Defining an Animation Set
An Animation Set is a collection of animations that define the motion possibilities of a character. A set of animation has four parts:
- Animation Sequences which define a unit of animation (.ASQ files)
- Animation data, one animation per exported animation file. This is the actual animation curves (keyframes).
- ANIMATION.DAT file which lists all available sequences
- Animation Agent .aas The animation agent script is used to tie together all of the parts.
Folder Structure
Animation sets should be in their own folder. Typically this is a subfolder of the character definition, although it does not have to be. Characters can share animation sets, so in such case it may make sense to use a separate folder structure for animations altogether. In Hero's Journey, each creature has it's animations in a sub-folder, except for player characters where it is separate.
Here is an example file structure for the Sunok creature:
HJDEV
Character
Sunok
Animations
ANIMATION.DAT
The ANIMATION.DAT file lists the Animation Sequences that are available to each creature or character. Here is a partial list of the Hero's Journey "sunok" creature's ANIMATION.DAT file:
! ! Version=1 [SEQUENCES] combat_attack_ranger_2x4 combat_attack_ranger_blossom combat_attack_ranger_kneelfire combat_attack_ranger_quadstorm combat_attack_ranger_slasher combat_attack_ranger_torque combat_attack_ranger_uppercut
Note: The actual file has many more animation sequences. Truncated here for space.
In the [SEQUENCE] section, list each Animation Sequence. For each Animation Sequence, there must be a .ASQ sequence file. So, in this case there would be a combat_attack_ranger_2x4.asq file, a combat_attack_ranger_blossom.asq file, and so on.
