I start off with apologizing deeply for overestimating the LS3D engine's capabilities and therefore giving false footage to all you people.
I thought it would be possible to animate Titanic's collissions for the sinking script as I saw the bridge ingame that sometimes opens and closes that used the same principle as Titanic's sinking.
ASM gave me a clear explanation of how the game sort of works. The bridges are programmed into the game's data instead of scripted using mafiascript, therefore meaning that it's practically impossible to animate such complex collission model such as Titanic's.
That leaves me 2 choices:
1. don't create a sinking scene at all and book a flight to an unknown location on earth to hide for the rest of my life.
2. find a diffrent solution.
Well i decided to stuck with the last decision ;). The new trick will be a bit diffrent, but should have it's advantages. It will be some kind of optical illusion. An simple model such as the ocean is no problem at all to collide and animate. So as you can guess it, the ship will remain static, and the ocean around it will be animated.
Now the first thing you'll think is "yeah right, this will look ugly.. all npc's will be standing straight up on the deck while the deck is at 45 degree angle". I dealt with that problem, there will be around 5 or 6 loading screens to reposition the entire scene, put the ocean back horizontal, and place the Titanic under the angle it's sinking at on that moment. When it's all reset, the ocean will start moving again untill it's angle is too obvious again to notice. This image explains more:
As you can see, on the left side is the single scene with the animated ship, as shown in the 2 video's.
This is not possible to script after all. On the right you'll see the static positioning of the ship and the ocean that will rotate around it in seperate scenes.
The split will become a cutscene then, as it would be impossible anyway to walk around decently when that happens. don't worry, after the split you'll have some time to examine the catastrophe the split has caused.
Good news is, if i would stick to the animated collissions of Titanic, the sinking would run at an average of 3FPS or a game crash. now it's garanteed to preserve a lot of FPS depending on your system. Also less work on the mod is required to peform this task. Plus making certain events on the ship will now be much easier to script.
I hope this explained it pretty well, and I hope you all might forgive me for this stupid mistake I made.
I should have researched this earlier, I know.
Split is now a cutscene? I don't like this, but when it isn't possible to do it in a other way...
I personally don't like this new sinking, it would be more imerssive and cool to be able to see all stuff happening in real time has you walked trough the deck. But i realize why you need to make that concession being a single developers on this, so i'm glad we will have a sinking titanic at all. :)
They just show their opinion, and i see they both realize there is no choice, so I'm glad of such comments.
I wasn't very thrilled either when i heared that my plans were impossible after all.
To compensate the realtime experience during the splitting I'll try to do my best at getting many camera angles as possible. Interior as exterior.
good thing is though, because it's now a seperated scene, I can add a more detailed model to the part that's split, i can now make the torn appart and bend decks with pipes sticking out all deformed.
else that place would remain quite straight and "clean" as dynamic animating is not possible for 3rd party modders.
I really appreciate your understanding!
You should just switch over to a better engine while you still can. I doubt this will get the audience it deserves as a mafia 2 mod. Why not just go with cryengine or unreal? You would be able to pull off everything in real time with fluent fps and better effects.
I have always be certain to create the mod for this game as the storyline involves the game's original characters.
Also the modding tools for mafia work great (ofcourse nothing can beat the game's own SDK)
I do consider to port this mod to some other game sometime. Mafia 2 will have it's main priority, but Crysis is a possibility aswell.
This project is too far in development for the mafia game, so it would be much work and also rude to the people who always had interest in this mod because it was meant to be for mafia.
knightprowl i wont even bother reading your walls of text.
I have been following this mod for a long time and still have mafia installed just to be able to play it. But i strongly disagree about giving mafia priority.
I mean, it is a EXTRAORDINARY mod, but many people just wont have the patience to go and install mafia all over again just to play it.
Cryengine has great mod tools. So as i said earlier you should consider porting it while you still havent begun serious scripting work and such.
I'm sure they don't mean to be negative, in fact I want people to share their opinions, just as long as it's a bit constructive.
if someone said "you noob now the mod sucks", that would be insulting.
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