hero.module

The hero — the thing the player is in Hero Line Wars: Emberfront.

This module attaches to the live local player's avatar (layers.active.players.localPlayer.avatar), the clone the engine makes of the scene's HeroPrototype when a peer joins. It never builds a second rig.

What it does

Every effect it spawns — spark bursts, light flashes, the surge trail — is a temporary entity with a time-to-live this module counts down and despawns, so nothing it makes reaches a scene save and nothing outlives stop().

Controls

The three combat controls live in /zero/source/game/hero_controls.inputMap, each carrying keyboard, gamepad and touch. Movement and the camera come from the engine's own default map, which the avatar's CharacterController activates; this map composes beside it in its own hero group and suppresses nothing.

What other slices call

local Hero = require("game.hero")

Hero.damage(amount, opts?) -> boolean   -- the creeps slice's hook. `opts` is
                                        -- free-form metadata for the feed.
                                        -- false while dead or the match is over.
                                        -- `applyDamage` / `takeDamage` are aliases.
Hero.position()            -> { x, y, z }?   -- where to march at, or nil while unbound
Hero.avatar()              -> EntityProxy?
Hero.isAlive()             -> boolean

Hero.tryAttack() / Hero.tryCleave() / Hero.trySurge() -> boolean
    -- the same three actions without a keyboard, for a HUD button or a test.

What the HUD reads

Kept current every frame:

Hero.health        Hero.maxHealth      Hero.alive       Hero.respawnIn
Hero.cooldowns.cleave    Hero.cooldowns.surge     -- seconds left, 0 = ready
Hero.cooldownMax.cleave  Hero.cooldownMax.surge   -- what to divide by for a bar
Hero.surgeActive                                   -- seconds of dash left

Events it emits

On Rules.bus: heroDamaged { lane, health, max, amount, source }, heroDied { lane }, heroRespawned { lane }, abilityUsed { lane, ability, hits? } — ability is "attack", "cleave" or "surge".

What binding also sets up

Three things are applied once, the first time the live avatar resolves, and left alone afterwards so anything the player does with them stands.

• The camera framing. The stock orbital_follow rings frame a conversation — head height, four metres out — which in this canyon puts the eye at the hero's ankles and fills the screen with basalt. CAMERA replaces all three rings with a raised chase shot that sees a stretch of lane ahead, and CAMERA_HEADING aims the opening shot into the oncoming column rather than at the nexus behind. The player still orbits and zooms from there.
• The lantern. A warm point light named hero_lantern that rides the hero. The canyon is lit by the rift alone, which leaves the lane floor and everything standing on it reading as pure black from the chase camera. The lamp keeps the hero, the ground and whatever walked into range legible without lifting the ambient over the whole canyon. It is temporary, there is only ever one, and a reloaded copy of this module adopts the existing one rather than hanging a second light on the body.
• The plate. Every SkinnedModel under the body is put into art/hero_emberplate.material, because the avatar the engine mints for a joining peer wears a stock skin that reads as a pale mannequin standing in a volcano. The field is assigned directly rather than through appearance.swapMaterials: that tool is an authoring one and marks what it touched with an outline, which on the player's own body is a blue ring that never leaves.

Lifecycle

start() / update(dt) / stop(), called by the scene entrypoint. start() is idempotent, and tolerates being called before the avatar clone exists — update keeps asking every half second until it is there. update also re-arms the slice if it finds itself disarmed, which is what a hot reload of this file leaves behind: fresh module locals, a false running flag, and an entrypoint still ticking the same table.