The NGLE Manual
Animating
Textures - Advanced Techniques
By Bedazzled
Note:
This tutorial applies only to the new game
engine and not the previous NGLE.
P – Frames
This
allows you to change the texturing of a room without using
flipmaps for example you could change the ground cover from
grass to snow by using a flipeffect.
To do this
you assign an animating range consisting of 2 or more
textures with the Anim – Type set to P – Frame. By applying
the trigger shown below the texture referenced by the [E]xtr
parameter is replaced by the texture referenced by the timer
parameter. Two separate P – Frame ranges can be used with
this type of trigger.
River-Rotate
Note: During testing I have
used the normal water textures supplied with the standard
tga sets.
I do not advise using values above about 4
and 6 for 64 x 64 & 128 x 128 textures respectively as the
desired effect is lost at higher scrolling speeds.
Information provided by Paolone
This animation mixes UV-scroll full rotate
with normal frame animation. It is used to simulate the
flowing water of a river. In reality water runs (Uv-range)
but there is also light reflecting on the surface (frame
animation).
To set this in the Animation range window of
the NGLE, you have to set in the top combo list a low value
for UvRotate such as 1 or 2 for 64x64 textures or a value of
2 or 3 for 128x128 textures.
In the bottom combo box you should set a
value of MAX_FPS or a bit lower such as 28 fps. The bottom
combo box will set the speed of the frame animation (like
normal water) while the top combo box sets the speed of
scrolling (UvRange).
It's advisable to set only a few water textures for the
river range to allow for other textures for normal water.
The River-rotate range is placed in the level like the
normal water textures - double sided and transparent on a
portal between stacked rooms. When you place these river
textures it's important to rotate all textures the same way
to keep the same direction of the UvRotate animation. This
direction should follow the flow of the river, of course.
If in game you don't see the flowing of water particularly
well, it can be useful to reduce the frame speed, setting in
the bottom combo box a lower value of MAX_FPS, for example
use values of 28 fps or 20 fps.
Paolone has advised that the river animation
range requires that a couple of any texture from the river
range is placed in opaque mode in a hidden part of the
level. I have tested with and without placing these opaque
textures and have noticed no difference in the effect
obtained.
Texture Sequences
These allow one texture to be replaced by
another in a sequence defined by the level builder and can
be started & stopped repeatedly using flipeffect triggers. A
highly talented builder could achieve the effect of players
seeing Lara on some sort of screen moving her lips as she
appears to talk to them.
Only textures in specific locations on the
tga map can be used these are listed below and are counted
across from the top left corner of the tga map starting at
1.
Textures 5 – 12 and 21 - 24. Textures in any
other location of the map will not currently work, this
problem may be solved in the future in which case this
tutorial will be updated to reflect the changes.
A lot of valuable information concerning the
required script command and it’s various parameters is
contained in the script documentation for TRNG provided by
Paolone, the appropriate section of which is reproduced at
the end of this tutorial. I will just give examples of
setting up various texture sequences.
Example 1 A single sequence and
range
In the Animation Ranges window select the
desired textures up to a maximum of 16, from the Anim – Type
dropdown box select P –Frames and click the Assign and ok
buttons.
Set a trigger for the effect in the required
place and set the trigger parameters as shown below.
Note: The
animation range parameter set in the trigger box must be the
number of the range which you have just set. If for example
you had previously assigned one texture range for any
purpose, you would select the 2nd Animation Range from the
[E]xtra: dropdown box.
A second trigger which will stop the effect
can also be set as shown here.
Finally to complete the setup process the
TextureSequence= command must be added to the level section
of the script an example is shown here.
TextureSequence= 1, 1, SEQ_LOOP,3, 2, 1, 0
This would run a sequence of four textures in
the order 3,2,1,0, at a rate of one per second in a
continuous loop until stopped with a flipeffect.
The various parameters which can be used are
fully explained at the end of the tutorial.
Example 2 A pair of sequences
and ranges
This is setup as the previous example until
we get to setting the triggers and the entries in the script
file. In this example I have set an animating range for
normal water textures before setting the second texture
sequence range, as a result I have selected the 3rd
Animation Range in the [E]xtra: dropdown box of the trigger
window.
The script will require an entry for each
range as shown here, the second entry refers to the second
sequence range numbered 3 as explained above. I have also
chosen 2 frames per second as the speed and the textures
will loop in reverse order because of the SEQ_LOOP_INVERSE
TextureSequence= 1, 1, SEQ_LOOP,3, 2, 1, 0
TextureSequence= 3, 2, SEQ_LOOP_INVERSE,3, 2, 1, 0
Example 3
Multiple sequences within a single range
It’s possible to have several texture
sequences in a single animation range for this example I’ll
use a single range of 8 textures split into 2 sequences,
this is the texture set used for the tutorial so you can
better understand what happens.
Assume that the texture “A” is applied to a
wall to begin with and we want the lettered textures to form
one sequence and the numbered textures to form the other
sequence.
We would set this trigger for the 1st
sequence.
And
this trigger for the 2nd sequence.
And make these entries in the script.
TextureSequence= 1, 1, SEQ_LOOP,0, 1, 2, 3
TextureSequence= 2, 1, SEQ_LOOP,4, 5, 6, 7
The numbers 0 – 7 refer to the position of
each texture within the range. When the first trigger is
activated the letter “A” will be replaced by the letters
B,C,D in sequence. Once the second trigger is activated the
sequence will become this. A,1,B,2,C,3,D,4
Activating the 2 triggers in the reverse
order would result in the sequences 1,2,3,4 and
1,A,2,B,3,C,4,D
Either or both sequences stopped by using a
flipeffect as shown in example 1, and can also be repeatedly
stopped & started.
TextureSequence=
****************
Syntax: TextureSequence=IdTexSeq,
FramePerSec, SEQ_ flags, Tex Indices array {...}
Scope: to use in [Level] section
IdTexSeq field
--------------
Progressive number to identify this texture sequence when
you enable it using the flipeffect trigger. You'll use "1"
for first TextureSequence command, the value "2" for second
TextureSequence command, etc.
FramePerSec field
------------------
In this field you set the speed of the sequence. The value
is in frames per second. The max value is 30, i.e. 30 frames
per second, the smallest value is 1.
SEQ_ flags field
-----------------
You can set two or more SEQ_ flags, you will find the list
in the reference panel of NG Center program.
Currently there are the following flags:
SEQ_LOOP
The sequence will be performed indefinitely. If you use this
flag you'll have to use specific a flipeffect to stop the
sequence, otherwise it will be performed continuously.
SEQ_LOOP_INVERSE
This flag works only if you have set the SEQ_LOOP flag.
While the single SEQ_LOOP flag sets an infinite loop with
this sequence (supposing we use 4 textures from 0 to 3): the
sequence will appear like this.
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 ....
When you set also the SEQ_LOOP_INVERSE flag,
the sequence will become:
0 1 2 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 2 1 0 ...
SEQ_STOP_AT_FIRST
If you set this flag you force the engine to always reset to
the first texture of the range when the animation is
sequence is completed. Differently, if you omit this flag
the last texture shown depends on the type of animation
sequence set.
If you have set no loop, the last texture
shown will be the texture of the last index of the array
sequence. If you have set a loop, the texture shown will
depend on the exact moment when you perform the Stop texture
sequence flipeffect.
Tex Indices array {...} fields
------------------------------
The tex indices array may host up to 100 different indices.
You'll separate the value with commas ',' in normal way.
Each index will describe the index position for each texture
within the specific animation range.
For example if you set four textures in the
tga map, with each texture show a literal "A" on the first
and then "B", "C" and "D". When you want show a frame with
"A" texture you'll type 0 (zero), when you want the "B" you
type 1, etc.
For example if your TextureSequence command
is:
TextureSequence= 1, 4, IGNORE,
3, 2, 1, 0
You'll have a sequence with ID = 1 (this is
the number to set in flipeffect trigger to start/stop this
sequence).
The animation will be slow, because you have
set 4 fps, so the image will change only four times per
second.
Will not loop, because you have set IGNORE
for SEQ_ flags
While the sequence shown in game will be with
following images:
D (3)
C (2)
B (1)
A (0)
Remarks
-
The ranges you can animate with the
TextureSequence command have to be set like "P-Frames"
in NGLE.
-
The max number of textures you can
animate with TextureSequence is 16. This mean you can
only enter numbers in the range of 0 - 15 in the Indices
Array fields.
-
You can animate the same P-Frame range
with different TextureSequence commands.
-
The number of P-Frame to animate will
need to be set in the flipeffect trigger.
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