ModEnc is currently in Maintenance Mode: Changes could occur at any given moment, without advance warning.

Animation Looping

From ModEnc
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Here is the animation looping control flag descriptions. The loop control allows to set start/end frames for the first iteration of the loop and start/end frames for all other iterations in the loop.

Animations

The following apply to any animation:

  • Start defines a 0-based index of the first frame to play on the first iteration.
    • Start is used for first iteration irrespective of the number of total iterations defined for this animation. Start defaults to 0 if not defined.
  • End defines the number of frames starting from the frame number specified by Start(0-based). So when Start=0, you can consider End as the frame index(1-based) of the ending.
    • it could be the shadow frames as well unless Shadow=yes is set in RA2/YR making it to end with the last normal frame.
  • LoopCount defines the total amount of iterations to play.
    • Value 1 is for a single iteration where the LoopStart and LoopEnd values are not used instead.
    • Value ≥ 2, then the following two tags will be used:
      • LoopStart defines a 0-based index of the first frame for loop iterations.
      • LoopEnd defines a 1-based index of the last frame when total number of iterations is more than one.
    • Value -1 is used for infinite loop.

Notes (0-based)

None loop :

Start -> Start+End -1

Have loop (0-based):

Start -> LoopEnd-1 -- [LoopCount-1 times] --><-> LoopStart -> Start+End -1
  • If StartLoopEnd-1, animation will only play 1 frame using the index specified by Start and then directly enter the second Loop;
  • If LoopStartLoopEnd - 1, then display 1 frame of LoopStart, and then proceed to the next Loop.
  • If Start+End -1LoopStart, animation will only play 1 frame using the index specified by LoopStart and then end.

From 2 to 10, there are 9 numbers instead of 10-2=8. And 10=2+9-1.

  • This is obvious, so you need to -1 at the end to get the frame index.

Notes (1-based)

None loop (1-based):

Start+1 -> Start+End (← Start+1 + End -1)

Have loop (1-based):

Start+1 -> LoopEnd -- [LoopCount-1 times] --><-> LoopStart+1 -> Start+End (← Start+1 + End  -1)
  • If Start+1LoopEnd, animation will only play 1 frame using the index specified by Start+1 and then directly enter the second Loop;
  • If LoopStart + 1LoopEnd, then display 1 frame of LoopStart + 1, and then proceed to the next Loop.
  • If Start+EndLoopStart+1, animation will only play 1 frame using the index specified by LoopStart+1 and then end.

From 2 to 10, there are 9 numbers instead of 10-2=8. And 10=2+9-1.

  • This is obvious, so you need to -1 at the end to get the frame index.

Bugs/Side-Effects/Unexpected Limitations

If an animation of a Loop is used by another animation via Next, then its Start will be calculated by multiplying by 2.

  • For example, the following code will make RING1 and PDFXLOC both stay for 2 frames at frame 11 (1-based) of the Shape before swapping.
  • However, if RING1 or PDFXLOC are created using AnimList, the first playback will start from frame 6 (1-based).
[AnyAnim]
Next=RING1

[RING1]
Start=5
LoopStart=10
LoopEnd=11
End=6
LoopCount=2
Next=PDFXLOC

[PDFXLOC]
Start=5
LoopStart=10
LoopEnd=11
End=6
LoopCount=2
Next=RING1

That is,

  • Start*2 -> LoopEnd-1 -- [LoopCount-1 times] --> LoopStart+0 -> Start+End-1 for 0-based index;
  • Start*2+1 -> LoopEnd -- [LoopCount-1 times] --> LoopStart+1 -> Start+End-0 for 1-based index.

Correspondingly, this causes you to be unable to stably play even-numbered (1-based) frames.

  • For example, you cannot stably use the 10th (1-based) frame for the above RING1 and PDFXLOC, because Start will insert an odd-numbered (1-based) frame.

Projectiles

Animated projectiles have their own set of flags which achieve the same effect as the loop flags above, albeit with somewhat less control.

  • AnimLow defines a 0-based index of the first frame.
  • AnimHigh defines a 0-based index of the last frame.

The animation will loop indefinitely until the projectile expires in one way or another.

See Also

Next

AnimRate