Aligning FRM animations ingame

[Donitz]

Okay, this is driving me a wee bit mad.

I need to solve the issues where the sprites keeps hopping around when the character changes animation. I understand that the Frames Offset only works for FRM AA, and that all subsequent frames are aligned according to this frame. But HOW?

I read somewhere that it uses the image center. Fine, so I wrote a script to symmetrically crop my images to make sure the center of each image is in the same real world spot for all of them. But no luck, it keeps jumping around.

I also read that you could put the last frame in AA in the beginning of other FRMs, but I'm not going to start messing around with over 100 animations because of this. I'd rather just not crop any images at all.

So what part of the frames are aligned when the animation changes? The center of the image, or the bottom of the image? Must the images have the same dimensions to align properly or can I fix it using frame offsets?

Does auto-cutting compensate for this at all? Because all my images are 288x288 with the character's feet being in the exact center before auto-cutting. AAAargh!

 

[.Pixote.]

If you animate or build something in 3D, don't crop the image. Render them at a particular size that captures the entire object and the movement, with space around it to spare. When you bring that thing into the Frame Animator, and position it correctly, then use the crop feature and remove the excess. This is the easiest and fastest way to build stuff correctly. Cropping the files before they are taken into the Frame Animator will make your life very unhappy.

 

[Geras]

What I do is I always use the project .fpr file of the old animation with all the offsets written down there and I just overwrite the old frames with new frames while animating. If it is necessary to enlarge or crop a frame by a few pixels vertically or horizontally to make a hero fit in the canvas (because of a different hairstyle etc) or when it is just a pixel of shadow to crop I just did the cropping/enlarging. But as a general rule I try not to change the original frame size.

After all that I always check my animations ingame and write down all the directions the hero faces and in which direction a certain animation jumps (which is a pixel or two, but usually nothing) then I go back to frame animator and apply necessary changes then I check it ingame again and apply more changes if needed.

 

[Donitz]

If you animate or build something in 3D, don't crop the image. Render them at a particular size that captures the entire object and the movement, with space around it to spare. When you bring that thing into the Frame Animator, and position it correctly, then use the crop feature and remove the excess. This is the easiest and fastest way to build stuff correctly. Cropping the files before they are taken into the Frame Animator will make your life very unhappy.

That is how I did it at first. I replace all the old images with new ones that are 288x288. I set the FRAMES_OFFSET to center them at the middle hex (144, 144 for all), and lastly I run auto-cutting. And it doesn't work. In the game the character keeps jumping around when switching between animations with different sizes. In the FRM files they are all perfectly centered and cropped.

And if the game really uses AA to align all the other images, how come I have to manually align for example the walking animation in the center hex to make it work?

What I do is I always use the project .fpr file of the old animation with all the offsets written down there and I just overwrite the old frames with new frames while animating. If it is necessary to enlarge or crop a frame by a few pixels vertically or horizontally to make a hero fit in the canvas (because of a different hairstyle etc) or when it is just a pixel of shadow to crop I just did the cropping/enlarging. But as a general rule I try not to change the original frame size.

After all that I always check my animations ingame and write down all the directions the hero faces and in which direction a certain animation jumps (which is a pixel or two, but usually nothing) then I go back to frame animator and apply necessary changes then I check it ingame again and apply more changes if needed.

Well, the problem is that I don't use any of the original animations, and manually going through all the animations in the game to write down the offsets for all the directions would take days, and even then it'll not be very accurate.

Edit: Okay, I think I have figured out a solution.

Some FRM appears to use relative positioning while some use absolute. For example, I need to have walking, running and idle animations placed in the center hex, while stuff like getting hit doesn't need any offset.

I trimmed the images in a way that allows me to use a frame offset of 0,0 on all the FRMs which use relative positioning, at the cost of image size.

FRM with absolute positioning:
- uses a FRAMES_OFFSET that places it in the middle hex
- only uses FRAME_OFFSET for walking/running/climbing
- doesn't use auto-cutting

FRM with relative positioning:
- uses a FRAMES_OFFSET of 0,0
- uses FRAME_OFFSETs of 0,0
- doesn't use auto-cutting

The FRMs using absolute positioning are:

AA: idle
AB: walk
AE: climb
AT: run
BA: fall forwards
BB: fall backwards
xB: weapon walk

Edit: Annoyingly, it ALMOST works. Except that the idle frame keeps resetting to a position above where it should be shown when using the inventory, until the character does something. And the idle frame is shown way too high in the inventory screen and character creator.

 

[Donitz]

Oh well. I never manged to fix that one bug, so close yet so far away. So in the end I made sure to crop the first and last frame of every animation to the same size (it is important that there isn't a lot of empty space under the character on these two frames, or they'll be misplaced in the game), and using bigger sized frames in the middle of animations to accommodate some of the larger effects. The first frame should either be centered in the hex or have an offset of zero (idle, walking, running, climbing, falling should be centered). The second frame has a frame offset placing it on top of the first frame. The last frame has a frame offset placing it on top of the second to last frame. The character should always be centered horizontally in the image.
These are the diagonal offsets used in running 10
0,0 6,5 7,5 7,5 7,5 6,5 7,5 7,5 7,5 6,5
and walking 8.
3,2 3,2 3,2 3,2 3,2 3,2 3,2 3,2 3,3
Trial and error for the win.

http://donitz.deviantart.com/art/Fallout-2-Littlepip-Mod-322083843

I just wish the fall animations weren't missing in the beginning of encounters.

Thanks for your help. It has been interesting.