Triggers and ScriptedTriggers

Setup

The purpose of a Trigger is to let some action happen when it gets triggered. (captain obvious)

So what we need for our map, is a Trigger, which will be activated/triggered when the player walks in and a ScriptedTrigger to make the action happen.

Place the trigger on your map where it should get triggered.

Open up the properties of the trigger and change the colission radius width and height to fit your map/room. Remember the action will be triggered when the player touches/walks in the radius of that Trigger.

While having the properties window open for the Trigger, head to the Events tab and enter an event name. This example will use the event name "tutorial".

Now when the player walks into the trigger radius, an event with the name "tutorial" will trigger. To let the actual action happen, we need a ScriptedTrigger. So open up the actor window and navigate to Actor -> AIScript -> ScriptedSequence -> ScriptedTrigger and place it next to the normal trigger.

To keep the map nice and clean, it's recommended to put the Trigger and ScriptedTrigger right next to each other so it won't be a mess when you place lots of them.

Open properties window and go to the AIScript category. Click on the plus icon in the Actions section. You are now able to to add a new action by clicking on the "Add" button on the right border of the window.

After adding a new action, we have to select a specific one which is called "ACTION_WaitForEvent". So open up the drop down menu by clicking on ACTION_AddAmmo and select WaitForEvent. (Right on the bottom) After that, click on "New". We tell the action chain to wait for a certain event to trigger.

For ExternalEvent, add the event name of the Trigger which is "tutorial" in this case. The ScriptedTrigger waits until an event with this exact name is getting triggered.

To sum up everything so far, we created a trigger with a specific event name. It gets triggered when the player steps into the radius. The ScriptedTrigger has an action called "WaitForEvent", which then gets activated when the trigger gets activated. The rest of the action gets handled by the ScriptedTrigger.

So we have a ScriptedTrigger ready to do some action, the actual process of the actions is the same now. You minimize the first Actions tab "[0]" by clicking on the minus and click on "Add" to add a new tab for the actions.

For a list of detailed actions, see below. For this tutorial we will be using PlaySound action.

To add the actual sound, go to the sound browser and select a sound you want to use. Go back to the ScriptedTrigger, click in the Sound field and click on "Use" button on right side of the properties window. The ScriptedTrigger adds the sound automatically to the field.

This "PlaySound" action got some additional parameters, for example Volume and bWaitForFinish. While Volume is self explaining, bWaitForFinish is being used to halt the action flow until the sound finished playing, so setting this value to true will wait until the sound is done playing and afterwards continue with the action flow.

Trigger Behaviour

A Trigger can activate one or more ScriptedTriggers at the same time if the event name is the same.

One or more Triggers can activate one ScriptedTrigger when the event name is the same.

                 |------- ScriptedTrigger0
Trigger0 --------|
                 |------- ScriptedTrigger1



Trigger0 --------|
                 |------- ScriptedTrigger0
Trigger1 --------|

Trigger Properties

The trigger provides some additional customizable properties which are very handy.

Property	Description
bInitiallyActive	Whether the trigger is active or not. Can be toggled via scripted actions.
bTriggerOnceOnly	Whether the trigger should trigger once or multiple times
Message	A message to display when it gets triggered
ReTriggerDelay	Delay in seconds before a retrigger can happen if bTriggerOnceOnly is set to false
TriggerType	What can trigger it

TriggerType

Type	Behaviour
TT_PlayerProximity	Trigger is activated by player proximity
TT_PawnProximity	Trigger is activated by any pawn's proximity
TT_ClassProximity	Trigger is activated by actor of ClassProximityType only
TT_AnyProximity	Trigger is activated by any actor in proximity
TT_Shoot	Trigger is activated by player shooting it
TT_HumanPlayerProximity	Trigger is activated by human player (not bot)
TT_Use	Trigger is activated manually by player pressing use key ("F" by default)
TT_SquadMemberProximity	Trigger is activated by squad member

Actions

Action	Description
AddAmmo	Adds a specified amount of ammo to selected weapon
AnimateVisorFX	X
AttachToGunship	Attach an actor's bone to gunship actor (used by briefing levels)
AttachToTurret	Attach a bot/AIController to specified turret
BlinkHUDGrenade	Flash the grenade icons on the HUD (used by first two levels)
BlinkHUDHealth	Flash the health bar on the HUD (used by first two levels)
BlinkHUDShields	Flash the shield bar on the HUD (used by first two levels)
BlinkHUDSquad	Flash the squad icons on the HUD (used by first two levels)
BlinkHUDSquadCommandPrompt	X
Briefing	Makes the player frozen und locked to certain view angle
ChangeLevel	X
ChangeScript	X
ChangeSquadMember	X
ChangeSquadStance	X
ChangeZoneAudio	X
ConsoleCommand	Execute a console command
Crouch	Makes actor linked to scripted action crouch
DamageInstigator	X
DestroyActor	Destroy all actors marked by tag
DestroyPawn	Destroy pawn linked to scripted action
DisplayCriticalMessage	Display a specified message to top center of screen
DisplayMessage	Same as DisplayCriticalMessage
EnableAIState	X
EnableAIVoice	X
EnableBattleEngine	X
EnableBlockedComputations	X
EnableNavPtSpecial	X
EnableSecurePosition	X
EndSection	X
FadeView	X
FailMission	X
FlickerActor	X
ForceBattleMusic	X
ForceState	X
ForceVictoryFlourish	X
GenerateStimulus	X
GotoAction	X
GotoLabel	Jump to specific label name
GotoState	Set the state of certain actor(s) referenced by tags
HurtActor	X
IfCondition	X
IfRandomPct	X
Killinstigator	X
Label	Creates a label with specified name
MakeInvulnerable	X
MoverToKeyframe	X
MoveToPlayer	X
MoveToPoint	X
ObjectiveUpdate	X
PlayAmbientSound	X
PlayAnim	X
PlayLocalSound	X
PlayMovie	X
PlayMusic	X
PlayPropAnim	X
PlaySound	Play a certain sound effect
PlaySoundCue	Play a certain sound cue
ResetFactory	Reset specified factories remaining number of spawns
Revive	Revive a certain pawn (intended for player and squad members)
ScreenFade	Makes the screen fade in a certain color
SetBattleEngineParams	X
SetBattleMusicMulti	X
SetBlocked	X
SetCanCancelMarker	X
SetCannotDie	Sets the property bCannotDie of a specified pawn tag to true or false
SetCollision	Sets various collision properties of actor(s) with specified tag
SetHidden	Hide/unhide actor(s) with specified tag
SetImuseState	X
SetPawnIdle	X
SetPhysics	X
SetScriptPriority	X
SetSightRadius	X
SetTeamIndex	X
SetThreat	X
SetTurretUsable	X
SetViewTarget	X
ShakeView	X
ShootTarget	X
ShowActorObjectiveTracker	X
ShowDebriefingScreen	X
ShowMarker	X
ShowMenuScreen	X
ShowPrompt	X
ShowTitleCardScreen	X
ShowVisor	X
SpawnActor	X
SpawnStatusEffect	X
StopFactorySpawning	X
StopShooting	X
SuggestEnemy	X
TeleportToPoint	X
TriggerEvent	Trigger a certain event name
TurnTowardPlayer	Makes the actor linked to the scripted action rotate towards player
UnforceState	X
WaitForAnimEnd	X
WaitForEvent	Wait for a certain event to trigger to start the action flow
WaitForPlayer	X
WaitForRandomTimer	X
WaitForTimer	Wait for n seconds before continuing the action flow