[TEC] frozen dat flags

[THE_MASK]

[TEC] frozen dat flags . What if the number of animation frames were reduced from 100 . Found in Silent Hunter 5\data\Library\flag.dat
MeshAnimationData

[L30P4RD]

Then I assume the flags would flap faster and possibly look odd skipping a few frames !

[Madox58]

Then I assume the flags would flap faster and possibly look odd skipping a few frames !


That would not happen.
You change the timeing between model frames and get a transition that works nearly seamlessly.

100 frames for the flags done in a dat format seems overkill to me.
They should have converted to a GR2 format right away for a better animation.

[THE_MASK]

That would not happen.
You change the timeing between model frames and get a transition that works nearly seamlessly.

100 frames for the flags done in a dat format seems overkill to me.
They should have converted to a GR2 format right away for a better animation.I am a bit of a novice when it comes to this stuff . Would that animation be at 100 frames a second . If i run antilag at less than 100fps or vertical sync then would i get the frozen flags ?

[radcapricorn]

No, that is not 100 fps. That should read "100 animation keyframes". If you look at each frame in the list, you'll see there's a Time value attached to it. I'm guessing this is in seconds. So, if animation frame #99 has a Time value of 8.333, then the whole animation loop has a (100/8.333) ~= 12 fps. As time runs, the game should slowly (and smoothly) adjust flag from one animation frame to the next until it gets to last frame, where the 'next' frame would again become first one. And this whole animation loop repeats for 8.333 time units (which, again, I'm guessing are seconds).
So, to answer your question: no, running the game at less than 100 fps should not freeze the flags.

Some speculation on animations (note this is not related to this particular format):

My general knowledge about animations tells me that you should not just reduce the animations frame count. That's because model's 3D data still contains info for all 100 frames (at least it should). So if you remove some array items from Flags array, best case scenario is you'll get skipped frames as L30P4RD suggested (animation loop would sort of 'jump' to the beginning, and the flag will "jerk" from, say, a half-folded state to a calm one or whatnot). Worst case - you'll get an error (maybe even CTD, though I doubt that).

The other thing to consider here is that animation may or may not be split up into several "subloops" (i.e. different animation for different wind speed). In this case, again, just throwing away frames won't solve anything.

Speculations end here.

Now I'm wondering, are these flags always frozen, or sometimes they animate and sometimes don't?

[Trevally.]

Now I'm wondering, are these flags always frozen, or sometimes they animate and sometimes don't?

From what I have seen they are only sometimes frozen.
When you reload the game or even dock/patrol - they can fix themselves.

Also this is only when you have imported non GR2 ships in your game.

[Madox58]

Just a thought and something I noticed...........

If you open the flags.dat in S3D and run the animation at 4X speed?
They hang at odd times.
:hmmm:

Maybe changeing the timing is all that is needed?

[THE_MASK]

Just a thought and something I noticed...........

If you open the flags.dat in S3D and run the animation at 4X speed?
They hang at odd times.
:hmmm:

Maybe changeing the timing is all that is needed?Copy and paste the animations for the seagulls into the flags .