Dalink

Hmm.. we can make animations, Right?

Has anyone explored this much?

If we can make animations and include them in our mods, what is there to keep someone from making a little animated timer that either Graphically of Phisically counts the time in say 15minute increments?

Would this get annoying having it run on yer screen? or maybe put it on a window that is not always up.

If we can make animations of unlimited size, why not make an hour timer?

You couldnt make a Start button or a Start button, but you could reference the time a spawn is killed and go from there.

I'm sure there would be uses for this. Now if only we could get a graffix guru to make the dern thing.

someone take this idea and run with it!!

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Kalthanan

Better yet, I wouldn't mind a timer that displays Norrath time in the game. IE, a 24-hour clock based on game time. There are some things that rely on game time, and it would be nice to have a sense of time while on Luclin, in dungeons, etc, without having to type /time (which you can't do on Luclin.)

Obligatory dancing banana:

Dalink

hmm.. as nice as a 24 hour clock would be, once again, this could just be a graphic which would restart whenever your UI changed, and most likely whenever you zone.

Also, I could just see all the frames needed in a 24hour animation.

However, I still believe an hour timer or a 15 minute timer would be doable.

Mind you, these timers would be continously rotating.
These timers would not be able to be reset...

WAIT!!!! OMG!! These timers could Probably be RESET!! I'm sure the animations reset when you reset your UI via the /loadskin <whatever> 1 OMG!! Verant may have given us the ability for timers!!

Someone has got to make this animation!! I know it would take ALOT of frames to do, but imagine the uses for this!!

Casanunda

Actually, this wouldn't take many frames at all. I don't know how exactly the animated tga display code works, but i'm fairly sure it's similar to the gif file since some of the class icons, (the cleric one i know for sure) has a long pause between each animation, about 5 seconds or more. This means that the animation is coded to play through frames x to x normally, but when it cycles back to the first frame it is coded (in the animations xml i'm pretty sure) to wait so many seconds (hundreths of a second, actually) before it plays again. We should be able to do the same thing here. Say you wanted a 15 minute timer, you get a tga that has 15 "frames", each image with one more picture representing a minute--heck, even frames with the numbers 1 through 15-- with each coded in the xml to change frames every 60 seconds, or 60,000 hundreths of a second. Therefor you have a simple 15 minute timer, with a small file, that is very accurate and useful. If /loadskin does indeed reset these animations, you could do this every time you wanted to reset it and Viola, your own personal chronograph. By the way, does /loadskin still restore to the default window positions anymore, or does it load the ones for the character? that's all, ponder on this, or try it out! good luck.

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Dalink

The /loadskin command still loads the default window positions..

UNLESS you use a trigger...

If you Load yer skin using /loadskin <skindirectory> 1 <--- (The Number 1 is very important) Eq will reload your characters UI.ini file instead of the default. Hense, leaving your windows where you put them.. = )

Very nifty trigger..

Remember, /loadskin <skin directory> 1

Mafoo

I would say with confidence that the animation starts when you open the window so a good place to put your timer would be the friends list. thus you open your friends list when you want your timer to trriger

Casanunda

Thanks for that info, mafoo and dalink. I didn't know that. So, we put the animation timer in the friends window, and don't have to worry about loadskin at all. hrmm...

Saoshen

OK.

How bout this.

An animation that increments from 0 to lets say 1 hour, in 30 sec increments.

That would be 120 frames.

Animation starts via activation of selected window (ie friends) and runs till you close it or zone (maybe).

I dont know at this point, whether the animation would reset upon zone or not, but I'm guessing it does.

The total timer length could be adjusted with less or more frames.

I dont have the ability to do any of this, but maybe someone can take the ideas and run with it..

Dalink

LOL! Thats exactely why I put this out on the table.. I know someone can do this, but my graphix skills end with still pictures.. when it comes to making them move, I'm lost..

We all know how much this feature is talked about, and how many people could get use from it. Someone who can make said animation needs to get with an XML guru and get this done. I think MAYBE with alot of time, if I were able to get the graphic, I think I know how to get this done.. But I couldnt gaurentee anything..

I think it can be done, but don't think I can do it..

Drestin

2 words.....


DISCIPLINE TIMER

Dalink

2 words...


ANYTHING TIMER!!




I'm telling you, this would have SO many uses in game.. If someone would make me a working TGA file with all the Times layed out for a... hmm... 15 minute timer (I know that this would be time consuming making all the frames needed) I would be willing to give it a shot..

I'm home from work now, I will look into how this could be done a little more..



Once again, XML doesnt scare me, BUT I can see this being pretty challenging and any help would be usefull..

Dalink

HEY MODERATORS!!

Any Chance this thread could be tossed over to the Graphix Discussion Area??

Please..


Thanks

guice

You can place animations on screen. I've done it.

Each 'page' to the graphic turn is timed with a delay in miliseconds, from the looks of it. Didn't play that much attention to it.
I just remember turning it up a bit for my gerbil animation. It was spining too fast and started to get ME dizzy.

It would be possiable, I think. But tricky to implement.

Ttiming on open or closed window? Does it run in the background? Is there even a cap to the delay in the Animations definition tags?

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Sylviania

if someone plan on doing the pic files for timer animation , that would be great to have more than 1 set of those , based on often seen spanw time, with ending frames starting to have a different background color ( let's say for example a graphic displaying time on a blue background for 25 mins , yellow for 4 mins , and red for 1 min ; in the case of a 30 min-based timer.)

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