[Spoon]

Hey guys
2 questions.
The first one being: I've created a .ani file (only 6 frames long) with anibuilder. Placed it in my mod folder (data-->hud), in fred I created a message in the events editor and browsed to the location manually. The text shows up but the .ani does not (retail ones still do). So... how to insert them?

The second one is SEXP related. I am starting a mission with fade in and a short cutscene. Messages however, just simply refuse to show up. (I tried a elapsed time event as well) 

I don't understand how or why...

Any help would be very much appreciated!

[Mobius]

I don't know about the ANI, I suggest to check your ANIBUILDER settings(there are many parameters)...

About the events: you're not using several important SEXPs intended to boost the cutscene effect (you can find them in the Cutscene section of the SEXP list, among the others like fade in/out and set-camera-position). About the message, I suggest to remove is-goal-incomplete. Use "is-destroyed delay 0 UEU Explorer" instead as condition. Although SEXPs whose names end with "-incomplete" should work if paired with SEXPs of other kinds, I suggest to remove it from the event. I also suggest to take a look at the hud-disable and hud-disable-except-messages SEXPs (from the Hud list), they can be useful in cutscenes.

On a side note, can you please post the timings of your chained SEXPs as well as the specs of the "Failure" message from the Messages box? That might help...

Also, "Alpha1" should be "Alpha 1".

[Spoon]

Guess I was using a wrong setting in Anibuilder yeah. However something is still off.

At least it shows up now, just not properly. No difference between a colored .ani or a greyscaled one. Speaking of which, is there a way to make the persona's appear without that green(or whatever the color the player has his/her hud set to) filter over it?

About the events: you're not using several important SEXPs intended to boost the cutscene effect (you can find them in the Cutscene section of the SEXP list, among the others like fade in/out and set-camera-position).

Well the cutscene itself isn't exactly done yet but i'm slightely confused on which important SEXPs I might be missing.

About the message, I suggest to remove is-goal-incomplete. Use "is-destroyed delay 0 UEU Explorer" instead as condition. Although SEXPs whose names end with "-incomplete" should work if paired with SEXPs of other kinds, I suggest to remove it from the event.

Well it worked before (that is, before I inserted the cutscene related SEXPs). The is-goal-incomplete is just there to have the directive text go red and to get the primary objective failed mesage. Removing it doesn't solve my problem unfortunately (yeah I tried).
 

I also suggest to take a look at the hud-disable and hud-disable-except-messages SEXPs (from the Hud list), they can be useful in cutscenes.

I did and then removed them again since in this particular cutscene they don't really do much 


timings of the chained SEXPs is all set to 0.

[Mobius]

Guess I was using a wrong setting in Anibuilder yeah. However something is still off.

At least it shows up now, just not properly. No difference between a colored .ani or a greyscaled one. Speaking of which, is there a way to make the persona's appear without that green(or whatever the color the player has his/her hud set to) filter over it?

Uhm, check the palette. Make sure that it fits the requirements.

Is the ANI you're creating green or, at least, mostly green? Green is supposed to be transparent.

Well the cutscene itself isn't exactly done yet but i'm slightely confused on which important SEXPs I might be missing.

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Making_cutscenes_(basic)

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Tutorial_-_Cutscenes

Well it worked before (that is, before I inserted the cutscene related SEXPs). The is-goal-incomplete is just there to have the directive text go red and to get the primary objective failed mesage. Removing it doesn't solve my problem unfortunately (yeah I tried).

The directive can go red with "is-destroyed-delay" only, that's why is-goal-incomplete isn't needed. Are you sure the UEU Explorer is ingame or destroyed at that point of the mission? Can you please post the arrival cue of that ship?

Also, the directive text "Escort the UEU Explorer" is supposed to be satisfied when the ship is destroyed. I suggest to change the SEXP to "has-departed-delay" so that it will become false if the ship is destroyed.

timings of the chained SEXPs is all set to 0.

Uhm...try this:

1) Remove the chain from the event "fade out quickly", it isn't needed;

2) Replace "has-time-elapsed 1" with "true" in "fade in". Add a chain delay of 1 instead. Add delays to the other chained events as well and remove the chain from "Cam follows player";

3) Cut the "set-cutscene-bars" from the event "cam follows played" and paste it to a unchained event whose condition is "true" (when true set-cutscene-bars);

4) Merge "Unset bars" and "Returning control" into one event;

5) Increase the chain delay of "Failure" by at least 1 second;

6) Replace "send-message-list" with "send-message" if you want only a single message;

(these are touch ups   )

[Spoon]

Uhm, check the palette. Make sure that it fits the requirements.

Is the ANI you're creating green or, at least, mostly green? Green is supposed to be transparent.

Where could one find the requirements for this? I'm not using green though and I also tried greyscale with the same result. I think i'm doing something wrong in getting the file into .pcx format...

The directive can go red with "is-destroyed-delay" only, that's why is-goal-incomplete isn't needed. Are you sure the UEU Explorer is ingame or destroyed at that point of the mission? Can you please post the arrival cue of that ship?

Also, the directive text "Escort the UEU Explorer" is supposed to be satisfied when the ship is destroyed. I suggest to change the SEXP to "has-departed-delay" so that it will become false if the ship is destroyed.

Uhm...try this:

1) Remove the chain from the event "fade out quickly", it isn't needed;

2) Replace "has-time-elapsed 1" with "true" in "fade in". Add a chain delay of 1 instead. Add delays to the other chained events as well and remove the chain from "Cam follows player";

3) Cut the "set-cutscene-bars" from the event "cam follows played" and paste it to a unchained event whose condition is "true" (when true set-cutscene-bars);

4) Merge "Unset bars" and "Returning control" into one event;

5) Increase the chain delay of "Failure" by at least 1 second;

6) Replace "send-message-list" with "send-message" if you want only a single message;

(these are touch ups   )

Alright, I pretty much followed your advice to the letter.

Here's how it looks now.
The cutscene plays just fine. And as you said, the directive&objective also respond properly with the has-departed-delay.
The message however still refuses to show up...
The ship itself is present from the start of the mission and for the sake of testing has only been given 100hp so I can blow it up myself everytime.

[Mobius]

Do this:

1) Rename "Failure" and call it "Protect Explorer". Cut the send-message SEXP from it and replace it with do-nothing;

2) Create an event called "Failure" and use when "is-destroyed-delay 2-3 UEU Explorer" "send-message Alpha 1 High Failure". The event should independent, without any chains;

[Spoon]

Well i'll be, it works! 
Allow me to thank you Mobius dear sir! This was frustrating me the whole day but thanks to your support I can finally progress 

Now only the .ani question remains

[karajorma]

Do this:

1) Rename "Failure" and call it "Protect Explorer". Cut the send-message SEXP from it and replace it with do-nothing;

2) Create an event called "Failure" and use when "is-destroyed-delay 2-3 UEU Explorer" "send-message Alpha 1 High Failure". The event should independent, without any chains;

Ummm. Why?

I can't think of any reason why this should have worked any better. This entire thread sounds like superstition to me.

[Spoon]

Ummm. Why?

I can't think of any reason why this should have worked any better. This entire thread sounds like superstition to me.

Odd huh? It's the same thing that was going through my head and yet for some reason this is the only way it is working.

[karajorma]

Okay, I took a good long look at the events and I can see why Mobius' solution works now. I was a little confused by you having an event called failure which actually triggers when the escort is a success.

That said unless you understand why solution works it's basically superstition. And it's a very bad habit to get into doing that. You should always understand why what you were doing previously didn't work and why what you are doing now does. Otherwise you could be fixing one bug only to cause a different one.

In this case the problem is that you were trying to have your directive do both success and failure at the same time. You only want the failure event to trigger when the ship is destroyed, but you want the directive to be triggered when it isn't. So obviously you need two different events. 

[Spoon]

So if I understand correctly, the failure message after the ship got destroyed/departed didn't showed up because I gave that same event the Directive text? (ugh programming logic... I still need to make that second nature.)

More importantly, i'm still stuck at the .ani files deal. I read some things about Bright being able to convert files into .pcx that are just right for anibuilder. But the link at the freespace oracle gives me a 50kb rar file with only a Bright.exe inside that does absolutely nothing when I try to run it. I'd very much would like to know what steps are required to make a working .ani file...

[karajorma]

You had two problems actually. The first was that you were trying to do too much in the directive. An event will fire when the trigger comes true. For the directive you had set it to come true when UEU Explorer was destroyed and the event Escort Explorer was incomplete. Both of those are conditions for a failed directive. You don't set up a directive to come true when the conditions are a failure. You set the directive to come true when it's a success. The game automatically determines if a directive can't succeed and marks it as a failure if it can't succeed.

Obviously that needed to be fixed so your directive would work properly but your real problem was why the message wasn't being sent. Now I can't tell you for certain why that was but I've got a very good idea why.

Events have three states, true, false and incomplete. If an event has triggered it is true. If the game determines that an event can never trigger (for instance one of the SEXPs in the trigger involves a ship that has now been destroyed) it is false. Otherwise it is incomplete

The way you originally had things set up, you had the event trigger when UEU Explorer was destroyed and the event Escort Explorer was incomplete. My bet is that when the UEU Explorer was destroyed, Escort Explorer was no longer incomplete. My bet is that the trigger mentioned the UEU Explorer somewhere and the entire event was now false.

[Spoon]

I'm trying to wrap my mind around this logic. heh

You don't set up a directive to come true when the conditions are a failure. You set the directive to come true when it's a success. The game automatically determines if a directive can't succeed and marks it as a failure if it can't succeed.

This part especially is good to know. The little programming experience I have tells me to never assume the program you are working on knows anything. Fred seems to have a bit of intelligence on its own though.

Events have three states, true, false and incomplete. If an event has triggered it is true. If the game determines that an event can never trigger (for instance one of the SEXPs in the trigger involves a ship that has now been destroyed) it is false. Otherwise it is incomplete

Translation for myself: True = Has been triggered
Incomplete = On stand by, can still be triggered
False = Can no longer be triggered.
And Freddy can determine when that happens pretty well.

I think I got the gist of it
Thanks karajorma! Your explaination has revealed the flaw in my thinking. Hopefully i'll be able to apply the right logic in my future Fredding adventures.


hurrah, http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,53593.0.html solved my .ani issue. Thanks Backslash.

[Mobius]

No problem. It took a while for me to find out what the problem was, but I'm glad to know that everything is working fine now. Kudos to Backslash as well.