Haste opcodes and creature's animation

[critto]

Hello, everybody.

 

Could somebody please explain to me how does the Haste opcode affect creature's animation? Meaning that when a creature is hasted it should move faster. I have a custom IWD animation assigned to a creature and, while being under effect of said opcode (perm. Improved Haste), it still moves at a normal pace. The amount of attacks is correct though, so the opcode is definitely working.

 

What could be the issue here?

 

Many thanks.

 

Cheers,

critto

[Jarno Mikkola]

The BG2's haste opcode s have 3 different effects depending on what parameters 2's value(0, 1 or 2) you set.

[lynx]

So do I understand correctly that the creature moves as expected - faster, just the drawing of that movement is not faster for you? No extra visual steps, resulting in sliding?

[critto]

The BG2's haste opcode s have 3 different effects depending on what parameters 2's value(0, 1 or 2) you set.

 

It's 1 in my case (Improved Haste). I use the Haste (16) opcode.

So do I understand correctly that the creature moves as expected - faster, just the drawing of that movement is not faster for you? No extra visual steps, resulting in sliding?

 

No, it moves slowly as if there were no haste at all. I am not observing any visual irregularities like sliding.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Could it be that you have the .cre's animation files in the override folder ? As in, it's not in the games own .bif files... or not compressed in an file format... as I would remember that one of those makes the files progress at ~half speed and that could be what you see.

[lynx]

One easy thing that could be wrong is the general speed. There are differences in how boots of haste are handled between the games, for example. As far as I know, the base creature speed is determined from the frame count of its animation. If the opcode sets a higher speed instead of really doubling it, you wouldn't see a difference if your base speed was already high enough.

[critto]

Could it be that you have the .cre's animation files in the override folder ? As in, it's not in the games own .bif files... or not compressed in an file format... as I would remember that one of those makes the files progress at ~half speed and that could be what you see.

 

Yes, it's a set of BAMs put into the override folder. I don't think it would be appropriate to put mod's resources into a bif file. And what is the compressed file format you are talking about?

 

 

One easy thing that could be wrong is the general speed. There are differences in how boots of haste are handled between the games, for example. As far as I know, the base creature speed is determined from the frame count of its animation. If the opcode sets a higher speed instead of really doubling it, you wouldn't see a difference if your base speed was already high enough.

 

 

How can I compare frame counts (I have another custom animation put into another unused slot which doesn't suffer from these issues)? I am definitely lacking in knowledge of how in-game animations operate. If there's a description somewhere just point me to it, I'll see if I can figure this thing out.

 

My current hypothesis is that specific animation slots that I have used might have something to do with this, but I don't have any solid proof.

 

The custom animation that works fine has been put into "0xE300 GHOST" slot, and two laggy ones reside in "0xEE00 ZOMBIE_YELLOW" and "0xEE10 ZOMBIE_BLUE" respectively.

[lynx]

The originals had hardcoded speed values depending on animation type. I'd try reusing any of the PC slots, then anything right after (same general range).

 

For the frame count, look at cycle 0 and count the number of frames. DLTCEP does this for you.

[critto]

Thanks. I'll tinker and see what happens. A quick test yesterday evening has shown that choosing another animation slot resolves the issue. Still, I'd love to understand why it happens.

[Avenger]

As Lynx said, animation slots do have a hardcoded speed. At least, in the old games. For EE, you can set the animation speed in the <animid>.ini file.

Either that, or as you said, you use an IWD animation. In the old games, animation slots also hardcoded the animation type, so IWD animations would only work in 0xe000/0xf000

[critto]

Yes, that explains why I couldn't make them work in the other slots. Thanks for the info, folks.