Action

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The command action refers to both the declaration that defines the animation for an actor, and to the command that changes the animation of an actor at runtime.

Declaration

action <name> <startframe> <frames> <viewtype> <incvalue> <delay>

This statement must be placed outside of any code blocks.

Arguments

  • <name>: Defines the name of the action, to be used with the runtime statement.
  • <startframe>: Defines the starting frame number (relative to the main sprite of the actor).
  • <frames>: Defines the total number of frames in the animation, after which it will loop. Must be at least 1.
  • <viewtype>: Defines the number of sides drawn for the actor. Prior to 3D models, this method was used to simulate a 3D appearance for sprites. Valid values are:
1 - The sprite will appear the same regardless of the angle at which it is viewed.
3 - The sprite will have 16 angles built from only 4 art tiles. A new frame is drawn every 22.5 degrees in a clockwise pattern beginning with the front of the sprite.
The pattern is as follows, with 1, 2, 3, and 4 being the order of the four tiles used, and M denoting that the tile is mirrored: 1M, 2M, 3M, 4M, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1M, 2M, 3M, 4M, 4, 3, 2, 1
5 - The sprite will have 8 angles constructed from 5 art tiles, three of which are mirrored. A new frame is drawn every 45 degrees in a clockwise pattern beginning with the front of the sprite.
The pattern is as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4M, 3M, 2M
7 - The sprite will have 12 angles constructed from 7 art tiles, five of which are mirrored. A new frame is drawn every 30 degrees in a clockwise pattern beginning with the front of the sprite.
The pattern is as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 6M, 5M, 4M, 3M, 2M
8 - The sprite will have 8 angles constructed from 8 art tiles. A new frame is drawn every 45 degrees in a clockwise pattern beginning with the front of the sprite.
In this case it uses a simple pattern: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
View type 1 is generally used for pickups and environmental objects like fire hydrants.
View type 3 is useful only for very symmetrical actors but it does give the most angles.
View types 5 and 7 are for actors which have a single axis of symmetry and which need to face directions other than directly towards the player.
View type 8 is for objects with little in the way of symmetry.
  • <incvalue>: Defines by how many frames the animation should advance in each step. If negative, the animation will play in reverse.
Note that it is possible to define increments greater than 1 or smaller than -1.
  • <delay> : Defines the delay between frames, where the value needs to be a multiple of 4. Any values inbetween result in the same delay as the nearest multiple rounded down.
The delay is not proportional to the value, i.e. a delay of 16 does not result in double the time between frames as a delay of 8.
Much rather, the calculation is as follows:
  • [0,3] is the minimum delay, equal to the tic counter.
  • [4,7] is 1/2 of the tic counter delay
  • [8,11] is 1/3 of the tic counter delay
  • [12,15] is 1/4; [16,19] is 1/5; etc.

Runtime Command

action <name>

Changes the actor's current action when called from within the actor code. Note that calling this statement from within an event has no effect.

Note: Every frame advance adds 1 to actioncount. To reset an animation, either call the action again or use resetactioncount. Starting a new animation will also reset actioncount to 0.