Ok, as the exporter doesn't currently support true visibility I thought I'd share a tip I learnt back in my WC3 days but works just as well now. Some probably already know/use this but others might not so this is for you guys! (Apologies in advance if this is hard to follow, if I get a moment I'll try and clean it up a bit)
Basically a workaround for on/off visibility which I use is to first, on the base pose set a keyframe for the bone you want to hide in animations. Make sure this keyframe includes scale as this is the important part.
Now, when you want the object to vanish, first set a keyframe a frame before when you want it to vanish, then on the next frame scale the bone down to 0%. This has the effect of making it basically invisible as, because there are no frames between the keys there's no time for it to visibly shrink. As an additional measure you can move the bone to hide the shrunk geometry inside another part of the mesh.
For making the object reappear again, first you'll want to copy the keyframe from the basepose into the animation sequence (in this example, within the same animation as the above so I'll assume the bone is already scaled to 0%) now reverse the sequence above - make a keyframe of it at 0% scale right before the copied frame of it's normal size. The object should now appear again.
Visually this appears the same as toggling visibility on or off when the animations are played back. This method unfourtunately can not be used for gradual changes in visibily (such as fading in or out)
Hopefully this will prove useful and again sorry if this post didn't make any sense ><
Ooh, I didn't know Blizz used this method. Thanks.
And I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually :) just thought I'd share this tip in the meantime.
Edit: Just wanted to make it clear, I'm not trying to get at you for the exporter not having this functionallity yet, I couldn't do half the stuff you've done with the script and can't thank you (and your predecessors) enough! :)
I also thought about using the UV shift for alpha texture to make meshes invisible. But it will require the settings when alpha means transparency instead of team color. Never tried this though, just a hypothesis.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse PremiumOk, as the exporter doesn't currently support true visibility I thought I'd share a tip I learnt back in my WC3 days but works just as well now. Some probably already know/use this but others might not so this is for you guys! (Apologies in advance if this is hard to follow, if I get a moment I'll try and clean it up a bit)
Basically a workaround for on/off visibility which I use is to first, on the base pose set a keyframe for the bone you want to hide in animations. Make sure this keyframe includes scale as this is the important part. Now, when you want the object to vanish, first set a keyframe a frame before when you want it to vanish, then on the next frame scale the bone down to 0%. This has the effect of making it basically invisible as, because there are no frames between the keys there's no time for it to visibly shrink. As an additional measure you can move the bone to hide the shrunk geometry inside another part of the mesh.
For making the object reappear again, first you'll want to copy the keyframe from the basepose into the animation sequence (in this example, within the same animation as the above so I'll assume the bone is already scaled to 0%) now reverse the sequence above - make a keyframe of it at 0% scale right before the copied frame of it's normal size. The object should now appear again.
Visually this appears the same as toggling visibility on or off when the animations are played back. This method unfourtunately can not be used for gradual changes in visibily (such as fading in or out)
Hopefully this will prove useful and again sorry if this post didn't make any sense ><
For the buildings you can just move the bone under the ground level :) Check the Gateway.m3 for reference.
This workaround is, no doubt, a good one but it's still a workaround :/ The engine supports animated opacity!
Good job anyway :)
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse Premium@Leruster: Go
Ooh, I didn't know Blizz used this method. Thanks.
And I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually :) just thought I'd share this tip in the meantime.
Edit: Just wanted to make it clear, I'm not trying to get at you for the exporter not having this functionallity yet, I couldn't do half the stuff you've done with the script and can't thank you (and your predecessors) enough! :)
I also thought about using the UV shift for alpha texture to make meshes invisible. But it will require the settings when alpha means transparency instead of team color. Never tried this though, just a hypothesis.
@Zolden: Go
And a very good one :) That may work!