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NeoLemmix Main / Re: Secondary animations for triggered objects: Experimental version available
« on: May 13, 2019, 09:25:29 PM »[explanations on animations]Ok, that's a lot of information and I am pretty sure I am still misunderstanding half of it. I have a few questions, but almost certainly more will appear once I start implementing the editor-side rendering in earnest:
1) Why do we have to distinguish between primary animations and secondary ones? It seems that the secondary animations are even more flexible, and the only advantage of primary animations is, that they override certain attributes. But then the style designer should not set the attributes in the first place.
2) As the STATEs seem to be (and should be) mutually exclusive, they should be set as an attributes, i.e. like "STATE PLAY". If we have stuff like "LOOP_TO_ZERO" as keywords, that would indicate to me, that it can be combined with the "PLAY" or "PAUSE" state for example.
3) Why do we need "Z_INDEX"? The default specifies a certain order anyway, which is pretty natural, so I don't see any need for this attribute.
4) Why do we need "HIDE" as an option for secondary animations? If we are not displaying anything, then why have this secondary animation at all?
5) Regarding "INITIAL_FRAME": At what point did we deprecate "RANDOM_START_FRAME" and introduced the "-1" instead? I would have preferred to add "INITIAL_FRAME RANDOM" instead. (Might very well be, that it was me who introduced the "-1" and I am criticizing myself here...)
6) I am still unsure which of the STATEs and the TRIGGER types are actually necessary for the most common use-cases (i.e. idling traps and locked exits), and which are just for potential future use? Can we stick to the absolute essentials for now? This would help people like me to get used to this.
I was actually quite surprised to see triggered animations had been removed. Unlike radiation / slowfreeze, they don't complicate gameplay, and 99% of the code needed for them to function is needed anyway for other object types that still exist (most notably traps, which are essentially just a triggered animation that also removes a lemming). And especially with the secondary animations feature, there's probably a lot of artistic potential in them, too...The main reason is player expectations: If something triggers, then this signals a game physics effect on a lemming. With the various gadget types it is hard enough to newer players to learn the various effects NL supports. No need to confuse them with no-effect effects . This all stems directly from my own experience as a player: Such objects have been very rare, so when I first encountered it, I wasn't even aware that NeoLemmix supported triggered animations. So I tried for half an hour to find out, what this gadget actually does and never found anything!
PS: I actually would prefer an even stronger rule, namely: If something moves, it either is currently interacting with a lemming or has at least the potential for it. Unfortunately moving background pieces break that rule (which is why I wanted to remove them at some point)...