Castle Paradox

djfenix · Joined: 12 Mar 2003 Posts: 359

There isn't any command for it, but I'm not sure if there's any way to get this done.

Just waiting for ticks seem highly unreliable, and the length of ticks change from computer to computer.

What i'm trying to do is have events cue on music. So i broke up the song into parts (essentially, the same song as two separate songs). So the camera would simply pan as long as it takes for the first part of the song, then the events would trigger once it gets into the second part.

So, what i was thinking of doing is using the computer's internal clock. I would first have to know the length of each song by minutes/seconds/milliseconds, then i would need to know the clocks current time. I would add the time of the song to the current time, and have the next song cue up when that time arrives along with the events to follow.

This is just my approach in my head right now, I'm not exactly sure if it'll work. But is there anything that may be simpler than this?

Calehay · Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 4:57 pm Post subject:

I tried your method, and the results were far from ideal. Since the smallest measurable unit of time is a second, you're going to deal with some very noticeable delays or early movements unless your music is 60 BPM and starts exactly at the tick of a second. (And also if your computer notates a new tick at the exact start of a second. On mine, it was pretty much spot on, but I don't know about others.)

Anyway, here's the script I used:

TMC · Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 5:17 pm Post subject:

EDIT: Oh, Calehay posted before me. Note that ticks don't' fall at the beginning of seconds by default, and a single tick might be longer than a secod if the player suddenly maximises the window or something.

If your music is MP3/OGG, then you could import the pieces as sound effects instead, then you can use 'plot:sound is playing' to check if they're finished.

Otherwise, your idea's the approach Pepsi is using in Powerstick Man for timing textboxes to music. I added the milliseconds command in Ubersetzung for that purpose:

Calehay · Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 5:45 pm Post subject:

That milliseconds command isn't in the plotscript dictionary. So, does milliseconds report the current system millisecond, or the game play millisecond? Also, does it add milliseconds on as time goes on?
If not, wouldn't it reset to 0 at some point?
_________________
Calehay

TMC · Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 6:05 pm Post subject:

I hope you're not looking at the plotscript dictionary on the wiki. That one hasn't been reuploaded in months.

milliseconds reports milliseconds since the computer turned on. It loops over to -2147483648 after 2147483647 (provided you are using a nightly. This fix would have appeared in Ubersetzung+, but that was never released. But it only loops over every 45 days, so you should be safe enough) Anyway, it is perfectly safe to use despite rolling over occasionally, as long as you always subtract one milliseconds value from another!

For example, in 32 bit signed arithmetic, -2147483648 -- 2147483647 == 1

Now, if the script is rewritten to