ACS / ZScript method to track real time?

[necros]

I'm making a long level and it would be tiresome to listen to the same 2-4 minute midi on loop. What I'd like to do is make a handful of midis that can be played randomly. Problem is, midis don't stop playing when the player enters a menu or drops the console down. Those two actions freeze the in-game time, so delays set in scripts would no longer match with the current time of the midi.
Is there a way to check the real clock time in-game so that even if a player pauses the game, I could still tell if a minute had passed in real time?

And yes, I'm aware of ways around this, such as just gluing everything together in one midi file, but you would run short of instrument channels. Another method would be to just make each individual midi have a super long silence at the end of them so they wouldn't loop before a new song was started, but that can lead to a lot of dead air time if the player pauses for more than a few seconds.

[m8f]

https://zdoom.org/wiki/SystemTime

[necros]

https://zdoom.org/wiki/SystemTime

Are you sure? I get:

Code: Select all

Script error, "D:/Games/Doom/ne_tall/:zscript/necros/musictimer.zs" line 33:
Call to unknown function 'Now'

[Caligari87]

That feature was added to GZDoom in August 2020, so yes, pretty sure.

You need to post your code, otherwise it's impossible to tell where you might be going wrong.

[necros]

I couldn't find a link to that article when looking through the wiki, so that's why i was wondering...

Anyway, it's all unfinished at this time but what I was planning on doing, since this is zscript only (as indicated in the article), is to create a 'MusicTimer' object which after spawning drops into an 'idle' state where it runs an update function every 35 tics to change the mass of the object to be whatever int value Now() returns.

Then in an ACS of my map, I can just spawn the object in (outside of my map) and use GetActorProperty(666, APROP_Mass); to get the current mass of the object and then eventually I would write some actual logic to control when and what midi to start.

Here's the MusicTimer class:

Code: Select all

class MusicTimer : Actor
{
	Default
	{
		Mass 0;
	}
	States
	{
		Spawn:
			TNT1 A 1;
		Idle:
			TNT1 A 35 UpdateTime;
			Loop;
	}
}

extend class MusicTimer
{
	void UpdateTime()
	{
		Mass = Now();
	}
}

EDIT: Thanks for that link to the patch notes. I tried using 'SystemTime.Now()' and this works, but it looks like you can't use this on actors?

Code: Select all

Script error, "D:/Games/Doom/ne_tall/:zscript/necros/musictimer.zs" line 26:
Can't call ui function Now from play context (not readable)

[Blue Shadow]

Would it not be easier if you created a playlist for GZDoom to [wiki=CCMDs:Other#Music_control]play[/wiki]? There's also the option of using one of those "jukebox" mods out there (sorry, I don't have links handy).

[necros]

oh, i didn't even know it had that feature...
well, it sounds like this might be the best option for now. also toying with just using acs fading in and out and switching tracks whenever the player gets to specific points in the map.

[Player701]

EDIT: Thanks for that link to the patch notes. I tried using 'SystemTime.Now()' and this works, but it looks like you can't use this on actors?

Code: Select all

Script error, "D:/Games/Doom/ne_tall/:zscript/necros/musictimer.zs" line 26:
Can't call ui function Now from play context (not readable)

System time is non-deterministic in the context of the playsim, so you cannot use this function in regular actor classes. However, you can use it in an event handler if you handle the UiTick event.