I. Introduction

As many of you use intro cinematics (what of course is recommended), you might already have wondered how to make these cinematics skippable with the Esc key, like ES did it. Some designers have discovered the condition "Abort Cinematic", which from then on was used to skip cinematics. But as many of you have discovered as well is, that this use of this condition flaws the skipping of the cinematic. In fact, this condition was ought to serve another aspect of the skipping of cinematics, which I'll explain later. So, how does one actually make skippable cinematics correctly?

II. The principle

At first sight, it is quite simple. Have a closer look at the "File" menu in the editor. You might have wondered what the option "Build Cinematic" does. Well, this is the key to skip a cinematic correctly.
Once you have set up a nice intro with your triggers, i.e. there has to be a trigger with the effect "Cinematic Mode ON" and one with "OFF", you can in principle click on this menu entry. Then,
-AoM will run the cinematic from "ON" to "OFF",
-once in low graphics details and once in high,
-and eventually save the cinematic (be careful: it saves your scenario, so make sure you haven't played around with some options/triggers/units before you run "Build Cinematic" and make a backup before)
Now, your intro will be skippable if the player presses "Esc" while the intro runs. The skipping option acts like a "Fast Forward" key: It plays all the triggers between the first trigger with the effect "Cinematic Mode ON" and the first trigger with the effect "Cinematic Mode OFF". Thus, all that was supposed to happen in your intro will have happened once the player presses "Esc" and the screen changes the view to where the player was supposed to start to play. The fact, that the game time changes to the length of your intro although you just have skipped the cinematic (within one or two seconds) proves the "Fast Forward" behavior. You can press "Esc" at any time in the cinematic, BTW.

"Fine," you might say, "easier than I thought." Well, unfortunately it isn't.

III. The problems

Yes, there are problems, and they could nastily destroy that what you're so proud of now.

1. Building a trigger chain

The first problem is, although the events seem to pass that smoothly, the skipping function may neglect triggers if you haven't set them up properly. In fact, the function only handles the triggers that are directly in between the first "CM ON" and the first "CM OFF" effect. That means, if you create a trigger that is active but not related to the cinematic triggers, for example a trigger that grants techs, GPs etc., it would normally be fired about three seconds after the cinematic starts. But, if the player aborts the cinematic before these three seconds have passed by, the trigger will be neglected. The skipping function doesn't keep this trigger "in mind" because it hasn't been fired off by one of the triggers that are directly involved in the cinematic trigger chain. I'll try to make that clearer:

Trigger1 (the one that starts the cinematic) -> Trigger2 -> Trigger3 ... -> TriggerXY (which ends the cinematic)
TriggerTech (active, grants for example techs)

The "Build Cinematic" function now runs through the cinematic trigger chain, but not through other triggers outside the chain. If you set up you triggers like this, the "TriggerTech" will only work if the player aborts the cinematic after this trigger has been executed, i.e. in this case after about three seconds. Well, in fact most people skip the intro immediately after the scenario has loaded (because they already watched the intro), thus our "TriggerTech" won't be executed. In paragraph III/2 I'll explain why, for now just keep in mind that the function only runs through the trigger chain of the actual intro.
Solutions to make "TriggerTech" work:

a) Include it in the chain, i.e. Trigger2 in our example could fire it, then it would be in the chain.
b) The better way: Let those triggers be fired off before the cinematic trigger chain, i.e. let them run immediately and give them the highest priority, whereas you give the first cinematic trigger the standard priority.

Now you should know how to stop triggers from being neglected.

2. The "things-in-progress" problem

The second problem is, and that's why there's the condition "Abort Cinematic", that the function stops all actions that are in progress at the moment when you abort the cinematic. Let's take the following example:
Two people have a conversation in your cinematic. After they finished it, one of them walks away. Now the Cinematic Mode is supposed to be turned off and the unit is supposed to walk further while the player is now in the game. If one aborts the cinematic, the unit will stand still at the point it stands when the cinematic was supposed to end. The function stops all things that are in progress. Therefore there's the "Abort Cinematic" condition: Make a trigger with this condition (include it in the cinematic chain or better put it in front of it, like in III/1 explained) and make the effect "Move To Point". Now, if one aborts the cinematic, the function tells the unit to stand still, but the trigger advices it to walk further. Voilą!
But triggers will be stopped as well, like the "TriggerTech" in III/1. It hasn't been executed and is still running when you abort the cinematic, thus it'll be stopped and won't execute its effects. It's the same with a slowly changing light setting. Let's say you want to make it night in five minutes after the beginning of the game. Therefore you use "Set Lightning" from "default" to "night" and set the time to five minutes. Well, if your cinematic is shorter than five minutes (I hope so ) the abort function (the function, not the trigger) will interrupt the change and leave the light setting at default, because the light setting change was a progress that endured over the end of the cinematic. The solution is simple; either let the light setting totally change in the cinematic or let it change after the cinematic, but not during the end of the cinematic. The same applies for every progress that you might want to use.

IV. Additional notes

-It is only possible to skip the first cinematic, i.e. the intro
-This function will certainly not work in multiplayer mode
-After you have placed/moved/removed units, you have to use "Build Cinematic" again, the same applies for new/deleted/changed triggers, otherwise the changes don't take effect if one skips the cinematic

OT notes:

-Use this function, it's worth it and less complicated like this text may have intimidated you
-All credit goes to oddy, who has taught me this aspect of the editor a while ago, thanks
-Please comment on mistakes, be it language/content/grammar or anything else
-Finally, I think this article should get in the scenario design library, please.

Thanks for reading!!!

AoMPlayer000

[This message has been edited by AoMPlayer000 (edited 09-06-2004 @ 03:05 PM).]