How To Make Special FX Disappear After A Few Seconds?

klixan · July 2013

I have a truly awesome quest called 'Destroy the Crate'. I have a wooden crate that disappears after the player interacts with it, to be replaced with a billowing cloud of dust. I know, amazing isn't it?

It all works perfectly, except the billowing cloud of dust. I can't get rid of the darn thing! I just want it to appear for a few seconds, then disappear. But it refuses to leave.

This is how I've set things up:

Wooden Crate - Appear When - Immediately
- Disappear When -This Objective Complete (Destroy the Crate)

FX-Billowing Cloud - Appear When - Objective Complete (Destroy the Crate)
- Disappear When - ?

This is where I run into problems, I have the following Disappear options:

Component Complete
Component Reached
This Component Complete
Dialog Prompt Reached
Never
Objective Complete
Objective In Progress

None of them do what I want, which is to disappear after a short period of time. I'm thinking that I could add some type of invisible marker a short distance from the crate that will trigger a 'Component Reached' event when the player reaches it. But it seems a little sloppy though.

Does anybody have any other ideas? I just want to figure out some way to make simple destroyable objects.

Ideally, I'd like to find some way to make attackable/destroyable objects too, like the summoning crystals, whereby you have to physically attack an object to destroy it. It then disappears with an impressive (but brief) specail effect.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

mee2002 · July 2013

You need a timer. Easiest way would be to place an encounter spawning under the map right where the effect is. Make the encounter spawn when the effect goes off, encounter falls to their death, effect disappears when component (the encounter) complete. It will be fairly short. If you want more time for the effect, add something for them to walk on and set them to patrol off the edge with the above set up.

klixan · July 2013

Aw the poor lil' monsters! Still, this is a very interesting work around, I will give it a try

lolsorhand · July 2013

You can't place a marker really well and make it invisible, that way it goes poff when the player perhaps either fights something or moves past a corridor. (And there's timers, which aren't that complicated. Just guards vs enemies in a hidden room. Threads here and there describe them.)

klixan · July 2013

Bummer! I couldn't get it to work

This is what I did (see if I messed up) I placed a single Drow Assassin on the map, I set his Y axis as low as I could, so he'd be under the map, then I set him to appear when 'Objective Complete' (Destroy the crate).

I set the Billowing Cloud to disappear when 'Component Complete' and I set the Drow as the component. But as I said, it didn't make any difference. I wonder how long it takes to fall to your death, poor fella!

Anyway, your idea of a Timer is exactly what I need. I'm just trying to figure out exactly what 'Component Complete' means. I'm guessing if you interact with an object, then it's complete, if it dies (an encounter) then it's complete. Do you know what other actions would make something complete?

Cause I'm wondering if I could use something like an invisible crate instead of the poor monster to trigger the 'Component Complete' event. I just need to know how to make it 'Complete'.

lolsorhand · July 2013

Component complete is that interactable used, or encounter dead. Etc.

So put them in a room next to a corridor for example, have the guards fight a group of something. That something has explosion fx on them through component complete. So when the something encounter dies, the fx either appears of dissappears

klixan · July 2013

Does anybody else find this absurd? I can't believe something as simple as a timer was left out of the Foundry. A timer is something I can see myself using again and again. Why on earth wasn't such a feature included?

mee2002 · July 2013

klixan wrote: »

Why on earth wasn't such a feature included?

That is the million dollar question.

Played around with this a bit. Either I misunderstood people talking about it originally, or they changed something, but it seems the mobs won't spawn without something under them. So to make it work, you'll need to sink some type of platform below the surface where the encounter spawns. Have the encounter and platform spawn immediately, then have the platform disappear when whatever reached (When you were previously spawning the encounter). It should work for you. Or you can do the Hard guard encounter vs easy enemy encounter lols mentioned (which will give a bit of randomness to the timer).

klixan · July 2013

Ok, I've found a sort of workaround. I'm working with an outdoor map, so I can't build any hidden rooms, but this is what I've come up with:

I place a spike trap in an out of the way place. I place a Drow Assassin (Drow-Melee-Easy Difficulty 1) on the trap. I set the Drow to appear when "Objective Complete' (Destroy the crate). I then set the Billowing Cloud to disappear when 'Component Complete' and set the Drow as the component.

This works! The Billowing Cloud disappears when the Drow dies. The only problem is, it takes 25 seconds for the trap to kill the Drow. This is too long. Is there any way to increase the damage of the trap? Or maybe I could stack several traps on top of one another and have them all go off at the same time?

lolsorhand · July 2013

klixan wrote: »

Ok, I've found a sort of workaround. I'm working with an outdoor map, so I can't build any hidden rooms, but this is what I've come up with:

I place a spike trap in an out of the way place. I place a Drow Assassin (Drow-Melee-Easy Difficulty 1) on the trap. I set the Drow to appear when "Objective Complete' (Destroy the crate). I then set the Billowing Cloud to disappear when 'Component Complete' and set the Drow as the component.

This works! The Billowing Cloud disappears when the Drow dies. The only problem is, it takes 25 seconds for the trap to kill the Drow. This is too long. Is there any way to increase the damage of the trap? Or maybe I could stack several traps on top of one another and have them all go off at the same time?

At level 60 this will take forever I believe, trap damage does not stack as the player levels. Silly yes, but it's how it is atm.

klixan · July 2013

Bummer! Well, I guess I'll just have to live without special FX then. It was kind of cool to have something disappear in a billowing cloud of dust though.

Ah well, I really hope somebody at Cryptic is actually working on the Foundry Editor. Cause it's the only thing keeping me here at the moment. I just can't believe how incredibly limited it is though

mee2002 · July 2013

Just build under the map and you can still use timers.

klixan · July 2013

How do you build under the map in an outdoor area? Do you use floor objects and other details?

mee2002 · July 2013

All you really need is a floor. I was using a Keep - platform - floortile (40 x 40) and set it to -20. I had encounters set to -15 (all relative to terrain) and it worked, but you can see/hear the mobs so might want to do -50/60.

eldarth · July 2013

Yes - floortiles and invisible walls under terrain. Also note that wherever placed needs to be within 256' of PC.

floortile 40x40 - set y=-50
invisible walls C 40x40 set y=-60
spawn easy mob (single drow for instance)
spawn hard guards
time ends (after a few seconds) on easy mob component complete.

Note: "drop to death" timers only work in certain conditions - like cave "rooms" have a "death plane" at y=-81.

mosby1 · July 2013

For a faster outdoor-map timer, use a combat-timer. Spawn a hard guard encounter. Spawn the easy drow assassin. The assassin will die fairly quickly. Despawn the guards when the drow dies, if you want.

If you want to learn a lot more about (indoor) timers, such as how they work and how you can use them, I suggest checking out the DM's Studio (NW-DHZ5DAV4R). It only takes a few minutes; it's not a real quest.

zoiks100 · July 2013

You can have mobs die by falling damage also, but it requires the PC be near them and be between 200' and 250' feet above the ground. The reason for this is that mobs actually STOP in mid-air while falling once they get around 250' away from a PC. And falling damage won't kill something with full hp unless they hit the ground after falling about 450'.

So, for instance, if you put the PC on a platform at 200' above the ground, and then spawn a mob at 450' above the ground, the mob will fall to it's death. If you have the PC at 0' and the mob spawns at 450', nothing will happen as the mob is too far from the PC to spawn. If you have the PC at 400' and the mob spawns at 450', the mob will spawn and fall, but will never reach the ground unless the PC jumps down (if they do though, the mob will actually still die, distance fallen is apparently stored when mobs go into limbo). And if you have the PC at 0' and the mob spawns at 250', the mob will fall and take some damage, but won't die from the fall.

Note that fall damage is a percentage of total hp, so 450' = 100%, shorter falls will be less than that. Also elite mobs are immune to fall damage, an extra perk to being elite I suppose.

eldarth · July 2013

That's why I like to fill 'em full of arrows from about 40 standard archers when they get spawned 40' away.
They bleed out pretty quick. :-)

klixan · July 2013

I've done some more playing around with this. Having a platform under the ground with some guards and one poor assassin, does work! It takes 13 seconds for them to kill him though (which is still too long. About 2 secs would be fine I think).

I'm just flabbergasted that something as simple as having a cloud of dust disappear after a few seconds is so incredibly complicated to achieve. Timers are an absolute essential for so many things, I can't believe they forgot to include them.

zoiks100 · July 2013

From the sound of it a falling mob timer is what you want, but I'm guessing you can't create a deadfall on your map?

Beyond that you aren't going to be able create a timer that will be reliable or scale well with level. I would suggest just using markers to trigger the dust effect(s) in that case, it will save you a lot of headaches. I've done it that way, and while it looks odd if the player stops to admire the effect, it otherwise works pretty well.

Also there's a dust effect that automatically triggers clouds of dust when the PC moves, though I think it comes with an earth shaking effect as well...

eldarth · July 2013

I've managed to get about a 4-5 second mob/guard timer working.
I'm using a 4-way intersection (hallway)

___] G [___
A__  x  ___A
   ] G [

I've got 4 standard melee guards (2 in opposite sides) "G" above- gives them combat advantage
...and about 16 archers (8 on opposite sides) "A" above -- maybe gives them combat advantage??
And spawn the poor little Drow Assassin at the "x"

You can probably increase the number of archers to increase the speed a bit.

raphaeldisanto · July 2013

For my fast outdoor timer, I use 1 weak guard encounter and 8, yes EIGHT, hard mob encounters. Overkill? Maybe, but I want to make sure that guard dies FAST. They're all placed in a room about 200 feet from where the player is. You can't hear the sounds of battle.

Even at 60, the billowing clouds of smoke don't last much more than a second or two.

Basically, during testing, I simply added mob encounters until the length of time was just about where I wanted it. With eight of 'em pounding the weak guard, it really doesn't matter whether you're level 10 or level 60. He dies pretty freakin' fast either way.

cipher9nemo · July 2013

On a slightly different thought, couldn't you just use a one-time effect? There are a few like that under effects, but not sure if you'll fine one you're happy with.

eldarth · July 2013

cipher9nemo wrote: »

On a slightly different thought, couldn't you just use a one-time effect? There are a few like that under effects, but not sure if you'll fine one you're happy with.

Hah! Fell right into Cryptic's trap -- you'd think that'd work wouldn't you.
Nope. No Component Complete. it just sits there, animation finished.
Pretty annoying. I was hoping to string together a bunch to get the time needed.

How To Make Special FX Disappear After A Few Seconds?

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