need help with notepad rotary anims...

[TheJamsh]

okay... ive got, some of this worked out.

        0;                                                                                       << This obviously tells BZ2 what animation type it is
        6;                                                                                       << How many 'stages' or something?
        1; 4; 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000;;,            << what the hell.
        8; 4; 0.758758, 0.000000, -0.651373, 0.000000;;,
        9; 4; 0.688967, -0.000000, -0.724793, -0.000000;;,
        24; 4; -0.688967, -0.000000, -0.724793, -0.000000;;,
        25; 4; 0.758758, 0.000000, 0.651373, 0.000000;;,
        31; 4; 0.994869, 0.000000, 0.101169, 0.000000;;;

Is it obvious where i need help?

[bigbadbogie]

<< How many 'stages' or something?

How many frames. (The things below)

<< what the hell.

They are frames which mark the position which the object will be moved/rotated to.

[General BlackDragon]

TJ, go find one of my posts on BZU or BZ2md where i explained this...

I'm too lazy to type it out a 4th time.

Also, that is not a strafe animation, looks like a movement/rotational single play animation. Or possibly a looping animation. i.e. its not probably that it's on a vehicle.

Looks like it starts, moves or rotates one way, then goes back.

But in short.

1; 4; 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000;;,  

Key frame (listed just above, how many different positions to animate to. must be in order and match); number of lines (3 is movement, 4 is rotation); Scale (SHOULD always be 1.0?), X, Y, Z;;,

[TheJamsh]

ahha... now i understand the speed thing...

[mrtwosheds]

The annoying thing about these 4 value full rotations is that they don't...   just rotate the frame, they scale all the vertex in particular directions. In order to maintain the shape of the model, 2 of the columns of data must operate together. ( the ones with non 0 values in TJ's example) altering them in notepad will result in distortion of the frame. You can swap entire columns to alter the axis of rotation, or change their signs to alter its direction, or change the value of the keyframes to alter its speed.

Simpler partial rotations can be altered quite easily though without any distortion occurring.

This moves a walkers front left thigh.

  Animation anim-thighf_l {
     {frm-thighf_l}
     SI_AnimationKey {
        0;
        8;
        1; 4; 1, 0, 0.50, 0.0;;,
        3; 4; 1, 0, 0.35, 0.0;;,
        6; 4; 1, 0, 0.2, 0.0;;,
        9; 4; 1, 0, 0.0, 0.0;;,
        12; 4; 1, 0, 0.05, -0.15;;,
        15; 4; 1, 0, 0.2, -0.3;;,
        18; 4; 1, 0, 0.35, -0.15;;,
        21; 4; 1, 0, 0.50, 0.0;;;

[TheJamsh]

What im trying to do is make a sphere spin around its central axis, in all directions. The speeds can be multiples of each other so it looks like its out of control and spinning at high speed.

[mrtwosheds]

What im trying to do is make a sphere spin around its central axis, in all directions.

You can spin it on multiple axis, but it will probably just look like its spinning at 45 degrees from where it was.

The speeds can be multiples of each other so it looks like its out of control and spinning at high speed.

Animation is really just an illusion, think of car wheels on old films, if you try to make it go too fast it will probably just look like it going backwards, or not turning at all.
anims is played at 30 frames per second 6 keyframes means you are not going to go much above 5 rotations a second.

I will VERY generously give you my dbpgen power flux anim! so you can see how it works. 

AnimationSet {
   Animation anim-flux__e2g {
      {frm-flux__e2g}
      SI_AnimationKey {
         0;
         4;
         0; 4; 1, 0, 0, 0;;,
         5; 4; 0.65, -0.65, -0.65, 0;;,
         11; 4; -0.65, -0.65, -0.65, 0;;,
         16; 4; 0.9, 0.1, 0.1, 0;;;
      }
   }
}