Hey, so I have a character with two different, but similar animations. It’s kinda like Megaman, actually, where he’s running, and he’s running and shooting.
Basically, his running animation is 8 frames, and he appears to be moving at a jog. His running and shooting animation, is also 8 frames… but his arm is held out instead of moving at a jogging rhythm.
I don’t have a ‘multi-part’ sprite or anything. So…
Suppose he starts running, and then starts shooting. I don’t want the shooting animation to start from the beginning, I want to start from the equivalent frame on the running animation. Similar to when he’s running-and-shooting, and then stops shooting. I want the ‘only running’ animation to pick up from a similar fram to the ‘running-and-shooting’ animation.
Is there an easy way to do this? To ‘link’ the two animations?
Yes, there are a few ways you could approach this problem. One solution would be to create a “master” animation that contains all of the frames from both the running and running-and-shooting animations, in the correct order. Then, when you want to switch between the two animations, you can simply change which frames of the master animation you are displaying.
For example, if the running animation is frames 1-8 and the running-and-shooting animation is frames 9-16, you could create a master animation with all 16 frames and switch between the two animations by changing the frame you are displaying from the master animation. This way, you can ensure that the animations are in sync and that the transition between them is seamless.
Another solution would be to use a state machine to manage the animations. A state machine is a program that keeps track of the current state of an object, such as whether the character is running, shooting, or both. You can then define the rules for switching between states, such as starting the shooting animation when the character presses the “shoot” button, and returning to the running animation when they release the button. This approach can be a bit more complex to implement, but it allows for more control over the animations and can make it easier to add new states or transitions in the future.