X9

Manual spawning

There can be a multitude of ways you could spawn your new followers or squad members. One of them should be using some sort of spawn point. For the simplicity of the tutorial, we will spawn the follower manually around the player at set distance.

To this end we will delve into some predefined function of the GameInfo class. The function SpawnDefaultPawnFor is responsible for creating the default pawn you specify in your default properties in your custom game info class. As we are following the same tutorial, go to your IsometricGameInfo class.

Add the following code :

/**
 * Returns a pawn of the default pawn class
 *
 * @param	NewPlayer - Controller for whom this pawn is spawned
 * @param	StartSpot - PlayerStart at which to spawn pawn
 *
 * @return	pawn
 */
function Pawn SpawnDefaultPawnFor(Controller NewPlayer, NavigationPoint StartSpot)
{
	local Pawn ResultPawn;

	ResultPawn = super.SpawnDefaultPawnFor(NewPlayer, StartSpot);

	`Log("Spawn Info stuff");

	if(ResultPawn != none)
	{
		IsometricGamePlayerController(NewPlayer).PlayerSpawned(StartSpot);
	}

	return ResultPawn;
}

Calling a parent class function

Now what I did here was to call the GameInfo parent class function named SpawnDefaultPawnFor (we want to build on existing code). If we spawned the main pawn and it is valid, we call a new function in our player controller called PlayerSpawned. This will be our callback function when the main pawn is created on the level.

Return to our IsometricGamePlayerController. Add the following variable declaration on top of the file :

var class FollowerPawnClass;
var Pawn        Followers[3];

Add this in the defaultProperties :

...
FollowerPawnClass=class'FollowerPawn'
...

Class definition and real instances (FollowerPawnClass variable)

The FollowerPawnClass will be defined in the defaultProperties section of our current player controller file. This will hold the name of the class to instantiate when we create the pawns (like a blueprint). You could have multiple type of spawned character, I recommend you explore this at some point.

Followers

The Followers variable is an array that will contain our 3 followers instances that will appear and follow us on the map.

Now is the time to add the function that will spawn our minions, add this to the current player controller class :

function PlayerSpawned(NavigationPoint StartLocation)
{
`Log("Follower is alive");
Followers[0] = Spawn(FollowerPawnClass,,, StartLocation.Location - vect(100,100,0), StartLocation.Rotation);
Followers[1] = Spawn(FollowerPawnClass,,, StartLocation.Location - vect(200,100,0), StartLocation.Rotation);
Followers[2] = Spawn(FollowerPawnClass,,, StartLocation.Location - vect(100,200,0), StartLocation.Rotation);
}

Now this function spawn for each entry in the array a simple FollowerPawnClass, I set the base location manually in a triangle with the same rotation as our spawn point.

Compile and run the game

Compile and fire up the game, you should have now a couple of friends on screen, right now they are not rigged to receive commands yet.

chapter 7 – Assign commands to followers