Another animation question

posted on October 23rd, 2012, 1:09 am

How do you tie specifc animations to events? For example, I took the Borg Pyramid from Armada 2 and converted it to A1. I have imported it into 3d Max and would like to setup an animation such that the ship rotates 90 degrees and fires it's special weapon (e.g., the Borg Iron Beam) at enemy stations. After firing, the ship would rotate back to an upright pyramid profile. At present, I can't seem to figure out a way to tie the animation to the event. I had hoped the animateOwner = 1 command placed into the special weapon odf would have been the solution but this command doesn't appear to be supported in A1. Maybe I need to tie it to the hierarchy somehow?

Any help would be appreciated.

posted on October 23rd, 2012, 2:49 am

Unfortunately I'm not that familiar with A1's unique commands, but from looking at the executable, animateowner is indeed not referenced. I also don't see any other animation commands that aren't in Armada II. I'm not sure that A1 has the capability to animate when firing.

posted on October 23rd, 2012, 3:50 pm

To my knowledge, there is no way to animate upon firing a weapon. However, depending on what you're trying to do, there may be a workaround. For the pyramid idea, maybe not, but for other weapons this might work.

If it is a highly specialized ship that only has one weapon, you can give that "ship" a shipyard classlabel, and a pod for a build item. Building the pod will trigger the animation, and pod explosion effects can be the actual "weapon. The pod will explode the moment it comes out of the shipyard as it wouldn't be parented to anything.

Haven't come up with anything more versatile. If only there was a way for the pod to fire a weapon before exploding... heheh.

Wait, did I just think of a possible solution? You can try to replace the pod with an actual "wingman" class object. It will fire all the weapons you need for effects, and will also have a weapon to inflict damage on itself, which will effectively cause it to self-destruct after a few seconds.

You still have to contend with the original ship being a shipyard and not an actual ship though. It can fly around if it has engines, but the AI will not be happy with it.

posted on October 24th, 2012, 7:30 pm

Certainly disappointing news to be sure. Here I am getting all excited about the possibilities of using animation but it looks like I need to seriously manage my own expectations in that regard. I'll investigate some of the ideas you mentioned Mr. V and see how they turn out. Doesn't look like anything will work for my immediate quest: the Borg Pyramid. Back to the drawing board. lol

posted on October 24th, 2012, 7:54 pm

Another good reason to move to better engine

posted on October 24th, 2012, 10:52 pm

Another good reason to move to better engine

is that a hint at something or just observation?

posted on October 24th, 2012, 11:10 pm

A hint that Fleet Operations is more capable than Armada 1 or 2, yup

posted on October 24th, 2012, 11:23 pm

oh right, haha. excuse me while i derp.. for not reading the context of what you were sayin