Collapsing Bridge

When you first start Carnival you will find yourself at a bridge, which, after you cross it, collapses behind you. Setting the bridge up is fairly simple and requires only a few steps.

Make the Bridge

The bridge uses four object types in its construction:

  • Railpost1
  • PlacedRope
  • BoardUp
  • FeltRope

    Start by placing four rail posts - two at each side of the gap the bridge is to span. Then use two felt ropes to make the bridge's hand rails. You may need to stretch the felt ropes to make them reach between the two posts. This should result in something similar to this:

    The lighting used in the picture is a flame - but you should use lighting of your choice.

    Next add in the planks (BoardUps). Set out a serious of planks to cross the span, with a slight gap between each one, so that they form a level walkway. Then, starting from the third plank in from the side, start reducing the height slightly to form a dip in the bridge towards the center. Now place four more planks running at 90 degrees to the others to act as supports - two at each end of the bridge. You should end up with a side on view that looks something like this:

    Finally add the ropes. Each plank requires two ropes to make it appear connected to the hand rails above. If you create a PlacedRope you will find the rope starts at the center of the object and drops for about 15 feet. This means that to line up the rope with the hand rail you should have the center of its box level with the rail - NOT the top. To alter the rope's length you need to change the following properties:

    Add->Physics->misc->rope

    This brings up the following box:

  • Desired Length: This is the length you wish the rope to be.
  • Length: This seems to be the actual length of the rope.
  • Deployed: Tells DromEd if the rope is deployed or not. Leave ticked.

    The values for length and desired length are both in feet. I have found that both length options need to be set to the same value to get a precise length on the rope. You may want to experiment with these values to find out more about them. Fiddle with the length until it is what you require, then copy the rope (INSERT) the required number of times to complete the bridge. The finished bridge should look something like this:

    Making it collapse

    Making the bridge appear to have collapsed is straight forward. All you need to do is make the center planks vanish - achieved by destroying them. Create a destroy trap:

    And link it to each of your planks using a ControlDevice link:

    What you are doing with these links is telling the destroy trap to control (destroy) each of the planks when triggered.

    Once that is done you need to set up a trigger for the destroy trap. In this case the trigger is to occur when a set area is entered. The best way to do this is to create a bounds trigger - a trigger that goes off every time the player enters its boundries. Create the bounds trigger and place it where you want the player to be when the bridge collapses:

    Now link the trigger to the destroy trap via a control device link:

    Your bounds trigger is now set up to activate the destroy trap when you walk through it. Go in game and test it to make sure it works.

    Adding Sound

    To give the bridge a touch more realism it would be better if it made some sound as it colapsed. A good way to do this is to use a VOTrap (voice trap) - the same device that is used to make the player speak. Create a VOTrap and place it at the same place as your bounds trigger:

    Link the bounds trigger to the VOTrap via a control device link. (so it is triggered when the bounds trigger is entered):

    If you tested the bridge now you would find there is still no sound. This is because you need to select the sound you wish to hear. You may wish to add your own custom sound (by replacing one of the SFX sound files) or just use one already there. To find a list of available sounds look in sound->schema in the object hierarchy and look through the sub catagories:

    Once you have chosen your sound write down its number (-XXXX) as you will need it to link to the VOTrap. Now open the VOTrap's link box and set up the following link:

  • Flavour: SoundDescription - this is the type of link that causes a sound to be played.
  • From: Your VOTrap number
  • To: The number of your chosen sound.

    Now test your bridge again. It should both collapse and play the sound BUT you will also notice that the sound replays every time you re-enter the trigger. To fix this the trigger must be destroyed after triggering just once. This is done by linking the destroy trap to the trigger via a control device:

    This link MUST be added last to ensure the bridge is destroyed before the trigger or your bridge will no longer collapse properly.

    Your bridge is now complete!

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