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Hi. I have a problem that I can't seem to figure out. I've read the manual, the tutorial, and Stark's plug-in tips (that I printed out for myself a long time ago) to try to help. No luck.
I made an animal. The graphics seem fine. I opened the animation editor and placed the animal in the default-0 (walking) in the proper order. It's 8 directions. This seems to be just fine.
I then made the same animal attacking. The graphics seem to be fine. It's also in 8 directions. I placed it as Attack-1. It's also in the proper order. At the last frame in each direction is the "Switch Animation" at Perameter 0.
Both walking and attacking are offset the same.
WHAT HAPPENS:
(1) The walking is fine.
(2) Not all of the attack frames run.
(3) Eventually, when the animal attacks, the Player gets stuck in one position. He then runs in place. The animal freezes. And the Player gets attacked (sound and a decrease in stamina) over and over. You can't get him out. You have to force quit the game.
I've tried to use the tool to crop and offset the attack graphics. No change.
I have 12 frames for each direction for the walking, but 24 frames for each direction for the attacking. (To attack, the animal jumps up to bite, then down back in place. Takes that many frames for him to look good and begin and end in a walking position.) Looking at Coldstone's Hero, they have the same number of frames attacking as walking. BUT they do NOT have the same number of frames for blocking. That makes me think that the number of frames isn't the problem. But is it?
The size of the graphics are different. There's more white space with the animal attacking. But I would think that using the tool in the animation window to crop off the white space would help. It didn't.
Playing the animation in the Animation window indicates that everything is fine.
I think that making people is going to be a whole lot easier than making animals.
I'd appreciate any help. Thanks!
------------------ -- Debra Danillitphil Productions (url="http://"http://www.danillitphil.com/graphics/index.html")www.danillitphil.com(/url)
What format of picture are you using for your animal? Does your animal have a collision sphere?
------------------ Thanks, GrahamVH graham@warcraftcentral.com Coldstone Developer (url="http://"http://www.warcraftcentral.net/legends/main.html")http://www.warcraftc...gends/main.html(/url)
The picture format is .pct. I try out all of my animals on Coldstone, and the actual pictures are fine, although it wouldn't hurt me any to check this a different way. Yes, there's a collision sphere. If you change the collision sphere on Attack-1, it also changes on Default-0 so it matches. The same with the frame delay.
(This message has been edited by Debra (edited 08-24-2003).)
Quote
Originally posted by Debra: **The picture format is .pct. I try out all of my animals on Coldstone, and the actual pictures are fine, although it wouldn't hurt me any to check this a different way. Yes, there's a collision sphere. If you change the collision sphere on Attack-1, it also changes on Default-0 so it matches. The same with the frame delay.
**
Although It most likely will not fix it I would advise that you switch to .png format(I have had problems with using .pct format).
Originally posted by GrahamVH: **Although It most likely will not fix it I would advise that you switch to .png format(I have had problems with using .pct format). **
I doubt that that has anything to do with Debra's problem. All my animations were done with .pct and I would look elsewhere before changing a large number of graphics. We have to find what's locking the animation (animal freeze) and keeping the hero from being able to move away (runs in place.)
Is there a flag 8 - "switch animation" which is in the wrong place? Or perhaps did a flag 10 - "lock camera" sneak in by mistake?
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Yes, the switch animations are correct, and there's nothing else.
Thanks to your urging, I did try the animation a different way (I simply made it's own animation file instead of attaching it to the animal walking animation file), and it doesn't work right, unlike the animal walking. It moves all eight directions using the north set, but sometimes it'll switch (flash) a different direction, but goes immediately back to the north set. I did not try it with the NPC with a stamina greater than 0, yet, so I don't know how it behaves attacking the Player.
Fireworks says that the pct files are pict 24 with the resolution at 72.
You think maybe my Coldstone application program is corrupted? Or maybe Coldstone really hates a set of 24 each of 8 directions?
Originally posted by Debra: **Yes, the switch animations are correct, and there's nothing else.
Make sure that every animation set is set to 8 directional for both your walk animation and attack animation. For fireworks just use it's standard save option to save in .png format.
Thanks, yes, the animation is set in 8 directions, in default (walk) and attack.
While I make some graphics in Fireworks, I do not make the animals or people in Fireworks. I make them in Poser, then use SnapzPro (sp?) to make the images in the pct format. I like SnapzPro because the size and place of the outlined area is constant.
I just used Fireworks to check my images to see that they're pict 24 and resolution at 72.
I really appreciate your attempts to help!!!! Thanks!!!!
Originally posted by Debra: Or maybe Coldstone really hates a set of 24 each of 8 directions?
I think this might well be. I know when I was doing animations for a item the animation would play correctly in the editor but not in the game because there were too many frames. This was never stated anywhere in the manual but with experimentation I found that an item animation plays about six frames and then locks. A stamp animation, however, can have many more. (I have 93 frames in one animation that works.)
It is very possible that an NPC animation will also use six frames in each direction. I know you said that to get a smooth look to your attack you would like to have the 24 frames. Are you willing to try an experiment with fewer frames to see if the problem goes away? If that works, then at least you won't have a dent in the wallboard from banging your head against it. Once you get it to work, then you'll have to decide how to make the animation look right with fewer frames.
Are you willing to try an experiment with fewer frames to see if the problem goes away?
Yeah, I'll try that sometime this evening. Thanks.
Originally posted by Rubber Ducky: It is very possible that an NPC animation will also use six frames in each direction.
This would be my guess as well. When I was working on a dragon animation I initially used something like 10-12 frames per direction. It didn't work so well. Dropping it down ot 6 per direction worked like a charm.
Give 'er a whirl and let us know the results if you would, please.
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Reducing the number of images did no good at all. I opened one in Fireworks and it wouldn't let me save or save as. My SnapzPro (sp?) has been acting strange, pausing during the snap. I wonder if that's corrupted and then damaging the images.