Fixing broken animation transition (InterpolateTo & ConnectTo)

[madrussian 347]

I'm trying to get AI to reach out to open doors (for crazy AI mod), using these animations (via playMoveNow) :

• "AmovPercMstpSrasWrflDnon_gear"
• "AmovPknlMstpSrasWrflDnon_gear"
• "AmovPercMstpSrasWpstDnon_gear"
• "AmovPknlMstpSrasWpstDnon_gear"

It's working fairly well generally & the units reach out as expected, except that standing units end up kneeling prior to ending up the desired gear animation (bad), and also the unit ends up going through a broken animation transition (as if switchMove was used instead, also bad).

 

I've fixed broken animation transition like these before in CfgMovesMaleSdr.  But it's been a long time, and I've slept a bunch of times since then.  If I knew one particular thing, it would greatly speed up my efforts here:

 

In CfgMovesMaleSdr, are InterpolateTo and ConnectTo uni-directional, or bi-directional?

 

^ Meaning, for a given animation listed in CfgMovesMaleSdr: If its InterpolateTo or ConnectTo contains a particular animation, does that make the given animation just connect forwards to that other animation?  Or does that make the connection work both ways?

 

Spoiler

Btw - I posted here in "Mission Editing and Scripting", because although this may seem strictly addon-related, there's a good chance I'll have directly related scripting questions too.

 

[_foley 192]

I've no clue about CfgMoves but I'm thinking maybe you wanna use a gesture (as in playAction) as opposed to the "full body" animation as in "AmovPercMstpSrasWrflDnon_gear". From my experience they blend okay into different stances.

 

Also, this mod features door opening animations though funnily enough the door animation part has been broken for a few month now 😄 Maybe you can reverse-engineer something useful from it.

[madrussian 347]

4 hours ago, _foley said:

I've no clue about CfgMoves but I'm thinking maybe you wanna use a gesture (as in playAction) as opposed to the "full body" animation as in "AmovPercMstpSrasWrflDnon_gear". From my experience they blend okay into different stances.

 

Yes, I'm using playActionNow for most of what I'm doing.  It's way more user friendly (than playMove/playMoveNow), not having to worry about weapon/stance, etc.  The playAction reaching animation is "PutDown", and it's a very exaggerated long reach that includes motion of unit's hand to his belt area (after the reach), like he's taking something.  And when you use "PutDown" on him while he's kneeling, he reaches all the way to the ground, which again looks strange for a door.

 

"AmovPercMstpSrasWrflDnon_gear" (and the other 3), which as noted need playMove (/ playMoveNow), play out much quicker and imo look much more like someone opening a door.  Unfortunately these 4 have some pretty funky transitions.

 

I spent the morning looking though these animations in the config, and it sure looks like InterpolateTo & ConnectTo are single-directional.  Mostly because InterpolateFrom & ConnectFrom also exist, which would imply using To would go one way, and using From would go the other way.  I do recall though, that one of the config entries for at least one Arma title, created transitions that went both ways.  It's quite a fuzzy recollection though, admittedly.

 

Anyhow, I'm going to take a crack at fixing these transitions with InterpolateTo, along with fiddling with various anim costs, and see what happens.

 

4 hours ago, _foley said:

Also, this mod features door opening animations though funnily enough the door animation part has been broken for a few month now 😄 Maybe you can reverse-engineer something useful from it.

 

Cool, looks like some brand new animations!