Animation Question -- how to start in different pose

[Springheel]

Since there are some knowledgable D3 types in these forums, I'm posting this here.

 

I notice that several D3 AI have animations for special "start positions". The trites, for example, have an idle animation for hanging from the ceiling and then an animation for dropping down, at which point it walks around normally.

 

Assuming I had equivalent animations, how would I do that in TDM? How do I set an AI to play a special idle animation, and then have it play the "dropping down" animation when triggered? And then have it NOT go back to playing the "hanging from ceiling" animation when it's finished, but instead play the normal standing idle?

[PranQster]

Did you check out the property "animate_z"... "disables gravity on character until he wakes up. used for on_activate anims where the bounding box needs to move up and down."

 

I'm not sure if that would help, but it sounds like it will allow the AI to be levitated until triggered. The dropping-down should be automatic when triggered, then ??

But I really do not know, I'm a newb.

[Springheel]

Did you check out the property "animate_z"... "disables gravity on character until he wakes up

 

I hadn't noticed that one, no. But I added frame commands to the animations, so that the character hovers in an idle pose near the ceiling.

 

Triggering the "drop down" animation is no problem--that can be done with a regular trigger. The problem is how to replace the regular idle animation with the "ceiling idle" animation. If I just swap the animations, then every time the character goes back into idle (after they search and can't find the player, for example) they'll teleport back onto the ceiling, which I don't want.

[_Atti_]

Just a tought. Can't this simply be controlled with script using translate/rotate the whole Ai-entity? So in the animation the spider for example isnt itself flipped so the idle anim could be the same. Premade anim would need exact height on the map to be correct and could even be adjusted simply like you can with script isnt it?

[Springheel]

I don't know enough about scripts to say one way or the other. The animations are already done, however, so it's just a matter of figuring out how to call them properly. I want to make it as easy as possible for mappers to use.