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Visual Inspection

(NEW) This feature is valid for Expeditions only.

Overview

In the original game, the main purpose of the Visual Inspection minigame is to show the set of particular objects or viewpoints to the player.

This minigame works as a fly-over of the camera through a certain amount of Watchpoints, with the simple "hit the interval" minigame played in between.

Setup

The general setup of a zone and a stage for this miningame is performed as described in Minigames: Overview.

For the Visual Inspection minigame, the MinigameVisuallnspection settings should be selected in the setting field of the ZonePropertyMinigame prop.

These settings are the following:

  • uiWinHeader – The text of the header that will be displayed in the UI when the player wins the minigame. To display the same text as in the original game, you can use the UI_VI_GAME_WIN_HEADER localization string.
  • uiWinDesc – The main text that will be displayed in the UI when the player wins the minigame.
  • delayWinMs – Delay of the win popup, in milliseconds.
  • showTryAgainPopup – Whether or not should the Try Again popup be shown if the player fails to pass the minigame.
  • exitSound – The sound that will be played when the player leaves the minigame. For details on specifying links to sound files, see Adding Sounds.
  • timeToSolve – The time limit for winning the minigame. If the player exceeds this limit while playing, the minigame is considered failed and closes. In the original game, always set to -1, which corresponds to unlimited period of time.
  • name – The identifier of this minigame within this zone that is used by the corresponding stage of the objective. See Minigames: Overview for details.
  • inputWinMinigameLink – (Not customizable during modding).
  • requiredAbilities – (Should not be used).

  • setting – Settings of the minigame itself. You need to select the MinigameVisualInspectionSetting here, it is required.

    • successHeader – You need to specify here the same text or localization string as was specified in uiWinHeader above.
    • successBody – You need to specify here the same text or localization string as was specified in uiWinDesc above.
    • delaySuccessMessage – The time delay before showing the success text when the player wins the minigame. Typically, it is set to 0.

    • watchpoints – The list of interactive and non-interactive Watchpoints through which the player passes when playing the minigame, see Watchpoints below. To add a new watchpoint, click plus next to this list.

      WARNING: In the watchpoints list, there must be at least 4 Watchpoints (from [0] to [3]) totaly. And, from them, there must be exactly 3 interactive Watchpoints, see below. Otherwise, the player will be able to play the minigame, but will not be able to pass it.

Watchpoints

Watchpoints do the following:

  • They set the rules and behaviour for every stage of the "hit the interval" minigame.
  • They set the initial and final (for the stage) positions and directions of the camera, and duration of the fly-over animation between them.

There are two types of Watchpoints:

  • Interactive. These watchpoints require actions ("hit the interval") from the player. isCinematicOnly should be false for them.
  • Non-Interactive. These watchpoints do not require any actions from the player and set up only the fly-over animation that will be played. isCinematicOnly should be true for them.

WARNING: In the watchpoints list, there must be at least 4 Watchpoints (from [0] to [3]) totaly. And, from them, there must be exactly 3 interactive Watchpoints. Otherwise, the player will be able to play the minigame, but will not be able to pass it.

The mechanics of every watchpoint is the following:

  1. The game sets the camera into the initial (for the stage) position, with the initial direction.
  2. The camera flies over to the final (for the stage) position and direction.
  3. If the watchpoint is interactive, the game allows the player to play the "hit the interval" minigame.

Watchpoint Settings

The settings of every watchpoint are the following:

  • isCinematicOnly – Whether or not this watchpoint is for the fly-over animation only. Should be false for Interactive watchpoints and true for Non-Interactive ones, see above.
  • delayBeforeStartSliderAnimation – the time delay before the slider will start moving in the "hit the interval" minigame.
  • sliderStartFrame – The delay, in frames, before the slider is visualized. Tuning of this delay allows to set up (roughly) the initial position of the slider on the line.
  • sliderRateModifier – The multiplier that sets up what frames with a slider will be visualized, and, correspondingly, the visual speed of the slider movement. Particulary, 1 means that the slider will be visualized every frame and corresponds to a minimum speed of the slider; 2 means that the slider will be visualized every second frame and its speed will be twice higher, etc. Values starting with 4 are not recommended.
  • substractPosition – The position of the target interval in the "hit the interval" minigame. Along with fixed positions, the list of values contains RANDOM, which corresponds to a random position of the interval.
  • substractDifficult – The difficulty of the "hit the interval" minigame that corresponds to the length of the target interval.
  • delayBeforeSubstractShow – The delay before the visualization of the target interval, in milliseconds. The recommended value is 300.
  • delayBeforeSliderShow – The delay before the visualization of the slider, in milliseconds. The recommended value is 700.

  • cameraSettings – Settings of camera the internal zone for this watchpoint. You need to select the WatchpointCameraSettings class here, it is required.

    • Duration of transition – The duration of the "fly-over" animation of this watchpoint, in milliseconds.
    • Delay at start – The delay before the playback of the "fly-over" animation, in milliseconds.
    • Delay at end – The delay after the playback of the "fly-over" animation, in milliseconds.
    • cameraPosStart – The camera position at the beginning of the "fly-over" animation. See below for a hint.

    • cameraDirStart – The camera direction at the beginning of the "fly-over" animation. You should specify the direction vector here, e.g. (1, 0, 0). See below for a hint.

      WARNING: If you leave cameraDirStart with 0 values, the animation will not work.

    • cameraPosEnd – The camera position at the end of the "fly-over" animation. See below for a hint.

    • cameraDirEnd – The camera direction at the end of the "fly-over" animation. You should specify the direction vector here, e.g. (1, 0, 0). See below for a hint.

      WARNING: If you leave cameraDirEnd with 0 values, the animation will not work.

Position and Direction of the Camera

You can identify correct camera positions and directions for watchpoints using the Editor.

Particularly, you can:

  1. Open the level in the Editor.
  2. In the Editor, move the camera to the necessary point of the level and set its correct direction (roughly).
  3. Show the exact values of the current camera position and direction, by pressing the Statistics () button on the toolbar or pressing CTRL + T.
  4. Use these exact values when configuring the watchpoint.

See Tip on cameraPos and cameraDir values for details.