Cutscene System

AMC TC features a cutscene system that you can use to create cutscenes of varying complexity. There's alot of settings you can use - for a big example of what's capable check out the AMC TC's intro map (simply named intro.map)

Basics

The first step is to create the camera - at the very least this requires 3 sprites. A Touchplate, an Activator sprite, and a Cutscene cam sprite. First, place the Camera where you want the Camera to view from (The camera sprite's tile number is 3807) - the little red triangle at the bottom shows where the view will originate from. There are many settings to give the camera, but for now we're going to give it just 3. First, give it a hitag of 320, and then a extra of 90, and finally a XVEL of 104 (The Xvel and Extra can be modified by pressing F8 on the sprite in 2D mode) I'll explain what these values do later.

Camera Sprite

Place a touchplate sprite in the sector you want to trigger the camera from (Of course, if you want it to be activated by a switch than skip this step) and give it a lotag of 320. Next, create a small sector away from the rest of the map, and place an activator in it. Make the sector a door sector (lotag 20) then give the activator sprite a tag of 320. This step isn't neccesary if you wish to activate something else in the map as well as view a cutscene; it's only needed if you just want to show something with a camera. If you wish, texture this room with tile 3329 so you know what purpose it serves later on in the map

A example trigger room

Test the map ingame, and you'll notice that as soon as you activate that activator, the cutscene camera will 'roll' and show you what it can see for about roughly 4 seconds. That's the basics down - you can just use this setup to show doors opening on the far side of a map, or enemies spawning. However, much more is possible.

Advanced Usage

The camera has many more settings; it can fade in and out in black or white, move, pitch up and down, turn, as well as display black cutscene bars. It can also activate Masterswitches, Respawn sprites and activators once done (This in turn can be used to trigger another camera via a Trigger room)

Camera's Angle

The Camera's up and down angle can be controlled by setting it's extra value. 90 equals straight ahead. The direction it's sprite tag faces is the direction the camera faces ingame.

Camera's length

The Camera's XVEL controls how long the camera is active for. 26 roughly equals 1 second, so 260 would equal about 10 seconds. It's worth experimenting to see what value suits the camera's movement.

Fading in and out

Fading can be controlled with the sprite's palette value. Simply give it one of the following pals for the effect you want.

Spritepal 3Fade in black, fade out black
Spritepal 5Fade in black, fade out white
Spritepal 6Fade in white, fade out black
Spritepal 9Fade in white, fade out white
Spritepal 10Fade out black
Spritepal 11Fade out white
Spritepal 12AMC Transition effect

Screen Pals

By setting the camera sprite's owner number, you can apply a colour effect to the whole screen.

Owner 0Default
Owner 1Water/Blue
Owner 2Nightvision/Green
Owner 3Flashback
Owner 4Greyscale
Owner 5Heat/Red

Camera Type

There are 3 camera types - normal, cinematic bars, and locked player movement plus cinematic bars. There's also an extra type if your cutscene has text, which clears the text being displayed to make way for the next lot. Just change the sprite's YVEL to one of the following values (Press F8 on the sprite in 2D mode to do this)

YVEL 0Normal type
YVEL 1Cinematic bars
YVEL 2locked player movement, Cinematic bars
YVEL 3Same as above, clear cutscene text
YVEL 4Same as 2; show the AMC ship's cockpit

Movement

The sprite can have a variety of movement; some can be combined together to form a proper moving camera. Consult the following table - values with astericks next to them can't be mixed together, however other ones can. Simply add the values given together, than change the sprite's ZVEL to that value (for example, to make a camera move and pitch up, give it a ZVEL of 10),

ZVEL 1Move camera forward *
ZVEL 2Move camera up *
ZVEL 4Move camera down *
ZVEL 8Pitch Camera up
ZVEL 16Turn Camera (Cam sprite's shade determines speed + direction, positive right & negative left)
ZVEL 32Move camera backward*
ZVEL 64Move camera backward slowly*
ZVEL 128Move camera forward slowly*
ZVEL 256Pitch Camera down
ZVEL 512Move Camera Left (Cam sprite's clipdist determines speed, the lower it is the faster it moves)
ZVEL 1024Move Camera Right (Cam sprite's clipdist determines speed, the lower it is the faster it moves)

Activating things once Camera is finished

Once the camera's time is up, it can activate any Activator, Masterswitch or Respawnsprite with the same lotag as it. Just change it's lotag to what you want to activate, and it will be activated. This can be used to link many cameras together, as well as end the level if a ACTIVATELEVEL sprite is used.

Camera sprite changing sprite - 3811

Camera Changing Sprite

The Camera sprite changer can be used to modify a camera's parameters whilst it is in movement. This sprite passes on most of it's attributes to the camera sprite, so it shares values (consult the tables above to see what values to modify) Place this sprite in the path that the camera will move in. When the camera comes into contact, it will change it's camera angle to match that of the changing sprite (It will gradually change, but if you wish for it to snap instantly to the new angle give this sprite a hitag of 1) Give the changing sprite a spritepal if you wish for a screen flashing effect. The palette can be changed by modifying the OWNER variable. If you give this sprite an XVEL it will change the camera's sprite time to this value. The same goes for the EXTRA value which controls the camera's pitch; give this sprite an extra value equal to the new camera pitch you want and the camerasprite will change to meet it. By consulting the table above and giving this sprite a ZVEL you can also change the camerasprite's movement as well. Finally, if you give this sprite a lotag than when the camerasprite comes into contact with this changing sprite than any activators, masterswitches and respawns with the same tag will activate.

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