[Opengamestudio-developers] Animation discussion

[Andre K. <and...@gm...>]

I want to discuss a little bit about animations. I think the concept has some 
problems, and I hope you have some time to help me improve it :) First, what I 
think is a must have: Animations embedded in other animations. The idea is 
very good I think. You can reuse your animations well, and have less work. Not 
much to say.

Now the problems:

1. Frame is a bad name

I think Sprite might fit better, but then the concept of animations embedded in 
animations wouldn't work anymore, and I like this one very much. Not sure how 
to call it.

2. Framesets are complicating the whole thing

It might be better to have this concept embedded directly in the animation 
itself. And even more, you could have more complex animations. You could be 
able to do things like: Show sprite A, show sprite B, remove sprite A, play 
animation C, remove sprite B. Hope you got the point.

3. Alignments

I implemented alignments when I was creating animations for some specific 
reason: movement animations. The bottom left of the animation should be at the 
same place as the bottom left of the events. This was the idea behind the 
whole thing. When I look at it right now, the alignment inside of an animation 
is just moving the center of the coordinate system around, so I think it's 
pretty useless. I'm not sure if the alignment at the event is useless. It 
allows you to set the center of the animation to other places in the event. So 
it's maybe useful, don't know.

I think those are the main problems. I stumbled upon them when I was creating 
their documentation today.