Wizdoc
12-15-2005, 12:37 PM
I am creating an animation that uses a lot of repeating animation behaviours - that is, there are a lot of characters shooting guns. Each character will be different and have unique animation, but the actual gun animation (muzzle flash, mechanical operation, shell casing etc.) will be the same every single "shot", save for some subtle randomization.
Instead of animating every shot by hand, I just want to give a simple command in a frame I want the animations & events (i.e. "shoot gun") to occur. But I do want to control when each shot occurs, so I don't want the whole thing be entirely automatic or random.
To recap, each time I give a command "shoot" in a given frame, the system would automatically start a sequence that would...
1) Display the muzzle flash. This will be just turning "visible" a simple mesh & light source.
2) Trigger the spawning of particles to represent a puff of smoke.
3) Animate the gun's slide back and forth.
4) Spawn a single shell casing (a particle - I don't need rigid body dynamics, just simple spinning through air and falling down)
Where do I start to look? Is there something about Particle Flow that I've overlooked or do I need to get cracking on the whole scripting thing?
Instead of animating every shot by hand, I just want to give a simple command in a frame I want the animations & events (i.e. "shoot gun") to occur. But I do want to control when each shot occurs, so I don't want the whole thing be entirely automatic or random.
To recap, each time I give a command "shoot" in a given frame, the system would automatically start a sequence that would...
1) Display the muzzle flash. This will be just turning "visible" a simple mesh & light source.
2) Trigger the spawning of particles to represent a puff of smoke.
3) Animate the gun's slide back and forth.
4) Spawn a single shell casing (a particle - I don't need rigid body dynamics, just simple spinning through air and falling down)
Where do I start to look? Is there something about Particle Flow that I've overlooked or do I need to get cracking on the whole scripting thing?