Cinematic Mode Markers (Possible bug?)

[GeniuneEntropy]

Hi all

I've been playing around with the cinematic markers and noticed some oddness with my saves;

It appears that, either deleting a single marker (after placing several) or placing several markers and then spending to much time fiddling around with their positions causes the cinematic mode system to irreparably bug out.

It *seems* like a new, unmarked/ invisible cinematic marker gets added, one that the player 'camera' will teleport to during the cinematic mode animation (i.e. the user doesn't move to this new unmarked spot smoothly, at some point in the sequence they 'jump' to that spot looking off at some weird angle - not the cinematic target).

This happened in two versions of my save files, and in both I attempted;
manually removing and replacing all cinematic markers, deleting and replacing makers with the same numbers, deleting and replacing all markers in reverse order (i.e. markers 12-20 instead of 1-8) and a variety of other versions of the same using the console as well as the settlements menu.

In every case the bug persisted - the new, invisible cinematic 'teleport' spot could not be seen, found or removed and interrupts any subsequent sequence of markers I set up.

In the end rolling back to an earlier save (before I attempted using the cinematic mode markers at all) fixed the issue and lots of very careful manual saving / rolling back was required to mess with the markers enough to the point where I'm happy with the cinematic animations.

So word to the wise city planners; Manual save before you mess with your cinematic markers and make multiple saves during the process of setting them up and testing!



(...And if anyone else can confirm this isn't just an issues with my files/ setup, I guess this should go on the bug boards?)

 

[kinggath]

I'll add these to my list to investigate, but with the recent launch of Conqueror, it might be a while before I have time to address this.

 

[GeniuneEntropy]

Completely understandable.

Hopefully in the meantime other builders might see this post and find that there is a workaround for them (as long as they obey the golden rule: "Save Manually, Save Often!".

 

[GeniuneEntropy]

Oof, this is super painful.

The lack of smoothness @ArtisanVirgil mentioned in their thread is bad enough.
Far worse is the fact you literally get one chance to place cinematic markers, or your save's cinematic's becomes irrevocably broken.

You can do a sort of pan around at distance and that's about it, but:
- Be certain to have manual saves & backups
- Plan exactly where you want your markers because you wont be able to move them or delete them reliably once placed.
- You wont be able to move the markers back anywhere near the default cinematic range.
- Showing off anything inside your build / built up is near impossible.

So in summary for anyone reading, using cinematic markers is currently a huge amount of time and effort for very mixed results.

P.S
Apologies if my frustration came through in this post, I've just come off the back of trying to get these markers to work for 6 hours straight and got nothing for all my effort.
I'd really like to show my latest build off, but the default cinematic markers just make it look like a blurry pile of scrap in the distance, rather than the raiders warren of misdeeds I spent all that time building.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[kinggath]

The Cinematic markers are not required or necessary, and it sounds like they should be disabled for now. I will eventually provide a more comprehensive set of tools (as they'd be very useful for Machinima makers), but for the foreseeable future my focus is on other things and I don't have additional time to spare. The Cinematic markers were added in as an experimental feature, and in my testing they worked as I intended, but I haven't rechecked them in some time, and have definitely not used them enough to polish up their usability for real-world usage.

Apologies that you wasted your time with them, I was not aware they were in such a bad state. For the contest, I can only suggest you avoid them and focus your effort on a strong tour video when making the top 3.

Sim Settlements automatically places invisible dynamic markers it uses when the markers aren't found, so we'll still be able to get Cinematic mod footage, and even though it doesn't highlight your settlement's strengths, the same can be said for every other designer. So you will all be on equal footing at that point.

 

[GeniuneEntropy]

I'm stuck home recovering from surgery, so I definitely had more time on my hands than I would otherwise to experiment with them. No harm done - I was right back to building and having fun.

[Edit] More findings rolled into the following post in an effort to be helpful.

 

[GeniuneEntropy]

Spent a few more hours trying to beat the current system into submission, and I have some recommendations for this WIP feature for your consideration:

1. Markers can't be placed far enough out.
Cinematic markers should be placeable outside of settlement boundaries (as with enemy spawn markers). Not only do they currently not function outside of settlements (hope you like extreme close-ups and clipping ) but placing one outside of the settlement boundaries causes the cinematic flow in a save to become irrevocably broken.

2. The paths the markers create are too unpredictable to be useful.
The cleverer the system tries to be about easing / automation of a curved cinematic path, the less useable the markers become for anything but the broadest of circles (at which point, you might as well just use the default cinematics).
There is easing / curving being applied with no user control, making plotting an accurate path impossible to predict.
I would suggest that proceeding in a smooth linear fashion along the path the user created (while facing the cinematic target) might not appear as "swooshy" as the current system attempts to be, but would be infinitely preferable as it would allow the system to accomplish its intended purpose: Give the user control of cinematics.

3. The system currently generates duplicates of the Cinematic Markers
The system currently generates duplicates of the Cinematic Markers when the cinematic mode is triggered and plays. Occasionally I get 'Only one <cinematic marker> permitted' warning prompts as a result. Interacting with the original markers when in this state causes the cinematic flow to become irrevocably broken.
These markers are offset from their originals in random positions. Perhaps this is so that the second pass/ loop of the cinematic mode has a little variety to it? If so and this is intentional, I would again strongly recommend against for the reasons described in point 2.

[edit] Duplicates seem to only become visible in workshop mode when the cinematic has run through and the game is then saved and reloaded.

4. Random odds and ends (that are very likely due to the WIP/experimental nature of the system):
- You cannot interact with markers reliably (scrap them/ pick up and move and place/ etc) once placed without causing the cinematic flow to become irrevocably broken (appears to occur randomly).
- You cannot place markers outside of the settlement boundaries at all without causing the cinematic flow to become irrevocably broken (occurs 100% of the time).
- You cannot interact with the duplicate markers generated during cinematic mode reliably (scrap them/ pick up and move and place/ etc) without causing the cinematic flow to become irrevocably broken (appears to occur randomly).
- You cannot interact with the original markers placed before running cinematic mode at all (scrap them/ pick up and move and place/ etc) without causing the cinematic flow to become irrevocably broken (occurs 100% of the time).

I'll update if I uncover more (still persevering with getting a working cinematic for this build) and hope this constructive feedback may be of use once the system is revisited.