believe it or not, I'm new to the blender game engine

I am very interested in making games in blender, but I have a number of problems/questions.
I have done several searches on this forum, and have not found any answers.
I have absoluteluy no programming knowlege, and so would like to avoid python.
I have a basic grasp on the logic brick system, and reasonable modeling/animating skills for non-game engine blender.
I am on dial-up, so I have not had a look at the video tutorials in the sticky or downloaded anybodie’s games, and I have not found any very helpful or up to date tutorials anywhere.

1-Is there a (recent) list/explanation of the features/options available in the game engine? I have no Idea what a lot of things are, or how to use them.

2-At the moment, I am trying to make a walk cycle work in the game engine, but the armature seems to have no effect on the person mesh. do bones work in the GE? is there a better/alternative way to do this?

3-I can’t seem to get an object to be able to change another object’s property (such as a bullet lowering a player’s Health property).

I have many other questions/problems, but the above are just the ones that come to mind at the moment.

thanks in advance for any help given. :slight_smile:

start by reading this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20011207173733/www.blender.nl/gameBlenderDoc/book1.html

Read the board questions often, there’s been a lot of beginner questions that ask the same thing.

Thanks for posting the link, but every link on the page I try just brings me to a blank page that says “Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)”.

I have absoluteluy no programming knowlege, and so would like to avoid python.

Bad mistake. If you’d like to make any type of complex game later down the road, you can’t avoid it. Learn it sooner or later, it’ll make your life a whole lot easier. It’s just scripting, not like you’re coding the GE in C++.

I have a basic grasp on the logic brick system, and reasonable modeling/animating skills for non-game engine blender…

2-At the moment, I am trying to make a walk cycle work in the game engine, but the armature seems to have no effect on the person mesh. do bones work in the GE? is there a better/alternative way to do this?

Bones do work in the GE. Some extra armature features avaliable in the regular side of Blender may not function in the GE, I believe (forgot if that applied to constraints).

1-Is there a (recent) list/explanation of the features/options available in the game engine? I have no Idea what a lot of things are, or how to use them.

Yeah there is http://www.mindinnovations.dyndns.org/modules/xfsection/article.php?articleid=7. Basically describes logic bricks and python for use in the GE. Coupled with the materials documentation found on blender.org for the new version of blender GE and you’re set.

3-I can’t seem to get an object to be able to change another object’s property (such as a bullet lowering a player’s Health property).

  • Bullet has property ‘bullet’.

sensor->controller->actuator

  • Person has property ‘life’
    collide(‘bullet’)->AND->property(life,-10)

That’s more or less along the lines (grossly simplified), but it’s a little more complicated than that.

Jason Lin

goldentaiji- thanks a lot for the link.
I plan to learn python (and C or C++) shortly.

  • Bullet has property ‘bullet’.

sensor->controller->actuator

  • Person has property ‘life’
    collide(‘bullet’)->AND->property(life,-10)

correct me if I’m wrong, but doen’t this have the Person object checking for collision with the Bullet? if that’s the case, each person or monster would have to have a sensor for every type of projectile. for example, if I wanted bullet A to do 10 damage, and bullet B to do 6, do I have to have
collide(‘bullet A’)->AND->property(life,-10) and
collide(‘bullet B’)->AND->property(life,-6)
and so on for everything that deals damage? or can I have bullet A
collide(‘player’)->AND->property(life,-10)
(and something to specify that it only effects the object it collided with)?

[edit] Sigh… I tried several more times, and I just can’t seem to get armatures to work do anything in the game engine. the mesh is all parented and stuff correctly, so that it works in the non-game engine blender, but the mesh just goes to it’s default position when I run the game. I tried an IPO actuator to make the armature move, but it still does nothing. any suggestions? (I’m using blender 4.0)

many thanks in advance.

Thanks for posting the link, but every link on the page I try just brings me to a blank page that says “Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)”.

Hmm yeah, some of the links are broken. There’s a more updated version here :
http://download.blender.org/documentation/NaN_docs/BlenderGameReference/

Sigh… I tried several more times, and I just can’t seem to get armatures to work do anything in the game engine. the mesh is all parented and stuff correctly, so that it works in the non-game engine blender, but the mesh just goes to it’s default position when I run the game. I tried an IPO actuator to make the armature move, but it still does nothing. any suggestions? (I’m using blender 4.0)

Err… I thought you said you had some decent knowledge of the GE logic bricks. %| This may sound silly but have you selected the armature, and add the “Action” actuator? There you can specify the action for the armature and the frames you want played.

About the bullet stuff. Yeah you could have that. That’s the way to do it without python. The thing about blender is, there’s more than 1 way to do things. If you knew python you could use getHitObject() and have the bullet itself take off life from the object it hits (gotta make sure it’s a person though). Or you could simply use a ray from the gun and call getHitObject() and take off life from the human target (no bullet’s involved). In many shooting games, you don’t see the bullets anyway.

:wink: So if you learn python scripting (I wouldn’t say too hard) and have some good knowledge of how the GE works, you could come up with anything almost.

Jason Lin

I thought you said you had some decent knowledge of the GE logic bricks

ehh, well… apparently I was wrong…
However, I found and tried the action actuator, and it does nothing but crash blender. (yes, I used it on the armature, and parented it correctly, and set the frame, and typed in the appropriate Action, etc. etc.)

I guess now’s as good a time as any to learn python. On that note, does anybody know of any good tutorials/documentations for python?

again, thanks in advance for any help.

I guess now’s as good a time as any to learn python.

Actually, no. Learn to use the logic bricks first. Python is an advance from that.
Armatures are a little flakey in the engine so don’t even make them actors.
Parent the armature to an invisible box about the same size. Select both the box and the armature. Run a wire from the box controller to the armature action actuator. You can post a simple blend if you need help, but make a simplified version that has only the walk motion or something on a ground plane.