Ok, I did read Tom's Icon Primer. I even loaded it up and here's my problem:
When I move my icon (I'm testing with the 'simple' dme created by deadron), the walking animation plays sporadically. This is even true of Tom's Ghost icon - it flashes different colors while moving - but it stops flashing while moving after a few seconds of moving around. After that, I can't get the ghost to flash again (display movement animation)
My only guess is that my system is displaying the frames too fast to see the animation.
My question: can I buffer the animation somehow so it shows on faster machines? I've tried the 'delay' setting, but that doesn't seem to help.
Thanks in advance...
Matt
ID:180348
 Jul 17 2001, 3:59 pm
|
|
Thanks for replying Tom.
I did a little more testing and here's the deal: When moving, if I press the arrow key once and let go, the character moves exactly one space in the desired direction and then stops. Movement animation plays correctly. And as long as I only press the key once (and don't hold it down), the move anim plays great for each step (any direction). The problem is when I 'hold down' the arrow key. The movement animations stop and the icon zips about the map. This holds true for Tom's Icon guide (unmodified) and Deadron's Simple little dungeon with the mouse and cheese (again, unmodified). Another thing: if I've already moved in that 'fast' manner, even if I try to move slowly the move anims don't play. The character seems to be stuck in some sort of 'run mode'. again, thanks in advance... matt On 7/17/01 7:06 pm Tom wrote: On 7/17/01 6:59 pm plourde603 wrote: | |
On 7/18/01 4:29 am plourde603 wrote:
The problem is when I 'hold down' the arrow key. The movement animations stop and the icon zips about the map. Ah, I see what's happening now. Since the "smooth movement" is only a visual effect, the client has to have a way of bypassing it when the user really wants to move quickly (ie- when holding down a movement key). Currently, it handles this by incrementing the distance and skipping some frames, but the behavior is glitchy, as you've noticed. Fortunately we are aware of the situation and recently have begun discussing better alternatives. While this qualifies as a luxury feature and really shouldn't be a priority, we have made it one because it is so noticeable. Another thing: if I've already moved in that 'fast' manner, even if I try to move slowly the move anims don't play. The character seems to be stuck in some sort of 'run mode'. The movement speed currently gets buffered, so if you hold down the keys to move fast it will remain in that state for a few seconds. During that interval, everytime you hit a key you'll move (unexpectedly) fast. If you wait a bit (without holding down the keys) it should go back to the normal "smooth" speed. However, this behavior is both ugly and unintuitive, so we'll clean this up when doing the aforementioned upgrade. Good observations, both. Hopefully you'll see a noticeable improvement soon. | |
Hmm, that sounds like a bug on our end. Theoretically the animation should play independently of your machine specs, because the map only updates once every 10th of a second. I don't recall whether we use the 'delay' for walking states, but still...
Do non-movement animations work properly?