[Ohrrpgce] better palette options

[James Paige]

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 04:34:35PM +1030, David Gowers (kampu) wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 1:47 AM, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com> wrote:
> >> > Hypotheticlly suppose I have a side-scroller where the hero has a
> >> > 4-frame walk animation. When I press and hold the attack button while
> >> > walking, I want her to switch to to the sprite set where she charges an
> >> > energy canon, and when it is fully charged, I want to change her sprite
> >> > set to the one with the fully-charged canon.
> >> > I want to keep my place in
> >> > the 4-frame walk animation when these changes occur.
> >>
> >> It sounds like
> >>
> >> stored := push animation(current)
> >> set animation gfxset (current, charging)
> >> set animation timeout (current, chargeticks)
> >>
> >> # per tick, detect current anim timeout and..
> >> set animation gfxset (current, charged)
> >> set animation timeout (-1)
> >> # or detect button release and...
> >> replace animation (current, pop animation(stored))
> >
> > Interesting. With an interface like that I would probably not use the
> > feature at all. I would probably just use "replace animation" and
> > nothing else, since the push/pop commands and the timeout commands since
> > those both kinda volate Mode-View-Controller by putting "model" data
> > into the "view" which is going to have to be duplicated in the "model"
> > anyway for other reasons.
> 
> I don't 100% get MVC, however I had the impression that the design I
> describe in the lumpdefs.yaml didn't have any view stuff, only model
> and (with the above api description) controller.  I suppose an active
> animation could be considered a view.. in some sense.
> What do you mean? That Timeout should be an op in the animation? (in
> this case a way to prime an animation with a 'local default' timeout
> seems moderately important)

Well, I don't strictly have to stick to MVC when I am making a 
sidescroller, it is just a general guideline.

What I mean about the timeout, is that in a sidescroller, every 
animation should represent something that is happening in the game's 
model. So say I know that charging takes chargeticks ticks

  set animation gfxset (current, charging)
  set animation timeout (current, chargeticks)

...but am I actually going to read the animation state to see whether or 
not I have finished charging? No, I am going to have some other timer 
in my player model that keeps track of how I am charging. So I am 
storing the timer in two places.

That is not a terrible problem, not at all. I am just bringing this up 
to draw attention to the fact that I am uncertain about how I would 
actually use this proposed animation interface in a script.

The fact that I don't know that yet doesn't mean I think it is a bad 
proposal.

In the same way, storing the previous animation state with a push/pop 
interface doesn't make sense to me because when an animation ends you 
want to switch to whatever is appropriate for the sprite *now* not what 
was appropriate for the sprite back before the animation started.

> > But for non-sidescrollers... maybe just making a hero or an NPC do an
> > "emote" in a regular RPG, I can see that interface being convenient.
> I am now unsure.

I guess another thing to think of is how might animations be used in a 
non-scripted way.

Continuing on the idea of hero and NPC emotes, what if we want to be 
able to create a text box, and say that the box should trigger the 
"talking" animation of the NPC that triggered the box. Or what if we 
want to make a text box that runs one loop of the portrait "scorn" 
animation before settling on the "frown" state of the portrait, 
regardless of who's portrait is actually being displayed?

---
James