[SUGGESTION] Limited Entrances and Exits--animations on count reaching zero

[Crane]

This is a suggestion on the new numbered entrances and exits suggestion...

When a trapdoor count reaches zero, can it close up again (play its opening animation in reverse)? Similarly for the exit, when its count reaches zero, it plays its unlocking animation in reverse? With the big "0" over the exit, it shouldn't be mistaken for a locked exit after that, or even if it is, the fact it says zero means you can't use it.

[edit by ccexplore: hope you don't mind me updating the thread title to be more clear]

[namida]

Similarly for the exit, when its count reaches zero, it plays its unlocking animation in reverse?

In regards to this specific case - not all exits have unlocking animations, don't forget.


But generally speaking, yes, having animations for these is something I want to implement eventually. Simply "play the normal animation in reverse" feels a bit limiting - though it could work as a fallback - so I would rather do this in a way that allows people to provide completely custom animations for such situations.

With that being said, I think - even though using this would be an optional feature - 12.6 and the upcoming 12.7 already require a lot out of custom content creators, and 12.7 has a lot of planned features already. I'd rather not add another major thing to one of these releases, so most likely, I'd be looking at 12.8 for a time to implement this.

[Crane]

Well, hence why I suggested playing the reverse animation.  A trapdoor closing but with Lemmings still to come out means that Lemmings, wandering around their homeworld, aren't going to fall through the floor into the level from that entrance any more!

I'm all for flexibility, but if the custom animation isn't there, then the reverse of the "opening" and the "unlocking" seem like nice fallbacks.  Of course, if an exit doesn't hve an unlocking animation, then I'm not sure what should happen.

[namida]

Now that I think about it - the existing secondary animation system should pretty much already allow for everything needed here. The only changes that may be needed, are:

- firstly, the ability to have an animation that plays only once when a condition is fulfilled - or alternatively, that loops back to a specified frame, instead of always to frame zero
- secondly, the ability to play a sound when closing
- (and maybe, thirdly, the auto-generation of a "opening, but backwards" animation; for those without such an animation, perhaps a red "X" placed over the exit could work)

Beyond this, all that's needed is careful use of the secondary animation system.

[namida]

Yes - I can confirm that this can be done with the secondary animation system, without any changes actually, at least for entrances. The only thing that can't be done currently, is a sound effect when closing. I'll add support for that, as well as one other useful feature that will help with this, for V12.8.0, and I'll post an example closer to the time. For now - feel free to start planning ahead for this.

EDIT: Closing sound is now supported.

I still need to test with exits (both normal and locked).

[namida]

Yep, I've added the feature for an "on closing" sound, and confirmed that exits can be done too.

Rather than post examples, I'm adding a new style called "examples". This will be downloadable in V12.8.X onwards, and will contain example objects - with comments explaining them - to achieve these kind of effects.

Are there any other "fancy effects" people want to be able to do? I'll check if they're doable currently, and if not, see what needs to be added.

[mobius]

Personally I like Crane's original suggestion of 'reverse of the locked exit'. It makes the most sense; the door closing signaling that no more lemmings can go through (same for the entrances).
I'm all for customization as well but as usual if it's done to the extreme (as was the case with some other styles with buttons and other objects in the past) it just gets confusing and I'll be less likely to use those styles at all. It would be much neater if all of these animations were of a similar nature.

[namida]

I'm going to avoid trying to make any defaults here; though I'm definitely open to updating the official style ones to follow that pattern.

If you're using V12.8.X-RC (or in the future, V12.8.X or higher stable), you can use the built in styles manager to download a style called "examples". It's also included in the all-styles download. As the name suggests, you can look at this style for examples of how to do some fancy things - in particular, I've covered how to do entrances, exits and locked exits with closing animations. (I think those are the only things I've put examples of so far, actually.)