[1.7.2] Animation Help

[loawkise]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone knew any good guides for animating my entity.

[jabelar]

I've got a tutorial that might help: http://jabelarminecraft.blogspot.com/p/complex-entity-models-including.html

 

[loawkise]

That helped clear some stuff up, thanks. Any simple way of changing how long an animation will take, or will I just have to do some custom timer type things.

[jabelar]

That helped clear some stuff up, thanks. Any simple way of changing how long an animation will take, or will I just have to do some custom timer type things.

 

The way I do animation cycle is with a 2D array of rotation values.  Each row by default represents 1 tick of the game.  So if you want to adjust the speed of the animation cycle you would add extra rows to the cycle (ideally with angles that are in between the angles of the rows above and below to ensure smooth animation).

 

That creates a cycle, but sometimes you want a cycle to happen once and sometimes you want it to happen repeatedly for some amount of time or sometimes you want it to happen continuously.

 

To control animations you will need some booleans and maybe int counters in your custom entity class, and you'll need to check those in your Model class to control the animation.  For example I have an EntityElephant that will rear up when attacked instead of running away.  So in the elephant class I create a public boolean field called isRearing and set it to true when attacked.  Then in the model I check the state of the isRearing variable and if true I set angles based on the animation cycle for rearing.  When the cycle index counter gets to the end of the animation I clear the isRearing field.  So this makes a one time animation.

 

But yes you could use a timer counter as well.  The main point is you do need other variables to control the animations, and it really depends on your situation.  For example another entity I created is a snake and so I control the animation based on movement -- I want it to slither when moving.  Another entity I created is an eagle and it has a lot of different types of animations -- the way it flaps its wings is different when it is soaring versus when it is diving.

[loawkise]

Yeah, I had a feeling I would have to do something like that. I have just been looking at the iron golem class as I want to do something similar to when it attacks and I think I get what I am doing now, thanks.

[loawkise]

1 last major problem. When the animation occurs, it happens on every mob of that type.

[jabelar]

Can you post the code from your entity class that declares and changes the variable that you're using to control the animation?

 

I expect maybe you declared the field as a static?

[loawkise]

Hrmm, I removed that, forgot I made it static, but now it isn't working at all.

ENTITY

public boolean attackEntityAsMob(Entity par1Entity) {

	this.attackTimer = 50;

        return par1Entity.attackEntityFrom(DamageSource.causeMobDamage(this), (float) getEntityAttribute(SharedMonsterAttributes.movementSpeed).getAttributeValue());
        
}

public void onLivingUpdate() {

        super.onLivingUpdate();

        if (this.attackTimer > 0) {
        	
            -- this.attackTimer;
            
        }
        
    }

    public int getAttackTimer() {

        return this.attackTimer;
        
    }

MODEL

public void setLivingAnimations(EntityLivingBase par1EntityLivingBase, float par2, float par3, float par4)
  {
      EntityGuardianStone entityguardianstone = (EntityGuardianStone)par1EntityLivingBase;
      int i = entityguardianstone.getAttackTimer();

      if (i > 0) {
    	  
          this.JabbyThing.offsetZ = (float) (- i * 0.02);
          
      } else {
    	  
    	  this.JabbyThing.offsetZ = (float) 0.01;
    	  
      }
      
  }

[jabelar]

That looks fairly correct.  I suggest just putting in some console messages (with System.out.println() method) to print out where you are in the code and what the attackTimer value is at that time to help trace the code logic.  You should have console message when you first set the attackTimer to 50, then again after each if statement that tests the value.  That should tell you a fair bit.

[loawkise]

Well I think it is just that in the setLivingAnimations() method, it isn't getting the updated value for int attackTimer, but I do not know why... It changes within the class attackTimer is created but not in the model class.

[jabelar]

Oh, well one of the problems with doing animations is that the animation is done on the client side but usually the logic that controls the logic is done on the server side.  So you often need to use a packet to sync the two sides.  For example, you probably need to send a custom packet to keep the attackTimer synced.  It is a pain, but as far as I know necessary. 

 

To prove this, you should print out debug statements that show what side the code is executing on (i.e. the worldObj.isRemote kind of check).  I think you'll see that your attackTimer is being set on server and checked on client.

[loawkise]

Will your custom packet handling tutorial help?

 

[jabelar]

Will your custom packet handling tutorial help?

 

I currently use that system for controlling my animations, yes.  It does work, and I've used it for this purpose.

 

Recently, however, there seems to be confidence that we can switch to using the SimpleNetworkWrapper implementation provided by Forge.  I think if you're going to invest in implementing a packet system, you should try that first since it should be the one people use going forward.  I personally plan to switch over when I can find some time.

 

But mine does work fine too.  I think my tutorial is still good to teach the basic concepts -- all the Netty-based systems need to do the same general things, which I explain.

[loawkise]

I am trying to learn what is going on but it is a bit overwhelming at the moment. I will start again tomorrow so I can concentrate more. Thanks for the help anyways, you have been a massive help to me.

[jabelar]

I posted correction on your other thread with topic on the attacking, but I made mistake in the code for the mob attack -- instead of the movementSpeed attribute it should be (of course) the attackDamage attribute.  Be sure to correct your code.

 

public boolean attackEntityAsMob(Entity par1Entity) {

 

this.attackTimer = 50;

 

        return par1Entity.attackEntityFrom(DamageSource.causeMobDamage(this), (float) getEntityAttribute(SharedMonsterAttributes.attackDamage).getAttributeValue());

       

}

[loawkise]

Oh, well one of the problems with doing animations is that the animation is done on the client side but usually the logic that controls the logic is done on the server side.  So you often need to use a packet to sync the two sides.  For example, you probably need to send a custom packet to keep the attackTimer synced.  It is a pain, but as far as I know necessary. 

 

To prove this, you should print out debug statements that show what side the code is executing on (i.e. the worldObj.isRemote kind of check).  I think you'll see that your attackTimer is being set on server and checked on client.

 

Is there any other way around this, I literally have 1 variable I need to use in another class and this just seems, as you put it, overkill.

[Heltrato]

This is how i do it i set a command to tigrex in his Entity then do the animation in the model

 

 

public void animate(EntityTigrex tigrex, float f, float f1, float f2, float f3,float f4, float f5){

      if(tigrex.getNextAttack == 1 ){
               animateBite();
                else{
dobreatheAnim();
doWalkAnim[1];
doWalkAnim[2];
doWalkAnim[3];
doWalkAnim[4];
setRotationYawPitch(tigrex.rotationYaw);
}

             }
      
      

[loawkise]

The problem I am having is that I can get the int value of my attack timer without i being static, so the animation would work  if the I could get its value.

[Heltrato]

There are other ways aside that look at EntityGolem , EntitySheep and EntityChicken

[loawkise]

I believe I have the exact same setup as the golem but it isn't working.

[jabelar]

I believe I have the exact same setup as the golem but it isn't working.

 

I think the problem is that the vanilla enitities do have number of packets traversing around to keep things in sync, and it is entirely possible that the golem attackTimer is somehow sync'ed with those.  I poked around in the various packets (e.g. look in net.minecraft.network.play.server and net.minecraft.network.play.client packages) and couldn't find an actual reference to this, but you can see from the sheer wealth of packet types that it is very possible that this sync is happening.

 

I think you could possibly use the DataWatcher to do the syncing, especially if your counter could be contained in a single byte.  I haven't used DataWatcher much, but it is basically a very small amount of data that is kept in sync for you.  It is really only suitable for passing booleans and bytes.

[loawkise]

Okay, I will try my best to figure out the packets and hope it solves my problem, thanks for the help