat. For this lift, perhaps we could make it automatically revert to the bottom position after giving players/zeds time to get off at the top position. So it is at the bottom most of the time. Put a use trigger at the top for players to be able to call the lift up. I wouldn't even try and get the zeds to emulate that. Just put a forced path from the top to the bottom of the elevator shaft so that they do a great leap. The elevator itself has collision on its roof to false, so the zombies can fall through it (I was actually thinking of putting a "destroyed " part in about 1/4 of my proposed elevator roof, for zeds to get in through. Just imagine the tension if they came through the roof while a player is riding the elevator!). As far as safety doors go, this idea may make things a little dodgy. All I can think of is to have ordinary doors at both ends of the shaft, but not try to sync their opening with the arrival of the elevator, lest you complicate things for the poor confused zeds. I'm somewhat rambling excitedly here without having tested my theories at all, so I'll shut up now.
You should be a pioneer in your idea and go for it despite how you feel about the time involved. Just do it really basic like at first, maybe even create a new map for it with nothing but two rooms and an elevator between, player start on 2nd floor and zombie spawn on ground floor. And post the results, of course
I also considered the problem of getting it to work so the zeds 'wait' for the lift to come up so they can get in. When I'm faced with a problem that sounds like the proper solution will be complicated and buggy, I look for ways to simplify/cheat. For this lift, perhaps we could make it automatically revert to the bottom position after giving players/zeds time to get off at the top position. So it is at the bottom most of the time. Put a use trigger at the top for players to be able to call the lift up. I wouldn't even try and get the zeds to emulate that. Just put a forced path from the top to the bottom of the elevator shaft so that they do a great leap. The elevator itself has collision on its roof to false, so the zombies can fall through it (I was actually thinking of putting a "destroyed " part in about 1/4 of my proposed elevator roof, for zeds to get in through. Just imagine the tension if they came through the roof while a player is riding the elevator!). As far as safety doors go, this idea may make things a little dodgy. All I can think of is to have ordinary doors at both ends of the shaft, but not try to sync their opening with the arrival of the elevator, lest you complicate things for the poor confused zeds. I'm somewhat rambling excitedly here without having tested my theories at all, so I'll shut up now.
You should be a pioneer in your idea and go for it despite how you feel about the time involved. Just do it really basic like at first, maybe even create a new map for it with nothing but two rooms and an elevator between, player start on 2nd floor and zombie spawn on ground floor. And post the results, of course
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There is a lift on the doom map and the zombies will come over and hop on and come up to greet you
The way I remember doing it way back in Unreal Tournament 1 is to use the LiftExit and LiftCenter nodes, no playing around with forced paths. Put a LiftCenter at the center of the lift and at the top of the lift use a LiftExit where bots will wait for the lift to come up. These are programmed just like the KFDoorTrigger is (I think). Or vice versa if you have the lift's default position at the top. I don't remember how groups of bots responded back then though.
I just woke up, and I'm bored. So I'll start making that lift map, and post it on here even, if it works
Made the lift using a regular mover. Bots ignored the lift, didn't even step on it. Made one using KFElevator. Bots got on but the elevator didn't move. Killing Floor is handicapped. Anyone know how to path lifts in KF?
I read somewhere that KFElevator is bugged, the dev team was going to use them on Office but dropped the idea due to unable to fix the bugs. Anyway its as I suspected, doesn't sound like elevators with with zombies using the tools designed specifically for that purpose is going to work. So maybe try something like what I suggested, using just regular movers, KFDoorMovers, and regular path nodes?
If you can get to the zombies to so much as walk onto the elevator using regular pathing, surely there's some kind of mover that will do the job. Even if the zombies open the elevator safety door on their way to a path node at the back of the elevator, and after the door is opened this triggers the elevator itself (with a 5 sec delay or something if thats possible?). The reason I suggested forced path between top and bottom floor, with tweaked cost on these paths, is so that the zombies will think to walk onto the elevator to begin with.
If you can get to the zombies to so much as walk onto the elevator using regular pathing, surely there's some kind of mover that will do the job. Even if the zombies open the elevator safety door on their way to a path node at the back of the elevator, and after the door is opened this triggers the elevator itself (with a 5 sec delay or something if thats possible?). The reason I suggested forced path between top and bottom floor, with tweaked cost on these paths, is so that the zombies will think to walk onto the elevator to begin with.
Problem is that zombies will walk under the lift while it's up without using liftexits. I'll just omit lifts, even though I had them in mind since the beginning of my map. Lame
damn. I hope there is a solution to this because I really wanted to implement one eventually. What if the safety door at the bottom floor won't open until the lift is back down, or has a delayed opening that will gurantee the lift is there? If I can't get this working when I give it a shot, I will have to resort to a real big spiral staircase in place of the lift, which would be about as lame as KF-Offices
I tried a door. But the door won't close because of the mass of zombies. I could make it crush but that would just kill off too many zombies and make it unrealistic.
Too bad there isn't a way to put a blocking volume and have it triggered when the lif tis up
Cant you connect a big and long blocking volume under the elevator platform. So rather than just a cabin going up its actually a complete invisible pilar going up?
D
Dragonfel666
Guest
maybe take a look at unreal maps. They use elevators all the time with paths. Um....what lvl....Dm-Orion? That space station lvl for unreal has a huge lift, that the enemies use to get to the sniper rifle at the top. cant remember the map name sry
If only you can teleport brushes in game....or maybe you can
lol love the amount of posts you have lol
it would have to be a blocking volume connected to a trigger, otherwise you wouldn't be able to get on the lift.
If only you can teleport brushes in game....or maybe you can
lol love the amount of posts you have lol
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Pathing it the way Unreal does doesn't work. Is it possible to attach a blocking volume to the mover? Do blocking volumes attach?
The ZEDS should treat a reuglar Mover like a mover, useable :/
instead of using elevators make it a mover
instead of using elevators make it a mover
what about simply making the lift mover really really high, so that when it is at the top level, the bottom entrance is blocked off by a solid piece of lift. You could apply the same principal to the top if you don't like the idea of zombies jumping down your lift shaft (and thus requiring an entrance through the lift roof).