animation index

I have a problem getting the change character animation index working the way I want. I made 2 different standing animation for a character (facing the same direction). The first should be used at the beginning of the scene, so I put an action in the action folder of the scene setting the character animation index = 0. When the character is talked to it should change to the second animation, so I put an actionpart in the dialog setting the index to 1. But it changes between the animations randomly - or alternating, hard to say. What am I doing wrong? Can anybody help me?

I think you are only supposed to have one standing animation for each direction same as walking etc?

could try adding the animation to the character animations & calling the required animation or you could duplicate the characters outfit & replace the standing animations with the alternate ones you want to use ... then all you need to do is select the change x character outfit from: select action part > characters ...

If I am supposed to have only one animation for each direction - what ist the animation index for? I read in the wiki manual, that you could use the index numbers to switch between the different aninimations for one direction, istead of having to change the whole outfit. Of course I could try changing the outfit but I'd rather get it working using the animation index. Did anybody try using the index?

um ... manual? men don't read manuals!

I'll have a look at the manual later & see what it says ...

but from what you said - it sounded like the VS player was struggling to decide which animation to use, hence why it's probably not the best idea to add more than 1 per direction for the default standing/walking animations.

you don't call the walking/standing/talking/random animations. they are called automatically ... you can however call any of the "character animations" - found at the bottom of the outfit list - whenever you please!

I'm still trying to figure out what the "animation index" is about - or what i was doing wrong this is what i found in the (outdated) wiki manual:

" Change character animation index

Changes the animation index of a character (default is 0 when the game is started). This index is used for talk-, random- and stand-animations. If more than 1 animation exists for a direction then this index decides which animation is shown.

Example: A character has 8 talk animations, 2 for each direction (0, 90, 180, 270 degrees). If the index is 0 then the first of the two animations (for a direction) is shown. If the index is 1 then the second animation is shown.

With this index it is possible to have different animations (e.g. talking friendly / angry) without changing the complete outfit. "

I worked around the problem by changing the outfit, but i still want to know...

hmm - I don't know as I've not used the change index command yet ... maybe the screen needs to refresh to notice change same as when you change an objects center?

what you just said makes sense but I've not read all of the 2d wiki & as I said I've not tested the action to see what it does or how it works.

maybe submit your findings in the bug section or I can ask David if he can look into it when he has a bit of spare time

Did anything ever come of this? Or has anyone else since tried to make use of the Animation Index property? I would find it very helpful on my project to have an outfit hold multiple animations for each direction, like for different idle or talking states. Using outfits is doable, but seems like it would get cluttered and inefficient.

I had a go at using it to create begin/end walk cycle animations & to animate left & right leg independently, but I wasn't sure if it was working correctly or not as I didn't add all of the character animations & it only seemed to trigger randomly. I was testing the new walk system out - before the slide/update on position option was added.

I was trying to trigger animation index change via actions inside of animation frames but it should work if you trigger it manually.

I don't see much difference between animation index & outfits; either way they are both cluttering up space & using animation index is more messy (for me) because you have loads of animations inside of the same outfit to sift through.

Alright, thanks for the prompt update. I wasn't sure how they differed resource wise, so I assumed having multiple outfits would add unnecessary bulk.
I tried a couple tests myself with different idle animations and using key commands to toggle between index values. As far as I could tell, it seemed to need the animation refreshed (like triggering a walk or talk animation between idle stances) to take any kind of effect. And even then it was hard to tell, since the editor likes to reorganize animations semi-randomly as far as I can tell, removing the one means of directly controlling how the animations are layered.
I'll just use multiple outfits I guess that I switch to in dialogs, and just have a bunch that have only idle and talk animations. Should fill the same purpose I suppose. Still, seems like it might be a nice feature to have down the line with some tweaking (like not reorganizing animations) and with some inventive scripting.