ACS: simulated door gotcha.

[smeghammer]

I thought I'd share this as I struggled with this for ages until it clicked as to what was going on...

 

I have a map in progress, where I have a number of 3D platforms used to simulate doors. I have a script to handle these and I noticed that if I activated it again, the door script would re-run without completing the first one. The end result was that the door came to rest 1 door height too low (64). So I tried to set a map global variable to prevent this. The logic seems sound:

 

1: have a global var defaulting to all doors are inactive

2: the script only does stuff if this global indicates that door cycling is complete (=1)

3: if so, the script sets it =0 - i.e. the door cycle is not complete (which should prevent re-triggering of the door by re-activating the switch or quickly moving to the other switch in the save of the main door...)

4: at this point, it should not be possible to retrigger the contents of the if() statement...

/*
prevent retriggering of the door if it is cycling:
*/
int doorCyclingComplete = 1;
script 2 (int sectorTag){
    if(doorCyclingComplete == 1){    //no door is cycling
        doorCyclingComplete = 0;
      
        while(doorCyclingComplete != 1){
            FloorAndCeiling_RaiseByValue (sectorTag, 12, 64);
            Delay(144);
            FloorAndCeiling_LowerByValue (sectorTag, 12, 64);
            doorCyclingComplete = 1;
        }    
    }
}

If I activate the switch/door 'normally' it all works as it should, however, if I repeatedly re-trigger, I can get the 'door' to come to rest too low (by 64). The problem seemed to be that the re-trigger happened while the door was lowering. 

 

It suddenly occurred to me that `doorCyclingComplete` being reset to 1 happened while the door was still moving down. 

 

Adding another delay solved this:

int doorCyclingComplete = 1;
script 2 (int sectorTag){
    if(doorCyclingComplete == 1){    //no door is cycling
        doorCyclingComplete = 0;
        while(doorCyclingComplete != 1){
            FloorAndCeiling_RaiseByValue (sectorTag, 12, 64);
            Delay(144);
            FloorAndCeiling_LowerByValue (sectorTag, 12, 64);
            log(s:"delaying before enabling");
            Delay(72);
            log(s:"releasing door flag");
            doorCyclingComplete = 1;
        }    
    }
}

 

To do this properly would require the final delay to be specific for the distance moved and the speed of movement.

This prompted the thought - do these line special ACS functions return something on completion? Or provide a onCompletion type callback? If so, it would be more elegant to do something like:

...
while(!FloorAndCeiling_LowerByValue (sectorTag, 12, 64)){  }
//do end stuff after while, on completion

 

or (a bit AJAX'y):

...
FloorAndCeiling_LowerByValue (sectorTag, 12, 64).finished(function(){
    //do stuff on 'finished' callback
})

Just a thought...

 

[boris]

There's TagWait that lets the script wait until a sector stopped moving.

 

So as I understand it you just want to let a 3D floor act like a door, right? Then you're overthinking it. Check out the attached map, it simulates a 3D floor door by using the Platform Raise Wait Lower action and Sector Set Link.

3ddoor.zip

Edited July 12, 2020 by boris

[smeghammer]

Ahhh! Yes, thank you that is exactly what I need. I have a crap-ton to learn... So the TagWait function could be considered a 'moveCompeted' callback then. Cool.