Hpl3:Community:other:door-button-interaction

How To Connect Doors With Buttons

This quick tutorial will show you how to create a door, that can be opened and closed via two buttons, that change their state, when pressed.

Step 1:

Open the level-editor and create a map with a door and a button on each side of the door. I will call the door "door1" and the buttons "button1" and "button2".

Step 2:

Click on button1 and select Entity→Connections. There is the field "Connected Entities". There you must write "door1, button2".

Do the same for button 2, but here you write "door1, button1".

You will see, that through this entry you change the state of the connected entities, when you interact with a button.

Step 3:

Click on the door and select Entity→Internal State. Activate the box "Interaction Disabled".

Now your door can not be opend by player interaction. Only the connected buttons can open it.

Note:

This will work with most doors, but there are doors in the game that require a script. For these you need to write a callback function and call it under both buttons Entity→Basic Callbacks.

There is a field called "ConnectionStateChangeCallback". Place your functions name there and it will be called whenever the button is pressed.

What Button's Work?

The buttons and switches can be accessed by selecting Entities in the Level Editor and by clicking Station→Panels.

Experiment with different buttons to see which one is most suitable for your level. The most commonly used button in SOMA is theta_panel and theta_panel_front. These are located in Entities, Station and Panels. Other doors like the Bulkhead doors from Upsilon would work well with the panel_large_inside button.

Sources:

HPL3 Tutorials Part 3 Creating a Map - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGhwsa1k1LU