Hey All,

I'm working on this game, and the characters need to do more than walk around (they should be able to wave their arms and shout, bang their head against a wall, etc.).

Now, while I *could* do all this with special frames (I'd most likely end up writing my own VC movement script interpreter), it seems more logical and consistent to do it in the same way walk animations are done.

So might I suggest allowing CHRs to contain more than the four walk animations, and having an EntityAnimate() function or some such that takes the name of an animation as a string and plays the given animation for an entity.

Oh, and any suggestions regarding how to do this with the current engine would be most appreciated!

Thanks.
-- torin

Here's my suggestion of how to go about it:

#define ANIMATION_WAVE 24


#define ANIMATION_WAVE_FRAMES 3


#define ANIMATION_WAVE_DELAY 10


#define ANIMATION_BLINK 27


#define ANIMATION_BLINK_FRAMES 2


#define ANIMATION_BLINK_DELAY 30





void EntitySetAnimation(int e, int anim, int frames, int delay)


{


 int f;


 f=anim+(timer/delay%frames);


 entity.specframe[e]=f;


}

Is there a reason that it isn't documented? Can you give some example code?

Zip

[Edit: *it* and MOAR code]

Quote:Originally posted by Zip
and also add that I want access to the .chr graphics at runtime, PAPER DOLL!

Rar


Isn't that what this function is for?

void BlitEntityFrame(int x, int y, int e, int f, int dest)

I made idle entity animations using this(where entities appear to walk even when they're stopped...due to the style of my game), and it should be fairly easy to extend this concept to a paper doll system.

Quote:Originally posted by rpgking

Isn't that what this function is for?

void BlitEntityFrame(int x, int y, int e, int f, int dest)

*sigh*

Right, what does that one do? Overright on of the frames in the .chr with something you spec? So:
BlitEntityFrame(?newframex, ?newframex, entity, newframeimage, framenumber);
?????? Or just blit a frame to screen?

Why do you people know all this shit and not put summat in the docs?

Zip

Thanks, vec. I don't know why I didn't think of that. I guess I forgot about movescripts alltogether.

Is there a way to make the entity move in a movescript? For example, if you had a got_punched animation and you want him to fly backwards a couple of tiles while playing a sequence of special frames, could that be done entirely with movescripts? Or would the movement have to be done separately?

-- torin

Just read what you wrote, and you're right about auto-transparency. I tried blitting a translucent entity using SetLucent(), and it worked perfectly too :D

I thought it was mentioned once by vecna that he's gonna add diagonal movement animations. I could be wrong though...

yeah I was gonna add diagonal movescripts in real quick but then I remembered I should go ahead and add diagonal walk animations too while im at it so it got delayed a bit.

Why not go one step further? Use full-fledged functions instead of movescripts. Make them co-routines, so when you call certain built-in functions('wait', 'moveLeft', etc.), you return control to the engine until the entity completes that action.

script GuardScript () {
while(1) {
moveLeft(2); // Entity ID is implicit or optional
wait(4);
moveUp(2);
wait(4);
moveDown(2);
wait(4);
moveRight(2);
wait(4);
}
}

You could have special conditions, too. An 'on' block would execute whenever the associated condition became true while the enclosing block was executing. Once the 'on' block was done, execution would continue from the point in the enclosing block where it left off.

script GuardScript (int idx) {
while(1) {
on (guards[idx].alert) AlertGuardScript(idx);
on (guards[idx].knocked_out) {
specialFrame(4); // Knocked out picture
wait(guards[idx].knock_out_interval);
noSpecialFrame();
}
moveLeft(2); // Entity ID is implicit or optional
wait(4);
moveUp(2);
wait(4);
moveDown(2);
wait(4);
moveRight(2);
wait(4);
}
}

You could also call scripts from other scripts. So 'moveLeft', 'wait', etc. become built-in scripts.

script clockWiseCircle (int radius)
{
moveUp(radius);
moveRight(radius);
moveDown(radius);
moveLeft(radius);
}

script counterClockwiseCircle (int radius)
{
moveRight(radius);
moveUp(radius);
moveLeft(radius);
moveDown(radius);
}

script guard ()
{
while(1) {
clockWiseCircle(4); // circle of radius 4
clockWiseCircle(4);
counterClockwiseCircle(4);
counterClockwiseCircle(4);
}
}

You could still have regular movement scripts, because they're more brief, but treat them like a special notation for scripts.

What do you think?

-- torin

edit: fixed a bug, better variable names