This this is purely at the concept stage, but I put together a short video of something I've been working on tonight while taking a break from the Underwater Diving Module.
I made some good progress with controlling a baseball using setVelocity to raise it, lower it, and move it in almost any direction. This would be good for a micro-helicopter simulation or a small bug. I then had the idea of adding a camera to it, and that's when it occurred to me to try out the seagull (or crow). I wrote a script where I spawn a crow and throw it in whatever direction I'm looking. Once the crow is thrown, a looping script gets applied to the bird automatically which first gets my position and then goes to four waypoints around my position. This, of course, could be replaced with a map click at a later date, but it's just a proof of concept. I even ran around the airport and the birds all followed me.
Next I'll write into the code a retrieval of the bird where it returns to my position and lands. I figure it would be a lot easier to create a new model, make it a subclass of the seagull and go from there using the built-in AI of the seagull, rather than reinventing the wheel.
Now I have to learn how to attach a camera to the seagull or just be able to look though the seagull's default camera. cameraEffect, I guess.
you are now imagining the crow, replaced by little flying robots that make a permanent BZZZZZZ noise.
"during the night in takistan, a new species began his jouney, the micro-UAV.
with the sound of a bee, this UAV stalk his prey to explode near them, if you look right now, you can see the UAV staking one of his favorite prey : a takistani rebel.
the rebel seems confused and begin the fire with his AK, the fire alerted even more UAV, their BZZZZ sound became even more powerfull, now the prey is scared and begin to run in his house. The prey seems exhausted, but the UAVs try to crash his windows, we can ear the yells of the rebel from our place
*BAM*
there, the micro UAV hunt is over, they explode with their C4 charge in the rebel house, killing him and making a clear way for their best friend : the US special forces, more documentary at 12AM tomorrow"
sometimes, i wish i just sleep, dreaming and living in my own world, and never wake up .... awesome but you guys will miss me
Test 02 of the Micro Air Vehicle concept. Here I launch the MAV, activate a second camera attached to the MAV, then recall and recover the MAV. Eventually I am going to have to figure out how to make a dialog and add one to the camera view. Then I could control the camera, the position of the MAV and close the camera on command. Right now, I have it set to end after 10 seconds or something.
Oh, in the previous video at the top of the thread, I figure with a little scripting, I could throw an object and have all of the birds attack it. Then delete the object and have them return to normal flight loops. It would look like I was throwing out bird seed or something. I think it would be pretty cool.
Great idea! I had a similar concept long time ago, but never got the scripting part. When it helps i can make you an UAV (MAV or another).
PM me if you need some help with models. This kind of stuff would be awesome for Infantry combat. Maybe you should add some Noise for the bird-cam.