[Bobboau]

could it be that it's just not taking into account the case that the animation is still in the speeding up phase? if this is the case I can probably fix it easily. I can probably get it fixed the day after tomorrow if that's what it is, although I'm not sure that's what it is.

[Fury]

Still nothing?

[Fury]

 

[Bobboau]

I actually have some free time this weekend.

[Fury]

 

[Bobboau]

I'm such a horrible person...
I honestly haven't been able to do any recreational coding for the last few months, honestly I haven't done much of it since I started going to the school I'm about to graduate from, May 7th is my last exam, ever, maybe I can get to it then? it's not like the old days when I had freespace and a development environment all primed to go on a moments notice, I have a hard time just getting FSO's code.

[Nuke]

ive been kinda keeping a loose eye on the system and kinda fixing bugs as i found them. of course the system needs a partial overhaul for sanity reasons (see other animation code thread) and new features/triggers. setting the $type: to any type not directly hardcoded should be acceptable (i think this works already), since any type can be triggered by scripting. also the scripting trigger is probably unnecessary because script can call any trigger by name. maybe also add a sexp with the same functionality of the scripting functions. implement linked animations! i believe they were part of the original plan for the animation system. aside from a -1 to 1 value to link them to, they really only need 3 values: rotation amount, rotation offset, and smoothing. then make it possible to animate subobjects in the cockpit model. thats about all i want.

[Spoon]

I just want better, more versatile animation system.
The 'Turret firing' trigger actually working would be a start 

[Nuke]

i did notice a couple things. one i believe i fixed was that the sub-object had to have hit points to animate, i found this annoying since you might want to have a non-destructible animation object. you may have also needed to set an object speed (not sure about this one). and finally you had to edit your model and add +triggered: to the sub-object that you wanted to animate. that last one is easy to miss, not obvious at all, poorly documented, and worst of all, its not reported to the modder in the debug builds. if possible i think the requirement of the subobject property should be removed if it doesnt serve any major purpose.

[QuantumDelta]

How's this issue coming along? I can see it being a potential game stopper (or AWESOME feature being removed for the BP guys) for WiH atm for quite a lot of pilots :<

[Fury]

Honestly, animation code is being more trouble than it is worth. When you get something to work, it only works half the time on good day.

Someone really should fix this.

[Goober5000]

The animation code, unfortunately, is one of a long line of FSO features that were abandoned before completion.  I sometimes wonder if we should start ripping those sorts of features out.

[The E]

In this case, that might be a good idea. As it is implemented, it's too full of weird stuff that borders on black magic (For example, the turret firing trigger).

A new implementation, one that not only does rotation but also translation and that is better controllable (using, for example, the embedded scripting thing I proposed here) would be good.

[chief1983]

There's no working support for translation whatsoever in the engine yet, so that would be kind of difficult.  At least rotation already model and collision support.

[Trivial Psychic]

There is a way to simulate translations, by using two invisible, non-collidable submodels, configured a bit like an arm with an elbow joint.  You'd have to control 3 rotation points... one at the "elbow" where the two invisible submodels contact each other, and one where where each contacts the main model.  All three would need to be timed to trigger at the same time.

[Goober5000]

There's no working support for translation whatsoever in the engine yet, so that would be kind of difficult.  At least rotation already model and collision support.

The model and collision code already needs to be rewritten.  If someone is doing that, translation support could be added at the same time.

[Spoon]

The animation code, unfortunately, is one of a long line of FSO features that were abandoned before completion.  I sometimes wonder if we should start ripping those sorts of features out.

Considering the fair amount of capital ships that have an initial turret rotation setting I'd say, please no. Not to mention the ships that have triggers on afterburners.
While limited, at least *some* parts of the current animation code works.
Of course, I'd have no complaints if it were to get a proper replacement or something.

[Vasudan Admiral]

Agreed - ripping out the animation code without replacement would be an awful idea! It may not be as bug free or even as functional as it should be, but it does mostly work - and the flexability it offers ship builders even in its current state is amazing.

[chief1983]

Is there proper documentation then on what currently does work (and what was intended to work)?  Without that it could prove difficult to rewrite a replacement.

[Goober5000]

Unlikely.  It was Bobboau's baby, and any changes made by other people were merely bugfixes and feature patches.