Blending 2 anims & other questions

[Augusti]

Hey guys!

I discovered RF several weeks ago and immediately got carried away with it's features, and started to design a game. As amateur game programmer, I do understand what it takes to create a game, even if the engine is already up and running. However, my design process keeps halting since I don't know or understand all the features in RF. Since I'm not a native speaker, reading manuals is sometimes frustrating and too time consuming.

(1)The manuals talk alot of animation blending. Does this mean I can make separate animations for the upper body and the lower body of an actor? For example, is it possible to make a running animation, where only legs are animated, and the animations for upper body, like idle and shoot. Now in scripting, can I tell the program to use leg animation and either of these upper body animations at the same time? This would reduce animation process considerably. I'm used to modelling, but animations are a new thing to me.

(2)I just explored script files, and learned that they are really bitchy in syntax, especially with comment lines. Anyway, the player can be scripted to a certain point, but as i'm making an isometric game I would need some camera control routines for this. Are there any functions for the camera?

(3)While making some tests with World Editor 2.0, I couldn't disable the sliding on angled surfaces. I set the slideslope to 0 and slidespeed to 0 in EnvironmentSetup, but the player actor still keeps sliding on a plane in 45 degrees. How come?

[Jay]

(1): No, it's used to blend inbetween two animations. Say you have a walk animation and then suddenly a sword hacking animations. If they come suddenly it looks strange and blocky. To avoid this, you use the AnimateBlend(...) functions. Then the animation is blended properly to the new one instead of a sudden change without transition. I tried to do exactly what you wanted before using different actors but then there was a problem with the actors being seperated and thin air inbetween them. I think something like this has been asked before. Search the forum, i have posted a pic showing the problem of the 'thin air'.

(2): Just use a fixed camera and script it (Look for the low level commands in the manual). Or use the isometric view, we have a view just for this. Again, look in the manual (camera file or something like that), it's all explained in there.

(3): I think when you set values to 0 in EnvironmentSetup, RF automaticly takes the standard value for this entry. Also, try to make slideslope 90, because it looks for the minimal angle to slide.

Welcome to the forums.

[Augusti]

(3): I think when you set values to 0 in EnvironmentSetup, RF automaticly takes the standard value for this entry. Also, try to make slideslope 90, because it looks for the minimal angle to slide.

Welcome to the forums.

Thanks

The RF entity reference states:
The value of SlideSlope ranges from 1 for a flat surface to 0 for a vertical surface. A normal slope will range from 0.84 to 0.95, with a larger value causing the player to slide on a flatter slope. The value of SlideSpeed is the maximum speed factor applied to the player on a near vertical slope. The actual sliding speed will decrease as the slope becomes flatter.

So 0 is the value for completely vertical surface? That statement above doesn't make any sense to me. Shoudn't a larger value cause the player to slide on steeper surfaces?? Moreover, the referece did indeed say that zeros will be replaced with default values.