Not sure how to implement this, but I think you could scan the floor texture and when you get on a texture that's indoors, stop the rain action.

Yeah, you could stop it completely, but if you wanted the character to be able to look outside and see it snow or rain?

Wouldn't be possible to assign a scan texture function to the particles? Then each particle would disappear as it touches a surface. Although on second thought this might bog down the system.

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- Humphrey Bogart

[This message has been edited by Lost4Ever (edited 16 May 2001).]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions... Eldurin your script works great, I'm just going to modify it now to have elongated raindrops instead of flakes, get it slanting etc... Particles are totally new to me - so much better than the unwieldy .mdl I was trying with.
Thanks again,
-Keith

My efforts at stopping it from raining or snowing indoors is not going too well.

What I am trying to do is check the Z position of the particle vector to see if it is in a solid object. I inserted this code at the end of the rain_particle function (which is similar to the the code given in my earlier post):

code:

---

surface_check = content(MY_POS.Z);
if (surface_check == content_solid)
	{
	MY_ACTION = NULL;
	}
}

---

When I watch the MY_POS.Z variable, however, it does not appear to change, even though it is in the middle of a loop that repeats until I hit the toggle key to stop it from snowing/raining.

This must mean that the Z position is only evaluated when the particle is created. If so, then I am stuck if there is no variable that determines the current Z position of a particle at any given time.

Any ideas?

[This message has been edited by Eldurin (edited 16 May 2001).]

I had a similar problem when making water bubbles rise to the surface of water. I needed to know when they had reached the surface. In the end on my particle move function I used "CONTENT" and it worked perfectly for me.

I would think it should do what you want it to do.

(I'm not sure if I already posted this, it hasn't shown up ??)

I used the "CONTENT" command for my bubble particles that float to the surface of water, in the bubble movement function I'd check the particles .Z position for Passable with the CONTENT command, if it wasn't passable (not water) then I'd terminate the particle & generate a new one.

Worked absolutely brilliant...

Maybe you could use 'Push" values? Do particles have a modifiable PUSH?

Also, I think the AUM has a tutorial on not having snow inside, but still seeing it through the windows..

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I do not recommend using content() for particles. Content() works of course, but is a slow instruction, especially when there are a lot of entities in that region. Using slow instructions in particle functions can influence the frame rate when you have several 1000s of particles.

For testing if a particle has reached the ground or the surface of water, you should compare the particle's Z value against a variable you set before. This method won't decrease the frame rate even if you have 10,000 particles.

Particles do not perform a collision detection, so they have no PUSH value.

[This message has been edited by jcl (edited 16 May 2001).]

JCL is correct, its best to make your particle animations as simple as possible unless you have an 'super computer' and/or the accurate simulation of rain is an important element to your game (and not just an effect). To fix the problem of having rain fall only to certain heights you can set up "rain zones". Each zone covers a certain part of the map and has a unique Z range (i.e. zone over ground stops at Z = 0, the zone over a building stops at Z=500). I did something like this in the upcoming tech-demo.

btw: I know it looks pleasing to have some randomness, but don't raindrops all fall at the same rate? Maybe not, I've been in SoCal too long so I've forgotten. Anybody have rain where they are?