Deciphering Col_flags4

[Branan]

Alright. There seems to be very little information on what the different flags in the col_flags4 field acutally do. It's known that they are only used for objects with mass, but other than that...

Alright. I'm going to list them, and what's known. As stuff is deciphered, I'll add the information to the first post. This should be something that can be scientifically tested in a test age, but there are a lot of combinations.

Zero question marks means it's 100% proven. One question mark means at least one person has said that's the case, or there's pretty good evidence so far. Two means there is have some idea from testing, but it's not exactly ironed out yet. Three are things that have been inferred from the name, with some degree of probability. Four question marks are used when it's inferred from the name, but it's kind of a guess. Five question marks mean that I have no idea, and neither does anyone else I've talked to.


kDisable: ? Apparently, Nothing.
kWeightless: ?? No effect on regions. Appeared to lower friction slightly on kickable.
kPinned: ? Collision on, can't move or translate. Disabling this on a region disables the region.
kWarp: ????? No effect on regions.
kUpright: Translation only. Rotation disabled. No effect on regions.
kPassive: ? Same apparent effect as suppressed
kRotationForces: ????? No effect on regions.
kCameraAvoidObject: Camera moves to avoid view being blocked.
kPhysAnim: ????? No effect on regions
kStartInactive: ????? No effect on regions.
kNoSyncronize: ?? No apparent effect on regions. Unknown on kickables.
kSuppressed: Stays still, no collision. Disables regions.

Testing Techniques:
Kickables: Create two kickables. I recomend something that will roll, in case one of these disables rolling. Say two beach balls. Apply each flag in turn to only one of those balls, and see what happens. Always keep the other ball as a control.
Static Colliders: Same as above. I recomend visible colliders, so you can see if any of these effect visibility.
Regions: Use footstep regions. They make a noise, so you can see what's happening to them.
Scripts: Try moving and rotating an object with a script, applying the flags in turn. Also, see what happens if the flag is toggled with a script, if said toggling is possible.

[Nadnerb]

Supressed = holds position with no collision detection
Pinned = holds position with collision detection
Disabled = no effect: kicks around just as well as my "control" box.
Weightless = still fall to the ground, but seems to have less friction.
Passive = visibly, same effect as supressed. passive + pinned gained collision detection.
CameraAvoidObject = appeared to have no effect. tested on a pinned object. (to keep it at eye level)
Upright = object can be kicked (translated), but it's rotation cannot be changed. (interesting seeing a cube balancing on it's corner while sliding around)

all of the above results are based on actual uru tests using cubes as kickable objects.

either I'm not adding properly, (I don't think so) or pinning objects seems to disable other effects.

[Branan]

Awesome

I'll try making something tall enough to sit on the floor, but still be in the way of the camera, and see if camera avoid does anything.

SUCCESS! kCamerAvoidObject causes the camera to zoom in closer to the avatar if the object gets in the way.


Footstep Region tests:

kDisable: No effect
kWeightless: No effect
kPinned: On when adding a region. Turning it off made region silent.
kWarp: Couldn't test. Script complains about hex digit 'C' in field. Disabling pinned in order to add warp made area unusable.
kUpright: No effect
kPassive: No effect
kRotationForces: No effect
kCameraAvoidObject: No effect
kPhysAnim: No effect
kStartInactive: No effect
kNoSyncronize: No effect
kSuppressed: Disables Region.


Updated first post with what we've figured out so far.

[Branan]

If someone has a chance, could they look at what happens when a Region is static, rather than dynamic? (mass of 0.00) I'll be at work for the next 8 hours, so I won't have a chance to test it, but I'll still have time to work on classifying and interpreting results.

Thanks.

[Nadnerb]

I tested a 0 mass footstep region and there was no change. (still worked) didn't try to script manipulate the region. I expect that disabling it with kSupress would work fine but that warping it would fail, but, I've definitely been wrong before.

[Robert The Rebuilder]

Adding a non-zero mass gives the object a Plasma coordinate interface, which allows a script to change its position, among other things.

[Branan]

Yeah. That much we know. The current PRP stuff always makes regions with non-zero mass... I just wanted to see if regions worked without mass. They do, apparently.

Is there any reason for this? Also, is there any known performance benifit to having mass or no mass if you're planning on leaving something where it is?

[Nadnerb]

tested. warping (changing it's position with a script) does fail with zero mass regions, (makes sense, since they're no different from any other object, just no collision response.) but suppress works fine.
something else I found: the funcChk age uses physics-suppress to hold the gate in place, which also disables collision. while toggling the physics of a seperate collider object. (open/closed) but you can just as easily (easier, if you ask me) warp a pinned object, which will retain it's collision detection. this would make for more realistic behaviour for moving objects. (being able to jump over the gate when i'ts half down, etc..)
If that has been done already... oh well.

[Robert The Rebuilder]

Paladin:

I think there is a performance benefit to not having a coordinate interface (i.e mass = 0). The Plasma collision engine (Havok) would probably spend less CPU cycles on a fixed item.


Nah'dneb:

I could not get the scripts to move a region; the coordinates that I gave it would always place it somewhere where I could not collide with it. So, I just suppress the gate blocker region instead of moving it.

[Nadnerb]

I posted that last bit about warping a pinned gate object with collision because I had tested and verified it. Not because I was randomly throwing out Ideas. (like the rest of my posts in this thread)