Animation Timescaling

#1 Paul,

You are correct.

Timescale is not connected.

The C++ exposes a script function called: setArmThreadPlayOnce which needs to take that timescale as a parameter and pass it down deepter to the C++ function called: startPlayOnce(), which, stupidly, now hard codes the time scale to 1.0.

Another Torque user, Josh Moore, emailed me just recently with some improvements he had made to the RW melee code. I will make an effort to roll a fix for the problem you mention as well as Josh's improvements into the current RW source. I can't make any promises as to *when* I will do that, but I will make an effort.

#2 Good to know that those improvments are useful. Timescale is used to calculate if the melee weapon should do damage. It shouldn't be very hard to add a playSpeed variable to pass into setarmthreadonce. I think I'll give a stab at this.

Edit: I can't seem to get the console method for this function to work.

// called on server
bool Player::setArmThreadPlayOnce(const char* sequence, F32 timeScale)
{
   // if we are already playing arm thread...ignore
   .......
   .......
   startPlayOnce(timeScale);
   return true;
}

I'm not sure why this console method isn't working.

ConsoleMethod( Player, setArmThreadPlayOnce, bool, 3, 3, "(string sequenceName, float timeScale)")
{
   return object->setArmThreadPlayOnce(argv[2], argv[3]);
}

#3 Because the scripting engine only passes things as floats. So you have to convert argv[3] from a string to a float.

#4 Thanks, but I get compiler errors with this. It give me this error:
game/player.cc:3930: cannot convert 'const char*' to 'float' in initialization

Is there a better way to converet a string to a float value? If the scripting engine only passes things as floats why do I need to convert them(or was that just a typo)?

ConsoleMethod( Player, setArmThreadPlayOnce, bool, 3, 3, "(string sequenceName, float timeScale)")
{
   float timeScale = argv[3];
   return object->setArmThreadPlayOnce(argv[2], timeScale);
}

#5 DAtof() will do what you want.

#6 Using that function gives me a undeclared compile error. I think I need to include the file that has this function, but I can't find witch file its in.

game/player.cc:3931: 'DAtof' undeclared (first use this function)

edit: I've tried using it like this, but they obth get the smae error:
float timeScale = float(DAtof(argv[3]));
float timeScale = DAtof(argv[3]);

#7 Lower case d. dAtof(). forums messed me up.

#8 Thanks for the quick reply, that did it. Now i'm having trouble getting advancetimeonce to use the timescale variable. I created a simple F32 var to store the timeScale value, but it doesn't seem to work. Even when I hardcoded the value(the new var is only used for the advancetime).

mArmThreadPlayOnce = true;
   mHandAttackPlaying = true;
   mTimeScale = timeScale;

void Player::advancePlayOnceTime(F32 dt, F32 timeScale)
{
   // advance time
   mShapeInstance->advanceTime(dt,mArmAnimation.thread);

   // if we reached end...
   if (mShapeInstance->getPos(mArmAnimation.thread) == timeScale)
   {
      // phdana hth twitch fix ->
      if (!isGhost())
      {
         stopPlayOnce();
         mArmThreadPlayOnce = false;
      }
      // <- phdana hth twitch fix
   }
}
advancePlayOnceTime(dt, mTimeScale);

The animation plays, but stopPlayOnce is never called. Thers no compile errors. It gives the same result if I just have mTimeScale where timescale is in advancetimeonce.

#9 Ok, I got the time scale working somewhat. However, the animations play at the same speed as before, they just stop faster. I'm not sure how to make the animations speed up/slow down. Is there a command to change the play speed of an animation?

#10 If you look at the function, it stops when the thread's position is timeScale. you probably need to multiply dt by timeScale or something similar.

#11 Its working now, but there its no different then before. Is there a way to speed the animation up? ATM it plays just at the same speed no matter what the timescale is.