Render Type 7 (Animate)

[tirpider]

Has anyone managed to get the Animate render type to work in-game?
Has anyone seen an animated texture in-game, even? (Animated, not scrolling.)

I have seen video examples of it working in BF2, but nothing in BF1.  Not on a msh model, at least.

My test models (a rock and a player unit) appear to have animated textures when placed in Zero, (their surfaces blink and flip rapidly,) however no effect is seen in-game as a prop or a unit.

The munger complains (INVALID RENDER TYPE:Animate) so I am sure I am close.

The information I have is that the render type needs to be set to 07, data0 needs to be the number of frames, and data1 needs to be the speed.

The frames have to be set up in a grid on the texture with the UV's mapped to the first frame. And the number of frames need to be a square number (4, 16, 25, 36...)

My fear is that it is an fx based thing only, but I'd love to see it working at all, really.

If anyone knows of an example of this or whether it is a feature supported in SWBF1, I'd love to know.

[Led]

A messup of the rendering, and not really animated, but is this close?
http://www.xfire.com/videos/24d39a
http://www.xfire.com/videos/2bc3d2

does it show that it is possible in the engine somehow ?

[tirpider]

Fun, but not quite.

The black and white one looks like either the shadow volume didn't hide properly, or the alpha channel didn't render right.
The rainbow Cloud City.. I just don't... heh
I'm thinking you were right in the comments about that being a memory thing.


This is the example I saw (in bf2 though)
http://www.xfire.com/video/17df9f

He and others explain it in this GT thread.
http://www.gametoast.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=21039

After applying their recipe (same numbers, even) to my test models, I get no effect in BF1.

Like them, I have greped through the entire set of bf1 and bf2 assets looking for a msh that uses it.. not one to be found. 

The example explosion image provided (a_sparks3.tga) in that thread is part of an effect (ord_explosion.fx) found in common.lvl with no msh attached to it.

He says he applied his example to a msh, and not an effect, and a search of their site reveals talk of animated textures, but no examples other than Scrolling textures that they call animated.  So now I'm just looking for proof it exists outside of a demo video.  (Hoping it isn't a bf2 only thing.)

I don't know squat about how effects work, but I'm thinking the workaround might be to have a permanently attached effect with the animation.

I don't have a project in mind for this (maybe a blink animation for the models with faces.. I don't know.), just exploring the render types and trying to find out how they work.

[Sereja]

Interesting finds, tirpider!
Just check it:
Yes, it works fine, for SWBF2. Seems, it can separate each pic, to 16 clusters, and can show then by order.
Seems, SWBF1 ZE, also may recognize this code, becouse the model look's blinking. But, unfortunately, it not works in SWBF1 game ...

[Led]

I guess the blinky lights on the control panels are scrolls too?
http://www.xfire.com/videos/5fb9f5
http://www.xfire.com/videos/5fb9fe

edit:  I guess so, based on comments in the link you posted

[Sereja]

Well, blinking lights on panels, most likely scrolls. They do not need too complicated animated tga edition. I can't watch xfire video, but here my video, that may better explain, how those code works and look's like:
http://speedy.sh/YJspb/animcode.rar

[tirpider]

I guess the blinky lights on the control panels are scrolls too?
http://www.xfire.com/videos/5fb9f5
http://www.xfire.com/videos/5fb9fe

edit:  I guess so, based on comments in the link you posted

Most look like scroll, but the far left green screen on the hoth device seems to be radiating out from the center... that would be at least 4 regions scrolling out.. hmm  I'll cut into it to find out exactly.

But the buttons and stuff, yeah.. all scrolls across a gradient with the sudden blinking being controlled by speed and shifting intensity of the gradient.

Well, blinking lights on panels, most likely scrolls. They do not need too complicated animated tga edition. I can't watch xfire video, but here my video, that may better explain, how those code works and look's like:
http://speedy.sh/YJspb/animcode.rar

Well, that solves it.  We can animate the effects via the .fx files, but not the textures on msh files (other than scrolling, which is still cool.)

Thanks for the insight, guys.  This puzzle was making me crazy.