Unreal Script - Advancing the Flashlight

Unreal Script - Advancing the Flashlight

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Lucas

Last night I made a rudimentary flashlight that was either on or off, pretty simple really. Tonight, this has expanded into the ability to attach or remove a flashlight from a gun, and then turn it on or off if it is attached. This also works between guns, so one of your guns might have the light attached, and the other might not. As is my normal, i have created another video that shows this in action.

There are a couple of minor changes in the script from last night, mainly in the Weapon class, as shown here:

simulated function toggleFlashlight()
{
 if(bLight)
 {
  bLightEnabled = !bLightEnabled;
  WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "Weapon sent trigger");
  FlashLightToggled();
  // if we are a remote client, make sure the Server Set's toggles the flashlight
  if( Role < Role_Authority )
  {
   ServerToggleFlashlight();
  }
 }
}

simulated function addFlashlight()
{
 if(bLight)
 {
  PlayWeaponAnimation('reload', 1.0);
  WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "Light removed");
  bLight = false;
 }
 else
 {
  PlayWeaponAnimation('reload', 1.0);
  WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "Light added");
  bLight = true;
 }
}

So, as you can see, not a lot different, but it makes a sizeable difference to the way that the game is played. The only things that really remain to be seen from a functional point of view are the implementation of some animations – which knowing me will be very rough ones; and turning the light off when the weapon is put away, otherwise an artifact of the old light is left in place, and a player could quite easily light up a room in this way.