I was wondering if I could make new attack paths like you make spell paths, and where exactly the attack paths are found (txt file?)

If this is in some obvious location, please direct me there, and refrain from the yelling

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arg 16 (optional) ATTACK PATH (used with right-hand weapons to animate motion of attacker)

syntax is:
Path.Image.Flags.Weather.Effect where Path is 0-63, image is 0-199, flags are 0-63, weather is 0-63,and effects are 0-63

WEATHER and EFFECTS are same as for spells, so see spells.txt for info

FLAGS are the sum of any combination of these values:
0-3 - duration of attack (0 is quick, 3 is slow)
4 - if this flag is set, each of the 8 frames of animation consumes one eigth the entire attack (instead of rolling through the frames over and over)
8 - If this is set, the images is not 'flipped' when attacking from left to right.
16 - reserved
32 - reserved

IMAGE is used with attacks which hurl objects. Each image is an eight-frame animations stored in a file named attackNN.bmp Each file contains 10 such
filmstrips where the topmost filmstrip is the '0' index of that file. SO, image 143 would be index '3' in the file attack14.bmp I hope that's not too confusing. The first one hundred images (files 00-09) are reserved for ME to use, while the rest (attack10.bmp to attack19.bmp) are reserved for world designers (and go in your world's ART folder) PATHS are defined below:

(note: use "-1" as the path if you want one picked randomly, or "0" if you want no path at all.)

-1 Pick random path for this item when world is loaded
0 No attack path (this is the default)
1 LUNGE - Attacker runs up to target then runs back
2 JUMP - Attacker jumps straight onto target, then runs back
3 LEAP - Attacker HIGH jumps straight onto target, then runs back
4 STAB - Attacker runs straight to target, then does attack frame, then runs back
5 DBL-STAB - Attacker runs straight to target, does attack frame twice, then runs back
6 TRAMPLE - Attacker does one Big hop to target, then hops again on top of it
7 HOP Attacker reaches target in several hops, each getting higher.
30 ARROW - Image follows straight line from attacker to target
31 STONE - Image follows short arc from attacker to target
32 LOB - Image follows high arc from attacker to target

I've found that most weapons look best when rotated on an axis, and not around one. I made a small diagram to help clarify that statement.

For a more realistic spin, you might want to rotate weapons on 45% angles, and not 90% like in the diagram. PSP and such tend to blur any image rotated less than 90%, but some like this effect.

I'm reminded of the "go-motion" trick (as opposed to stop-motion) where each frame of the animation is intentionally blurred to more accurately capture the fluid effect one gets when real film is used to record movement.

I think, especially for 'linear' objects like swords, the 45 degree rotation is crucial or else it just looks like it is flipping back and forth between two images (since the eye doesn't see enough difference between the handle end and the pointy end)

PLus, there just aren't that many places in the game where you even have the OPTION of an eight-stage animation, so you should take advantage of it

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To answer the original question though, no, you can't create new paths on the fly since they have to be individually coded (I mean the actual 'path through the air' You can add additional images of things being thrown, of course, as LGH detailed above).

I am interested in hearing ideas however, both for attack paths and for magic paths.

And I'd love to get some more 8-stage animations for those teensy magical effects.

I suppose I should break the magic effects file into pieces as well, to make it easier on world developers to just add a few rows, rather than having to replicate the whole file.

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Oh, and isn't Josh cool to not only explain but to make an infographic as well? He's cool!

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 10-23-2000).]

But they look so purty when they are all swirling around.

check out the file art\effects.bmp for the horrible truth of it all.

For A48 I will turn that into effects00.bmp to effectsNN.bmp with 10 animations per file again.

In fact, it is now the same as for attacks. You can think of each effect as being one ROW of a big table. The total table has 200 rows, numbered 0 to 199.

The table is actually broken into ten files where each file has ten rows. So, effect #143 would be at offset 3 in the file "effects14.bmp"

The first 100 rows are MINE (well, Josh gets 50 coz he's cool) and the second 100 rows belong to the world designer.

And, of course, I accept donations to help fill up "my" 50 rows. I'm not proud. Josh has done some kick-A** effects already in his rows.

I've written a little helper tool for attack/effect animators which you can find here:
http://www.synthetic-reality.com/wosAttack.exe