Animation Flippering Resolved!!

**PROMETHEUS** · 09-04-2005, 17:17

I individuated the reason of the sometimes flippering of custom made animations ....(no it is not the problem of the last frame of a loop to be the same of the first frame of a loop)

sometimes when working in max and u make animation , u may make some corrections like deleting some stuff you have already changed , this may cause a sort of shadow memory effect in the max animation that when exported is recognized by the game and not handled properly so that it makes appear a sort of memory frame that kept the position of the once made change .... there is only one way I have found to resolve this ....

Redo the loop by beginning and use always the back button to make corrections instead of deleting them ....

This is what I have don and seems was the only way to fix the problem .....

**wlesmana** · 09-06-2005, 04:34

So you don't have to delete key animations? Just change them and leave it at that and use redo for changes?

**SigniferOne** · 09-06-2005, 13:17

But here's the thing though -- let's say you exported a flickering animation, and see that it doesn't work properly in the game. Then if you import it back, it will appear perfectly smooth in the 3dmax still, and yet still flickering in RTW...

**PROMETHEUS** · 09-07-2005, 22:11

Sorry guys , This tut resolves the flikering just for some idels , I recently discovered that a couple of ones aren't still eliminated , I have tried all possible tricks and tips to erase them but they are always there , any suggestion is appreciated....

**Duke John** · 09-08-2005, 07:39

This flickering is that for example an arm that suddenly has an extreme position and then pops back into the right position? I have this with a gun reloading animation. I thought that it was caused by extreme rotations of a bone which causes problems for the R:TW engine.

**GodsPetMonkey** · 09-08-2005, 08:01

Originally Posted by Duke John

This flickering is that for example an arm that suddenly has an extreme position and then pops back into the right position? I have this with a gun reloading animation. I thought that it was caused by extreme rotations of a bone which causes problems for the R:TW engine.

Yep, there was a discussion on the TWC forums about this some time ago, and this was pretty much the conclusion we came to.

The only fix was to lessen the ammount of rotation on the offending bone at the frames it happened on. Pain in the rear.

**wlesmana** · 09-08-2005, 08:37

Still somewhat related to animation glitches.....

Has anyone got weird behavior after adding in custom shuffling or 90 degrees rotations animations? During a battle, the model may shuffle/walk slowly to either 4 directions, or turn their body to the left or to the right. I modified these files but ONLY the arms. I kept everything else unchanged. But when I inserted the new animations, the soldiers behave erratically. In combat, they can't turn partially anymore, they have to turn 90 degrees completely, then try to fix it with shuffling all over the place, giving the appearance of soldiers dancing around, turning left and right, trying desperately to align themselves with their target.

**PROMETHEUS** · 09-08-2005, 21:02

Same here , seems that a "Too big editing of the positions" has a result of flipperings and erratic motions , the best solution , is to keep things little changed , little movememnt for each bone and most of all use the back button , do not proced editing when u see that 3dsmax keeps a shadow memory of former positions...

**SigniferOne** · 09-08-2005, 23:26

Yes, as far as I know, turn animations absolutely cannot be edited, and if they are modified in ANY way, even if just an import and then an instant export, they will screw up that unit with endless rotation. There are a whole bunch of these 'off limits' animations, which absolutely cannot be touched or they adversely affect the very behavior of that unit.

The only thing that will fix this is BI, which will introduce parsing of descr_skeleton.txt and allow us to work with the anims directly, rather than with the pack.

As for the flickering, I have some ideas about how it may be fixed, so check back here later for details. GodsPetMonkey, can you point me to that thread on twcenter where the issue was discussed?

**GodsPetMonkey** · 09-09-2005, 00:28

Originally Posted by dsyrow1

Yes, as far as I know, turn animations absolutely cannot be edited, and if they are modified in ANY way, even if just an import and then an instant export, they will screw up that unit with endless rotation. There are a whole bunch of these 'off limits' animations, which absolutely cannot be touched or they adversely affect the very behavior of that unit.

The only thing that will fix this is BI, which will introduce parsing of descr_skeleton.txt and allow us to work with the anims directly, rather than with the pack.

As for the flickering, I have some ideas about how it may be fixed, so check back here later for details. GodsPetMonkey, can you point me to that thread on twcenter where the issue was discussed?

I can't remember the link anymore, but I am sure you were involved in it.

At first I thought it had something to do with a bone being to close to another (it usually happened when the elbow was close to the torso for me) but I eventually dismissed that as to complex an explanation... applying Occam's razor, I figured it just had something to do with to large a rotation.

**PROMETHEUS** · 09-09-2005, 17:59

I have tried with small rotations per bone and seems to persist the problem ....

I madee a two handed animation for a sarissa hoplit , I got 4 flippings 2 I reduced to less visible one i eliminated by redoing the anim , but what pisses me off is always the turn to right 90 degrees animation , it always flip , no matter what I do ....

BTW Could may be Jerome help us there?

**Shrimpy** · 10-14-2005, 20:09

I think I have evidence that could kill the idea of to harsh animations, because I'm having flickering on the non animated stand ready position! I think the problem might simply be that an export or frame may randomly become a flickering export/frame. By attempting to solve the problem by re-doing the frame, and then re-exporting we may be solving a problem by doing more than we need to... just my ideas,
The Shrimp