[Black Wolf]

Are they currently possible? I doubt it very much, but I want to be sure...

[RandomTiger]

Dont think so.

[Nico]

well, if bob ani mapping on models works, you can already simulate it, sort of.

[RandomTiger]

Ani's are one of the most inefficient parts of the FS2 code, I advise not using them in excess. Hopefully for DX8 we might be able to sort some of that out.

[Fury]

Originally posted by RandomTiger
Ani's are one of the most inefficient parts of the FS2 code

How so?

[RandomTiger]

Go into the main hall and run your mouse over as many ani's as you can and watch it start to crawl.

Frame by frame streaming animations are by their very nature inefficient. You stream a number of images into the cards video memory that are unlikely to be needed again before they are pushed out to make space for other stuff.

Then of course when the frames are needed they have to be loaded back in again.

[Fury]

And how are you planning to make it more efficient?

[RandomTiger]

Have it all loaded into memory in the correct form with no need for extra processing before a mission starts, and hand control of how it is deal with over to DX8. Hopefully it will be able to do a better job.

DX has its own texture manger now, I dont know how great it is but I cant see how it would be slower than the current one.

At least with that system there will be less locking and stuff.
I should be faster, though Im not making any promises.

[Stunaep]

Originally posted by RandomTiger
Go into the main hall and run your mouse over as many ani's as you can and watch it start to crawl.

Frame by frame streaming animations are by their very nature inefficient. You stream a number of images into the cards video memory that are unlikely to be needed again before they are pushed out to make space for other stuff.

Then of course when the frames are needed they have to be loaded back in again.

not to mention that they are basically a lot of 256 color pcx' in a row. So that takes up bullloads of memory.

I don't see no crawl though.

[RandomTiger]

Well I only have a P3 450 so I guess that doesnt help but even if you dont have that problem (only really noticable in main hall), still that processing is taking up a fair bit of time which could be spent on other things.

Obviously in the hall its not really a problem but ingame the extra PCU time could be well spent on something else.

[Black Wolf]

I suppose it would be fairly memory hogging . I was trying to do a subspace tear, and I got an acceptable one, wondering if I could make it animated, as by it's very nature, it'd look weird still. Ah Well, no great loss.

[RandomTiger]

Give it a shot, aslong as its not huge or very long it should be OK.

[Black Wolf]

Will test tomorrow and post results.