- What You Need For This Tutorial
- What This Tutorial Assumes You Have Already Learned
- What This Tutorial Will Teach You
- Mood Usage
- Mood Defaults
- Frequency of Mood Changes
- Location of Mood Definitions
- Mood Naming Conventions
- [mood_setting*]
- [fog]
- [music]
- [sun]
- [rain]
- [snow]
- [wind]
- [frustum]
- Mood A
- Mood B
- Mood C
- Mood D
A Mood is a block of settings that control the fog near/far distances,
the fog color, the music and how often it repeats, the ambient track
and how often it repeats, the weather type and density, the wind speed
and direction, the color of sunlight, EAX settings, and even (in some
cases) the size of the frustum.
What You Need For This Tutorial
- Dungeon Siege, updated to version 1.09B or later
- A text editor
What This Tutorial Assumes You Have Already Learned
What This Tutorial Will Teach You
- What Moods Are
- What Each of the Blocks and Fields Are
- When and How Moods are Used
- Simple and Complex Examples of Moods
- EAX Settings
- Mood Tips
Mood Usage
Triggers are placed in the world that usually have
bounding boxes or some other method of player detection. The action in
the trigger is "mood_change", with a particular mood name specified.
When a player walks into the bounding box, the game looks up all of the
settings under that mood name and applies them to that character.
Mood Defaults
If you don't specify something in the mood, it will default to zero or off.
Frequency of Mood Changes
A new mood is used anytime that we
want to change anything at all from a previous mood. For instance, if
we want a new piece of music to begin playing when the player reaches a
certain point in the game, then we would need to set up a trigger that
would activate a mood with that piece of music specified under
standard_track = "[music piece]". The next place that the music will
change is when the player reaches another trigger that activates a mood
with a different piece of music.
Anytime we want to change anything controlled by a mood, we have to
have a new mood for it. For example, if we want the player to listen to
different music at some point (while everything else stays the same),
we would have to make a new mood that had everything defined the same
as the previous mood except the music. So some regions have only one or
two moods, while other regions have 10 or more. It depends on whether
you want to change the different elements of a mood all at the same
time or all at once. For example, a player could go from a grassy field
in the middle of the day to a dark crypt. In this case, we would
probably want to change the fog distance, the fog color, turn the wind
and weather off, and change the EAX settings, the music and the ambient
sounds. All of this could be done by changing to one new mood. However
the player could also walk across a large field over the course of two
minutes. Here we could be more subtle, changing to a mood with
different wind and ambient track near the beginning, then a mood with
different music and weather in the middle, and perhaps changing the fog
color at the end. All of these changes would require different moods.
Location of Mood Definitions
The default location is My Documents\Dungeon Siege\Bits\World\global\moods\[map name]\[any name].gas.
Any .gas file located underneath world\global\moods\ can define
moods, but keeping mood files under a directory named after the map
should help organization.
Mood Naming Conventions
Even though moods can be kept in
different files, they are all global. This means that the game loads
all moods in all mood files, and a side effect of that behavior is that
no two moods can have the same name. Here are the guidelines that we
came up with to keep our moods organized.
All mood names are prefixed by the map that they belong to. Even though
this can make mood names longer, it will really help keep mood names
unique. And since we created moods that are specific to each area on
the world map, each mood will also be named after the region in which
it first appears. After that, a number is used to differentiate between
the different moods within a region, although it could just as easily
be a descriptive word or two.
Example:
The map name is: Happyville.
The region name is: first_town.
Some
possible mood names: Happyville_first_town_1, Happyville_first_town_2,
Happyville_first_town_inn, Happyville_first_town_mayor_house.
Mood A
This mood is used in map_world (The Kingdom of Ehb), in
the bear cave at the beginning of the game. It has its own music, no
weather, black fog fairly far away from the camera, and a "cave" EAX
setting.
[mood_setting*]
{
mood_name = map_world_bc_r1_1;
transition_time = 1.0f;
interior = true;
[fog]
{
fog_near_dist = 40.0f;
fog_far_dist = 50.0f;
fog_lowdetail_near_dist = 40.0f;
fog_lowdetail_far_dist = 45.0f;
fog_color = 0xFF000000;
fog_density = 0.5f;
}
[music]
{
ambient_track = "";
standard_repeat_delay = 10.0f;
standard_track = "s_m_Farmhouse_03";
room_type = rt_cave;
}
}
Mood B
This mood is used in the forest just before the crypts
(also near the beginning of the single-player campaign). The fog is
dark green, and there is a little bit of wind. An ambient track with
creaking trees is playing to help the player feel like they are in the
woods, while creepy "crypt" music is playing.
[mood_setting*]
{
mood_name = map_world_path2crypts_4;
transition_time = 2.0f;
interior = false;
[fog]
{
fog_near_dist = 30.0f;
fog_far_dist = 50.0f;
fog_lowdetail_near_dist = 30.0f;
fog_lowdetail_far_dist = 45.0f;
fog_color = 0xFF1e281e;
fog_density = 0.5f;
}
[wind]
{
wind_velocity = 0.5f;
wind_direction = 0.0f;
}
[music]
{
ambient_track = "s_e_ambient_woods_01";
standard_repeat_delay = 10.0f;
standard_track = "s_m_Crypts_01";
room_type = rt_generic;
}
}
[mood_setting*] { ... }
All moods begin with the [mood_setting*] block name and are enclosed in curly braces.
mood_name
All moods need a mood_name defined. All mood names
must be unique. According to the naming guidelines above, since bc_r1
was our bear cave region in the map named map_world, map_world_bc_r1_1
is the first mood in that region.
transition_time
This is how long the mood will take before it completely switches to
the new values. During the transition time, the old mood will be
smoothly changing to the new mood.
Example: The current mood has white fog, music track #1 and no
ambient track playing. The new mood will change to a black fog, music
track #2, and ambient track #2. If the transition time is 4 seconds,
then this would be the progression of the mood change:
- 0 seconds: fog is white (0% black), music track #1 at 100% volume.
- 1 second: fog is light gray (25% black), music track #1 at 75% volume, music track #2 and ambient track #2 at 25% volume.
- 2 seconds: fog is gray (50% black), music track #1 at 50% volume, music track #2 and ambient track #2 at 50% volume.
- 3 seconds: fog is dark gray (75% black), music track #1 at 25% volume, music track #2 and ambient track #2 at 75% volume.
- 4 seconds: fog is black (100% black), music track #2 and ambient track #2 at 100% volume.
More on transition time under
Appendix B: Tips.
interior
This is a true/false value that is used by the mood
manager to control whether or not the fog will change color with the
time of day. If interior = true, then the fog color will not change
with the time of day. Further explanation is given under fog_color.
[fog] { ... }
This block contains settings that deal with fog color and distance.
fog_near_dist
This defines the distance from the camera (in
meters) that the fog begins. You can still see past this point, usually
up to the fog_far_dist, where the fog is 100% thick.
fog_far_dist
This is the distance from the camera (in meters) where the fog gets too thick to see through.
fog_lowdetail_near_dist
When users have their detail settings
bar all the way to the left, this value will be the new fog_near_dist.
If they have the slider at the halfway point, then the fog_near_dist
will be the average of the original fog_near_dist and the
fog_lowdetail_near_dist.
fog_lowdetail_far_dist
Same as above, except dealing with the fog_far_dist.
fog_color
The fog value is made up of four components: alpha,
red, green, and blue. All of these values go from 0 - 255, but it's in
hex. So that means that the scale is 0 - FF. The format for the color
setting is 0xAARRGGBB, with AA = alpha, RR = red, GG = green, BB =
blue. For those not familiar with hex, valid numbers in ascending order
are 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F. Since alpha in fog can be treated
quite differently depending on hardware and drivers, we finally ended
up just setting all alpha values to maximum, so all of our fog settings
have FF for the alpha.
Here are some fog colors from different parts of
the single player campaign:
- Gray fog at the first farmhouse: 0xFF646464
- Dark blue fog in the Arctic Caverns: 0xFF202028
- Green fog in the first forest: 0xFF323F32
- Smoky lava-lit fog in the Lava Caverns: 0xFF4F2800
- Dusty orange fog near Fortress Kroth: 0xFFB49363
- Sandy fog in the Desert Canyons: 0xFFB09070
The brightness of the fog will change with the time of day. This is
behavior defined in the mood manager. At night, the fog color will be
50% of the defined value, morning/evening 75%, day 100%, and mid-day
(noon) 125%. Since the fog actually will get brighter than you define
it, I recommend having none of your color values be over C0 (C0 and
higher will all get translated to FF during the time when the fog is
brightest) unless you prevent the fog from changing color by setting
interior = true.
fog_density
Unfortunately, this is a mostly-useless setting. It
is supposed to govern how thick the fog is between the near and far
dist, but most video cards don't bother to use this information. This
setting is still here for the video card and video driver combinations
that support it. The scale is 0 -> 1.0, which is least thick ->
most thick. You'll find that most of our moods have set this to 0.5.
[music] { ... }
This block contains all ambient track and standard track settings, and the EAX setting.
room_type
This is the EAX setting. EAX, when enabled on a
soundcard that supports it, will filter many of the sounds in Dungeon
Siege through reverb that you specify here. If you want to make it
sound like the player is in a cave, set the room type to rt_cave. The
default is rt_generic, which is a setting with no reverb. All possible
settings can be found in
Appendix A, as well as
world\global\moods\default_moods.gas.
standard_track
This is the standard track, usually used for music. As long as a file
is located in sound\Music, it can be specified here. You don't need to
provide the extension of the file.
standard_repeat_delay
This value is the number of seconds of
silence to have after the end of the track. After this silence, the
music will play again. For any looping tracks, this should be 0.
standard_intro_delay
This value is the number of seconds of
silence to have before the track plays for the first time. This can be
useful if you are using a piece of music that starts with a sudden
emphasis, but you are transitioning into the mood for several seconds.
Without an intro delay, the music would begin playing right away, but
it would start out very quiet. Putting in a standard intro delay that
is equal to (or longer than) the transition time will guarantee that
the music will start at full volume.
ambient_track
This is simply another track that will play at
the same time as the music track. It is a great place to have a small
looping track that plays creaking trees, or a gentle wind sound. The
game doesn't really care what you put here - you could use this to play
a second piece of music at the same time as the standard music track.
ambient_repeat_delay
This value is the number of seconds of
silence to have after the end of the track. After this silence, the
ambient track will play again. For any looping tracks, this should be
0.
ambient_intro_delay
This value is the number of seconds of
silence to have before the track plays for the first time. If you want
to use the ambient track to play a second piece of music, you can use
this to stagger the two pieces of music, so that the ambient piece
doesn't start until the standard piece is done.
battle_track, battle_repeat_delay, battle_intro_delay
Setting
these values will have no effect unless you also modify
mood_manager.skrit to actually play this track. This buried feature has
a possible use for advanced modders. See
Appendix B: Tips for further explanation of possible uses.
[sun] { ... }
If you want to override the default sunlight color table, then you will
need to do it inside a [sun] block. The way this works is just the same
as in the timeofday.gas file:
[00h00m]{ color = 0xFFA4700F; }
[01h00m]{ color = 0xFFA4700F; }
[02h00m]{ color = 0xFFE0A54B; }
// etc...
There
is no limit to the number of time blocks as long as they fit the proper
format. For example, XXhYYm, where XX is the hour between [0-23] and YY
is the minute between [0-59]). The color of the sunlight will
transition smoothly between these colors.
Example:
[05h00m]{ color = 0xFFFF0000; } // red
[12h00m]{ color = 0xFF00FF00; } // green
[19h00m]{ color = 0xFF0000FF; } // blue
At
exactly 5am, the sunlight color would be a bright pure red. Immediately
after this it will begin lessening the red and gaining more green until
noon, when it will be completely green. Immediately after noon, it will
begin gaining blue and lessening green until 7pm, when it will be pure
blue. After 7pm, it will begin gaining red and lessening blue until
5am, when it will be pure red again.
We used [sun] blocks to override the color of sunlight in our snowy areas so that there wouldn't be yellow snow.
[rain] { ... }
Rain settings go inside a rain block.
rain_density
This is how thick the rain will be. Default is 0
(not raining). The maximum is defined in config\weather.gas (we set it
to 300).
lightning
This can be set to either true or false. If true, then it uses settings
in config\weather.gas to determine how often the lightning will flash
and how long after the flash the thunder occurs.
[snow] { ... }
Snow settings go inside the [snow] block. snow_density is the only snow setting, currently.
snow_density
This is how thick the snow will be. Default is 0 (not snowing). The maximum is defined in config\weather.gas (we set it to 400).
[wind] { ... }
Wind settings to inside the [wind] block.
wind_velocity
Velocity of the wind, in meters per second.
Default is 0. If you set this above 5, you may see very strange things
happen with effects that are not wind immune, if you make any. In
tests, monsters that breathed non-wind-immune fire had a lot of trouble
hitting players right in front of them when the wind was set to 20+. We
tend to leave the wind at 5 or less.
wind_direction
Direction of the wind, specified in radians angles from the north vector. So pi/2 would be east, pi would be south, etc.
[frustum] { ... }
If you are going to set the frustum width and height, it needs to be inside of a frustum block.
Warning! Danger! Advanced stuff! Frustum settings are really powerful and dangerous!!
It
is recommended that you do not change the frustum settings unless you
really know what you're doing, or you don't mind experimenting with
things that can seriously change the game (and its performance) at a
fundamental level.
frustum_width
Measurement is meters, recommended value is 45.
We chose this number after carefully weighing world detail vs. system
performance. This number is the radius of the frustum, where the player
character is at the middle. That means that 45 meters out from the
character in all directions, the world is loaded. If this number is
changed to 55, you could push the fog out farther and you wouldn't see
the edge of the world, because you have pushed back the edge of the
world itself. The major downside of this is that you have dramatically
increased the number of things that the game has to keep in memory and
actively process.
frustum_height
Measurement is meters, default is 1000. We chose this number just
because it was large enough that we wouldn't have to worry about it.
This number was chosen before we came up with the crazy idea of really
tall towers. When we came up with towers that would have bad guys on
every floor, we suddenly had too many monsters in the frustum, so we
changed the frustum height to 60. Even this is pretty large; it's very
unlikely that you would ever notice in-game that the frustum isn't
infinite in the vertical dimension.
This is an important quirk: if you switch to a mood that does
not have a frustum measurement defined, then the current frustum size
will be used. This is not usually a big deal, so here's an example of a
(fairly odd) case where it would actually matter. Let's say that you
have changed the current frustum width to be 5. Then the player walks
through a trigger boundary and activates a mood with a frustum width of
45 and a transition time of 20 seconds. So far, so good...the frustum
slowly grows out to 45 meters over 20 seconds. But the player walks
across a new mood trigger after only 10 seconds. The new mood trigger
has no frustum size defined, so it simply uses the current frustum
size. Their current frustum size is 25 meters - halfway between 5 and
45 - and it's going to stay at 25 meters because there was no frustum
width defined in the new mood. If the new mood didn't account for this,
and has the fog pushed out to 45 or 55 meters, the player will easily
see the edge of the world, and this is a bad thing. In one of our
worlds, we changed the frustum size in a few moods, so we took the
precaution of putting a [frustum] block in every mood, and explicitly
setting the frustum width and height to the defaults. This way, we
never run into the above case, and the player should never be able to
see the edge of the world.
This is an example of writing a new mood and setting a trigger to give the mood to the player.
The first thing to do is create a new mood file, unless you
already have one ready. For the purposes of our example, let's say your
mod group is Dungeon Siege Fans (DSF), and your map name is LaserWorld.
The mood that's needed is a dark blue fog for a futuristic indoor
arena, along with some cool techno music (in a file that we'll assume
you added into
\sound\music\cool_techno.mp3). If you want to use a piece of music that actually exists, substitute
s_m_maintheme_03 for
cool_techno.
The new mood file would go in
world\global\moods\LaserWorld\moods.gas.
The filename can be anything, really, as long as it ends with ".gas".
You can have as many mood files in there as you want. Don't forget that
file names cannot contain spaces.
Inside the new file will be your new mood. All of the mood settings will be inside a block that looks like this:
[mood_setting*]
{
}
First, we need a name. The
name of your group is DSF, the map is LaserWorld, and the region is
arena3 (let's say). Here's a good name for the mood:
mood_name = dsf_laserworld_arena3_1;
When the player
arrives at the arena, we want the fog to turn blue pretty quickly. Use
with a two-second transition and flag the arena as "interior":
transition_time = 2.0f;
interior = true;
Let's set up
the blue fog. Start the fog fairly far away from the player, and have a
10-meter distance from where the fog starts to where it's too thick to
see through. Why? Well, it's nicer looking than having a sudden solid
line of fog.
For the color, we want a dark blue fog. Use a small amount of red and
green, with a larger amount of blue: 0xFF202030 will work. I pulled a
value out of the air here...if you really cared about the color, it
would be good to look at it in-game and adjust it as needed.
For fog_density, see the explanation in the field definitions above.
[fog]
{
fog_near_dist = 40.0f;
fog_far_dist = 50.0f;
fog_lowdetail_near_dist = 35.0f;
fog_lowdetail_far_dist = 45.0f;
fog_color = 0xFF202030;
fog_density = 0.5f;
}
Next...some
music. We're going to use the music track "cool_techno.mp3", and it
loops, so we will make sure to set the repeat delay to 0 (leaving the
delay field out would do the same thing). The room type is a very large
room, so an EAX value of "arena" seems like it would fit.
[music]
{
standard_repeat_delay = 0.0f;
standard_track = "cool_techno";
room_type = rt_arena;
}
Ta da! We now have a mood that looks like this:
[mood_setting*]
{
mood_name = dsf_laserworld_arena3_1;
transition_time = 2.0f;
interior = true;
[fog]
{
fog_near_dist = 40.0f;
fog_far_dist = 50.0f;
fog_lowdetail_near_dist = 35.0f;
fog_lowdetail_far_dist = 45.0f;
fog_color = 0xFF202030;
fog_density = 0.5f;
}
[music]
{
standard_repeat_delay = 0.0f;
standard_track = "cool_techno";
room_type = rt_arena;
}
}
The
next step is to make a trigger that will give this mood to a player in
the game. If you haven't read
Siege U: 203A - Triggers I and
Siege U: 203B - Triggers II, then
these instructions may not make sense to you - I recommend consulting
those documents!
Place a trigger_generic and add a spatial condition:
party_member_within_bounding_box.
Move the trigger around until the bounding box covers a section of the
ground that the player can walk to. For the action, choose
mood_change and specify
dsf_laserworld_arena3_1 as the mood name. Save objects before you quit, otherwise your changes won't be saved.
Now you should be able to go into your test map, walk through the
trigger, and see blue fog. Congratulations, you've made a new mood!
Mood A
This mood is used just outside of the Utraean
Peninsula's castle. It is rainy, with a moderately dark gray fog.
Transition time is 6 seconds to make it start raining kind of suddenly,
yet give the fog time to change without being too obvious. A [frustum]
block is present, explicitly setting the frustum measurements to the
defaults (not generally needed, see the above comments in the [frustum]
section.
[mood_setting*]
{
//outside the castle, rainy
mood_name = multiplayer_world_castle_1;
transition_time = 6.0f;
interior = false;
[fog]
{
fog_near_dist = 30.0f;
fog_far_dist = 50.0f;
fog_lowdetail_near_dist = 30.0f;
fog_lowdetail_far_dist = 45.0f;
fog_color = 0xFF505050;
fog_density = 0.5f;
}
[frustum]
{
frustum_width = 45.0f;
frustum_height = 60.0f;
}
[rain]
{
rain_density = 200.0f;
}
[music]
{
ambient_track = "";
standard_intro_delay = 0.0f;
standard_track = "s_m_CastleEhb_02";
room_type = rt_generic;
}
}
Mood B
This mood has darker fog, a little more rain, some wind,
and lightning turned on. The transition time is short because none of
the changes are very severe.
[mood_setting*]
{
//outside the castle, stormy
mood_name = multiplayer_world_castle_2;
transition_time = 3.0f;
interior = false;
[fog]
{
fog_near_dist = 30.0f;
fog_far_dist = 50.0f;
fog_lowdetail_near_dist = 30.0f;
fog_lowdetail_far_dist = 45.0f;
fog_color = 0xFF404040;
fog_density = 0.5f;
}
[frustum]
{
frustum_width = 45.0f;
frustum_height = 60.0f;
}
[rain]
{
rain_density = 225.0f;
lightning = true;
}
[wind]
{
wind_velocity = 0.5f;
wind_direction = 0.0f;
}
[music]
{
ambient_track = "";
standard_track = "s_m_CastleEhb_03";
room_type = rt_generic;
}
}
Mood C
This mood is used in an unusual place in the Utraean
Peninsula. The player is ascending a mountain, and this is after they
have climbed up out of a forest and they are about to go inside a cave.
After going through the cave, they will come out in snowy terrain. So
this mood has some wind and just a tiny bit of snow (there are also
some snow decals on the ground in this area). The fog is dark gray,
keeping nearly the same level of brightness as the previous fog, just
getting rid of the forest green. The fog is also closer than normal.
This is to create a feeling of being in a foggy bank at high altitude.
[mood_setting*]
{
// This mood has a small amount of snow and gray fog
// Music 3
mood_name = multiplayer_world_df2ds_4;
transition_time = 3.0f;
interior = false;
[frustum]
{
frustum_width = 45.0f;
frustum_height = 60.0f;
}
[fog]
{
fog_near_dist = 25.0f;
fog_far_dist = 45.0f;
fog_lowdetail_near_dist = 25.0f;
fog_lowdetail_far_dist = 40.0f;
fog_color = 0xFF363636;
fog_density = 0.6f;
}
[wind]
{
wind_velocity = 1.25f;
wind_direction = 1.57f;
}
[snow]
{
snow_density = 30;
}
[rain] {} // empty [rain] block for lightning manipulation
[music]
{
ambient_track = "s_e_ambient_woods_01";
standard_repeat_delay = 10.0f;
standard_track = "s_m_DarkForest_03";
room_type = rt_generic;
}
}
Mood D
This mood is on top of the mountain. It has the
overridden [sun] block to prevent seeing yellow snow, and our brightest
fog. There is wind, along with a wind sound in the ambient track. Note
the extremely close neardist for the fog; this forces the player to
view everything (including their own character) through fog,
reinforcing the feeling of being of being in a foggy snowstorm. It is
snowing, with moderately strong wind.
[mood_setting*]
{
// Snowy, bright mood to be used near the top of the mountain
mood_name = multiplayer_world_df2ds_7;
transition_time = 5.0f;
interior = false;
[frustum]
{
frustum_width = 45.0f;
frustum_height = 60.0f;
}
[sun]
{
00h00m:color = 0xFF000000;
05h00m:color = 0xFF1A1A00;
06h00m:color = 0xFF66330D;
07h00m:color = 0xFFB39A40;
08h00m:color = 0xFFB3B3B3;
10h00m:color = 0xFFF0F0FF;
12h00m:color = 0xFFFFFFFF;
19h00m:color = 0xFFB39A9A;
20h00m:color = 0xFF66334D;
21h00m:color = 0xFF330D40;
22h00m:color = 0xFF000000;
23h00m:color = 0xFF000000;
}
[fog]
{
fog_near_dist = 5.0f;
fog_far_dist = 40.0f;
fog_lowdetail_near_dist = 5.0f;
fog_lowdetail_far_dist = 35.0f;
fog_color = 0xFFc0c0c8;
fog_density = 0.6f;
}
[wind]
{
wind_velocity = 2.5f;
wind_direction = 3.14f;
}
[snow]
{
snow_density = 200;
}
[rain] {} // empty [rain] block for lightning manipulation
[music]
{
ambient_track = "s_e_ambient_wind_01b";
standard_repeat_delay = 10.0f;
standard_track = "s_m_Glacern_02";
room_type = rt_generic;
}
}
That
concludes this Siege U section on Moods. We have covered the definition
and composition of moods, where and when moods are used, and how often
moods are updated. We have looked a several examples of simple and
complex moods. As you can see, creating moods doesn't have to be hard.
There are plenty already available, and if you want to make your own,
cutting, pasting, and editing an existing mood is the easiest way to
get started. Have fun with moods and good luck!
This is a list of all EAX settings. They are self-explanatory.
rt_alley
rt_arena
rt_auditorium
rt_bathroom
rt_carpetedhallway
rt_cave
rt_city
rt_concerthall
rt_dizzy
rt_drugged
rt_forest
rt_generic
rt_hallway
rt_hangar
rt_livingroom
rt_mountains
rt_paddedcell
rt_parkinglot
rt_plain
rt_psychotic
rt_quarry
rt_room
rt_sewerpipe
rt_stonecorridor
rt_stoneroom
rt_underwater
- Transition time is really a powerful tool. You can make
drastic changes in fog color much less noticeable by having them take
20 seconds. You can change music very suddenly to a loud battle song,
or gently switch from one background piece to another. Anytime the
player goes from inside to outside or vice versa, they will expect to
see a very rapid change in the fog. Likewise, they won't be expecting
any quick changes while they are marching through a forest or field. By
working with these expectations you can keep mood transitions as
invisible or obvious as you want.
- Go ahead and go a little crazy with the fog
colors. Black is usually required when in a dungeon, but when the
player is outside, gray gets boring. If someone had told me near the
beginning of the project that we would end up having red, orange,
green, blue, purple, and gray fogs, I'm not sure I would have believed
them. Gray works most of the time, but adding a little color to the fog
can make the environments feel more realistic.
- Sometimes, it's nice to have a lot of moods with
subtle changes between them. You could use a whole series of moods with
different levels of gray fog so that as the intrepid adventurer got
closer to the Den of Evil, it gets darker, and darker, and darker...
(This would also make it so that if they turned around and walked away,
they would walk back through the mood triggers, making it lighter, and
lighter...)
- The battle_track is a third music track that can
be used, but it will take a little extra work to get it to work, and
you will have to deal with skrit. It was originally added so that the
standard track could play while the player was exploring, and then the
battle track would play while the player was fighting. Fighting is so
common, however, that it became an annoyance to have two different
tracks of music constantly starting up and then changing. So the battle
track became an unused feature. The mood_manager.skrit doesn't even
play this track...but it could. It is located at world\global\moods\mood_manager.skrit.
Discussion of the mood manager is beyond the scope of this introduction
to moods. If enough demand is there, a 300-level document may be called
for and created.
- The weather will have a chance of getting
randomly more or less dense every 15 seconds. This behavior is defined
in the mood manager. It will never go below 50% or above 150% of the
value specified in the mood. The wind will also vary in speed and
direction in a similar manner, never going more than +/- 50% velocity.
If the rain goes over density 200 this way, lightning will be turned
on. If the rain goes below density 200 this way, lightning will be
turned off.
203B: Triggers II
Dungeon Siege II
