This is a long read but it covers just about everything I know about distance view triggers and you can do some really cool stuff with them.
You have a distance view trigger that is triggered by a normal trigger in exactly the same way you would set up a mover or a special event etc.
what happens is that whenever you (or a bot) touches the trigger, any bots that are within the radius of the distance view trigger immediatly get alerted to your exact location on the map.
The normal setup would be that you have a distance view trigger next to a defense point with the collision settings of the distance view trigger set so it covers the defense point completly. Then you would add a trigger that triggers the distance view trigger which would be placed at the point where you want the bots to mainly shoot at the enemy.
So for example, in CTF-Face, if you wanted the bots to snipe the enemy as they pick up the redeemer. You'd place distance view triggers at all the sniping points on your tower, and a trigger that covers the redeemer area in the opposite tower. Whenever someone goes to get the redeemer in the enemy base, the sniping bots will immediatly be alerted and will attempt to snipe them.
Of course, you need to repeat the process if it's a ctf for the opposite tower so the enemy bots can do the same to you.
Now for the smaller tricks you can do.
Firstly, you only really need the bots to be alerted if it's a bot/human from the other team that triggers the trigger. So it's actually better to use a team trigger instead of a regular one.
The way team triggers work is you set a team number (0=red, 1=blue, 2=green, 3=gold)
The team trigger will be triggered by people from every team EXCEPT the team number you gave it. So if you are setting up a trigger for the red team's sniping bots, you set the team to 0 and the bot will be triggered by all other players except the players on the same team. If you are setting up a blue sniping spot then you need to set the team to 1 etc etc.
The next thing is that you might want a sniping bot to snipe at other snipers. Now you can set it up in the same way, but imagine the following situation
- A blue bot is about to go for some sniping and you are on the red team.
- You go up to a sniping spot where you trigger a distance view trigger on the blue tower.
- Nothing happens since the blue bot hasn't got there yet so you are camping happily.
- The blue bot arrives, but he doesn't know you are there since he wasn't there when you touched the trigger so he isn't alerted to your presence.
-You can blow his head off without having to worry about the bot sniping back at you since he doesn't know you are there.
This obviously won't do.
In the triggers properties you'll find a property called "RepeatTriggerTime". What this does is it causes you to repeatedly trigger the trigger whilst you are in the trigger's radius. So for example, if you set a value of '5' then as long as you are in the triggers radius, you will continue to trigger the distance view trigger every second thus repeatedly alerting the bot to your presence.
Basicly, in the end you ought to give all your triggers a RepeatTriggerTime of say, 3 so that if you are already inside a trigger's radius when a bot goes to defend he will still find out that you are there.
Remember, a single distance view trigger ca be triggered by multiple triggers and a single trigger can also trigger multiple distance view triggers.
The most efficient method for placement I do is:
- Place team triggers at strategic points where you want the bots to attack the enemy. For example, in face I'd put one in the entrance to the base, one round each side of the towers, one at each of the sniping spots, perhaps one at the keg of health and maybe one on each path in the middle.
- Give all the triggers unique events such as "REDKegOfHealth" or "REDTopSnipingSpot"
- Go to each sniping point on the opposite tower.
- Move the camera so it is exactly at the point where the bot will be sniping from (So you can see exactly what the bot will see when they are sniping)
- Check to see which triggers are in view
- For every trigger that is in view, add a distance view trigger and give it the same tag as the trigger. For example, if there is a defense point where you can only see the keg of health and the top sniping spot in the opposite tower, I'd add 2 distance view triggers, one would have a tag of "REDTopSnipingSpot" and the other would have a tag of "RedKegOfHealth"
- Either repeat the process for the opposite team, or copy the existing triggers and distance view triggers and change all the events and tags to BLUE instead of RED.
(It's all very tedious, but it's kinda cool to play the map afterwards with a few sniping bots and get your head blown off every time you get the keg of health or go to snipe the enemy team. Not to mention the fact that reviewers should be impressed
)
The last thing I ought to mention is that afaik, all the distance view trigger actually does is make the bot aware of the location of the player that triggered it. I made a pretty crappy one on one map a while ago, but I used this to make the enemy bots really sharp.
Normally, when you are playing a one on one, you often pick up sound cues so you know where the enemy is. For example, you know where they are if you hear them use a lift or open a door etc.
Bots can't do this too well, but you can simulate it using distance view triggers. I tried this and it actually worked REALLY well.
- Place a distance view trigger somewhere in the middle of the map.
- Give it a decent tag like "ISeeYou"
- Set it's collision radius and height so it covers the entire map
- Place triggers where you will make a noise if you go there. For example, place triggers on lifts, noisy pickups, doors, creaking floorboards, in shallow water etc.
- Adjust their collision radius and height as normal and give them all the event "ISeeYou".
Now when you play the map, whenever you use the lift, or open the door, the enemy bot will immediatly know exactly where you are on the map and will try to cut you off just like a human would in a 1on1.
I don't know if this would work too well in anything other than a 1on1 map since it would probably start to confuse the bots if they suddenly knew where everyone was on the map and try to attack them all at once or whatever.
