A little progress report

[Marcello]

Maybe Trylon has implemented a fourth person camera!!!!

[Trylon]

fore example - but those don't require parenting, but rather animation support (though we can still do simple animations in python)

I was referring more to adding a fixed camera to a moving object - and then the camera would move along with the object.

I already experimented with parenting kickables to various other objects (parenting it to other kickables doesn't really work btw)
Should be interesting to see what parenting kickable to a a camera does.
oh, parenting lights and sprites (lamp glares) to kickables works already btw.

Hmm - a kickable, parented to a light, a sound emitter and a lamp glare sprite. Does anyone smell "kickable!"?

Oh, btw - I got swimming regions working again. Problem was in getting the physics for it just right...

[Aloys]

When you say 'parenting' how does that actually work in Blender? Just selecting two objects (or more) and hitting ctrl-P?
It's not that simple? (please tell me it's not )

It is.
Well, you have to enable the "actor" flag on those objects as well, since that actually gived them a coordinate interface, but that's all.

[Chacal]

wtf is parenting?

[Nadnerb]

It is where one object (the "child") inherits transforms from it's "parent", with the effect of "attaching" the child to the parent. Hence, when the parent moves, the child moves, when the parent rotates, the child rotates around the parent, when the parent is scaled... well, we don't really want to do that, do we?

Firemarbles, as mentioned before, are a good example of parenting. It is a spherical kickable, parented to a glow/flare sprite, a light, and probably a sound emitter. When you kick the parent kickable, the other stuff follows.

[Chacal]

Ah yes I see. Thanks.

/me wants a camera parented to the butterflies in Relto.

[Marcello]

Can parenting be interactive? Like being turned on and off on the fly? What I'm getting at is that at some point we want to make the avvie move with another moving object. Like a cart, an elevator, whatever. I assume the same process is applied there.

[Grogyan]

Ah yes I see. Thanks.

/me wants a camera parented to the butterflies in Relto.

Thats an interesting experiment, a moving camera associated with the butterflies looking at the avatar.

Ooh, even better, submitting this idea to Cyan to add to an existing page or associate it to a new one for MOUL.

[Nadnerb]

Can parenting be interactive? Like being turned on and off on the fly? What I'm getting at is that at some point we want to make the avvie move with another moving object. Like a cart, an elevator, whatever. I assume the same process is applied there.

The situations you describe are implemented as "subworlds" in uru. Basically, the camera and the avatar are parented to the subworld, which moves relative to the rest of the age. This effect is used most heavily in Gahreesen for the rotating buildings. (which are also inside the subworld) However, the effect goes farther than that because of the way it is implemented. Colliders inside the subworld occupied by the local avatar are considered static by the physics system, and the rest are ignored. So really, subworlds reverse-parent the rest of the world when you enter them, moving the world around you and keeping you still.

I don't know of any near-future plans by the plugin devs for subworld support though.

[Marcello]

Nadnerb... you aren't sending any hints towards those hardworking plugin writers are you

Because if you aren't... I will