Sandbox Folders and Control Keys For Game

For Sandbox Folders click here

Please note, the folders include the European pak plug in which is required for viewing the created alpine environment.

Key 'm'
Turns ground fire particle effect at feet of player on and off


Key 'o'
Turns snow particle effect on and off


Key 'p'
AI moves to tag point and triggers particle effect

Improved Spawning Fire Flowgraph With On/Off Switch

With Julian Cromarty's help I now have an on/off switch to spawn fire which makes it much easier to view my movement without the particle effect constantly triggering. I have also found a more appropriate particle effect as shown in the video.

Porosity Lens Screenshots Recording Movement

The glow beams trigger on when a player passes through them.

The light beams trigger on when a player passes through a documented area.

The coloured lights help to differentiate the separate trigger areas that the player passes through.
The blue beams increase in glow intensity the longer a player remains within the trigger area. The lanterns, which have the railway framework pattern impregnated on their shades, increase in glow intensity each time the player enters the railway framework.
A player has passed through this scene, depicted by short glow beams through the railway framework and the length of time spent within the longer blue beams.



The intensity of time spent within a trigger spot is indicated by the density of the particle effect.

Environment/Structure Screenshots and Explanations

Screenshots depicting the environment and structures - All installations are created from the original sketchup model with changes in materials and orientation, scale is as per the original except for the custom lanterns. I have chosen to completely break up the railway structure to investigate how one negotiates different parts of the structure with particular interest in how the player reacts to the different interpretations of material ie opaque or transparent, horizontal or vertical, collisions enabled or disabled

The beams to the left are constructed of the long beams from the railway using a glass texture. The structure to the left is another component of the railway which has the standard texture opacity changed. Both these vertical structures have had collisions enabled therefore the player must negotiate around these obstacles.

The main railway framework is interspersed with the railway sleepers which have had the opacity reduced and colour changed to blue, the sleepers also were imported without enabling collisions from sketchup so the player may run through them. This allows us to see how a player may negotiate his way through the railway framework (which has collisions enabled and therefore the player must negotiate their way around the framework). The longer beams are from the railway frame with a blue colour impregnated. They did not have collisions enabled however they test how the player is tricked into not running through them due to their lack of opacity unlike the railway sleepers which are more transparent and therefore encourage the player to run through them.

Overview of the structures with the shadow patterns they create. Interestingly when playing the level I tend to want to spend more time within the shadowed areas.

The lanterns are custom made. As they are to indicate how many times the player enters the railway framework by the increasing glow intensity, they have the same framework which was scaled down and coloured then intersected with the square box shade to reflect what they are recording.





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Draft Video With Music

This is a brief draft ... a trial run around the environment in one take. I have added the music, all unedited, which I intend to use - Fireflies by Owl City. I chose this music as the concept of 'fireflies' reflects the lighting and particle effects I use to portray porosity. The song itself has a sense of movement. The lyrics portray my idea of porosity as its own living entity ... the idea that the movement of the fireflies fill the air when I fall asleep portrays the concept that when everything stops there is still this record of earlier movement which occured in the environment - a kind of spiritual movement when all becomes still. This is demonstrated by the lights remaining on where the movement has occurred and turning off after some time delay post the movement.

Increase Glow According To Time

With the help of Jun, I have worked out how to make an entity's glow parameter increase according to the amount of time the player spends within a proximity trigger. As the glow increases in proportion to time, the float becomes very high so it is necessary to divide the counter using a math div node to reduce the input to the material parameter float. The counter is set to a maximum of 10 so the glow amount increases by the increment 10 times and then resets.

With further refinement and Andrew's idea with the logic gate, I have come up with this flowgraph. This flowgraph allows the player to leave the area, saving the current glow degree and then restarts the increasing glow upon re-entering the proximity trigger. This is potentially really powerful in recording time as it can accumulate time spent within a given area. This is the result:

Tutorial Subject - Proximity Triggers and Changing Material Shader Parameters

I am going to do a tutorial primarily on proximity triggers as these are fundamental to triggering events within Crysis. This topic area was critical in my own understanding of flowgraphs. I wanted to use lighting but there were few tutorials except ones which used switches. I spent some time researching flowgraphs but found them to be very specific and related to creating gaming scenes. Russell spent time with me and gave me the first meaningful one on one tutorial working out how to make a light turn on using a trigger. It is from there all the knowledge I have now has grown along with the help of the other tutors.

For the example I will explore the material shader in the material parameter node. Much of my project has been based around lighting but through researching this area I found that only 32 lights may be used without crashing. Using material glow is a much more efficient way to create lighting within the Crysis environment. I have created flowgraphs to turn on glow when entering a proximity trigger; to increase glow when re-entering a proximity trigger; to increase glow whilst remaining in a proximity trigger; and I have used the time delay node to fine tune these.

The reason I have chosen these nodes to concentrate on is they elevate the understanding of Sandbox editor at a foundational level. By gaining understanding at the foundational level, one is able to expand and extend these capabilities creatively. Changing a material allows one to understand fundamental concepts of changing entities within the Sandbox editor. Using the proximity trigger provides a quick and easy way to trigger events. The area trigger may also be used but unless one one requires an irregular shape it is quicker to use a proximity trigger. I believe foundational learning within this area is critical to creating creative scenes within the Sandbox editor. Once this is mastered, one is able to move forward more independently, exploring flowgraphs in creative ways.

One way to demonstrate an elevated understanding of this is to demonstrate in the tutorial how to create repeated copies of glowing entities with triggers which operate independently without having to reimport each flowgraph (this is by creating the flowgraph on the entity and then copying the entity and trigger to several locations). To create a trigger with several entities which glow then you create the flowgraph on the trigger and copy the entity which then continues to be attached to the single trigger.

Increase Particle Effect In Relation To Time

This is to show my working on measuring time by increasing the intensity of a particle effect the longer the AI remains within a proximity trigger.



This was the first attempt that really worked. At first when the AI entered the trigger area the particle effect would appear to quickly so I added a delay to make it clearer that the AI had actually stopped within the area. In this example the AI enters the trigger area, the particle effect starts up and then a few seconds later it spawns again but then there is no further increase in intensity in relation to time.

After playing around some more I got this:



A much simpler graph which is infact more obvious. On start of game the proximity trigger is enabled (the flowgraph is attached to this proximity trigger). On entering the proximity trigger we attach a Logic:Any to allow the entry of a time delay loop. The time delay loops round so that every second (indicated by the 1) it triggers the next step which is to spawn the particle effect.



The only problem with this is that it works as it is attached to an AI who remains on the trigger point having moved there. Infact it would be more accurate for the particle effect to stop spawning once the AI or player leaves the area.

Increase Glow On Each Entry To Trigger Area

This flowgraph is attached to the object I want to glow (the lantern box). There is a proximity trigger set up. Each time I enter the trigger area the glow increases by 0.2 for a maximum of 10 entries.

This video shows the increasing glow each time the player enters the trigger area.



This video shows the installation of all the custom made lanterns on the frame of the railway model. The player triggers the lanterns to increase in their glow each time the player enters the frame of railway.

Custom Model

This is a custom model I made in Sketchup. Based on a Chinese lantern, the inset design is a scaled version of one of the components of the frame for the railway track. I hope to attach this to a flowgraph so the longer the player spends within the railway framework the brighter the lanterns will become. The inset design thus indicative of what it represents.



All other structures in the environment were created using parts of the railway structure provided and then manipulated and the material changed within Sandbox Editor.

Trigger Lights

This was an early flowgraph on triggering lights. For maximum effect, several lights need to be used and carefully located.

Trigger Glow Material

As the lights, according to my research earlier, can only sustain up to 32 items, I am exploring lighting using the glow effect in the material editor. The flowgraph below begins with a start node which opens the material as it is set on the geometric entity. When the proximity trigger is entered, in this case when the player walks through the entities, the material glows by raising the value float in the maths node and setting the parameter float to glow ie the material aspect which will change.

The geometric entities are semi-opaque railway sleepers which have been manipulated, to produce the maze of posts and then set to the vertical. They are set in sets of 10 and have been distributed through the main tunnels of the railway framework. Their material has been changed to 50% opacity so the player is encouraged to walk through them.

This effect is interesting although I think that a time delay node needs to be input so that the glow effect does not trigger in front of the player. Alternatively the glow parameter can be set to change on leaving the trigger area which would be less complicated.

Triggering Glow Effect On Leaving The Proximity Trigger:



I have changed the flowgraph to trigger on leaving the proximity trigger. This works better as it is less confusing for the player.

Spawning Fire - Mastered

This is the new flowgraph which now works correctly. Whenever the player stops moving for 5 seconds then a fire spawns in the position of the player. This will help track the movement of the player.

Spawning Fire 2nd Test

This is spawning every 5 seconds after the initial stop whether you are moving or not. So it is still not working quite how I want it.