Ah-Ha! I finally thought of a way to access "self.variables" outside of the Create(self) and Update(self) functions.

So, pretend that the AHuman "Desired Actor" had a variable stored as "self.value". Normally, you can't access "self.value" outside of that actor's Create(self) and Update(self) functions, unless you use messy globals. This is because "self" is a unique pointer to the actor, different from any other pointer. And it turns out, a reference to the "self" of any spawned and scripted AHumans is stored in the AHumans metatable. The only exception to this, that I know of, is self.PresetName.

All you need to do is make your desired AHuman stand out from the others. And this can be done easily by exploiting the self.PresetName exception.

Here's the trick. Let's say you need to access that variable "self.value" from the scripted AHuman, with the PresetName of "Desired Actor". In the script, change the PresetName of the AHuman you want to access the variables from to some unique name. Then, search through the AHumans metatable, and search for that unique preset name. Then, access the variable you need through that specific pointer.



It's hacky, but it works!

*EDIT
Check my 3rd post below for a better example.

I'm not exactly sure what you did there but I'm rather sure that since it involves metatables you are now a wizard.


...it works just fine for MovableMan.Particles and whatnot too, right?

Unfortunately, it only works with scripted objects. So, it's only useful if a particle has a script already. But, the script can be consisting of empty functions that do nothing.

I wasn't quite sure what you were asking, so I took a stab at it. Did I answer your question?

Just curious, how exactly does this differ from being inside Update or Create?
And when will the function be performed if it's not inside either?
Thanks :>

Hmm...my lack of sleep seems apparent in my explanation above. My bad.

By "outside Update(self) and Create(self) functions", I mean that it will still be in those functions, but not the Update() and Create() of that specific self. Allow me to exemplify this better than before.

Here is the Create(self) script from an AHuman with the PresetName of "Ski Dude".

Now, lets say we want to find the value of the of MaxYCheck, but in the Create(self) function of an MOPixel named "DetectPixel". Here's how it's done.

The end result will yield this console output:

Notice how targetActor.MaxYCheck is nil, while trueActorData.MaxYCheck is 20. Yet, both targetActor and trueActorData point to the same AHuman. Normally, we would have to use messy global variables to reference "self" variables in other scripts, but this work-around eliminates that need.

Out of curiosity, wouldn't it be faster to do something like this?

That way you only have to deal with one loop. On the other hand, the AHumans table grows pretty rapidly, so it gets slower as the game goes on.

My understanding is that the list only grows rapidly when you do PresetMan:ReloadAllScripts(), because it doesn't deleted the old function tables.

Ah, that would explain it.