Textures and Animations

I been going through the forums and not sure if I found anything that explains how to make a texture animate the way I want, let me explain more, I just want to make an animation work on 1 side of a prim. I thought I could use an animation script and textures inside the prim to make this work. Now I have seen where one texture had each frame but to me that looks more complicated. Please someone help me with this.

Hi,

You need a texture swapping script ( can be found freely in secondlife) then for each frame you need seperate textures, Place all textures inside the prim along with the script and voila.

There are other ways to do it but the way above is how I do it

Kind regards
Natalie

I am no script expert but this is a script I use for what you explianed.

============================================

default
{
state_entry()
{
llSetTextureAnim(ANIM_ON | LOOP, 0, 1, 16, 1, 0, 4.0);
}
}

=============================================

The first Zero after the LOOP is the face side, change this to whatever face you want and play with the other numbers and you should get what you want.

If you don't know how to copy this into SL then IM me I'll send you a copy of the script.

Alternatively try posting in the Scripting Tips forum for further advice where a scripter can answer.

You can not animate just one face of a prim using the animated texture feature. All or nothing. You can use no texture at all on the other faces, or you can burry the prim so only the one face shows, or you can make the other sides fully transparent, or you can use texture swapping as Natalie suggests. Just be aware that that is a server-side change and is laggier than the client-side texture anim, and the smoothness of the anim will depend on sim lag, and you're limited to five frames per second.

Anya,

from the script I posted in my previous post I have an animated texture that moves from left to right on one prim face, it is neither buried nor are the other sides transparent, the other faces are textured with another texture.
From what you say that should not happen, it should be all or nothing or am I missing something in your post?

Your script is fine, Larrie. It's simple and it cycles a series of images on a single face. I've been using that method for ages. The one disadvantage is that there's annoying lag time as each new image has to rez on the prim face. I recently found a MUCH nicer script in the archives of the Scripting Tips forum. It cycles the images on ALL faces of a prim, one after another, but it sets the color on most faces to black so you only see an image on one face. By "preloading" images on the black prim faces, it completely eliminates the slow rez problem. Here it is:

//--------------------------
// preloads textures on a box
// just drop it in with the images and it will cycle every 10 seconds, or change the picture_pace variable to change the speed
// updates on touch as well
//--------------------------
// Change this next line to adjust the image rotation speed
float picture_pace=10.0;

// Sendao Goodman, 2007

integer reload;
list pictures;
integer slideno;

loadPictures()
{
	pictures=[];
	integer i = llGetInventoryNumber(INVENTORY_TEXTURE);
	if( i > 0 ) {
		while( i > 0 ) {
			i--;
			pictures=(pictures=[])+pictures+[llGetInventoryName(INVENTORY_TEXTURE,i)];
		}
		llOwnerSay((string)llGetListLength(pictures)+" pictures loaded");
		pictures = llListSort( pictures, 1, TRUE ); // put them in order
		llSetTimerEvent(picture_pace);
	} else if( reload == 0 ) {
		llSetTimerEvent(0.0);
	}
}

string getSlide(integer slide)
{
	return llList2String( pictures, (slide+llGetListLength(pictures))%llGetListLength(pictures) );
}

default
{
	on_rez(integer sp)
	{
		loadPictures();
		slideno=0;
		reload=0;
	}
	state_entry()
	{
		loadPictures();
		slideno=0;
		reload=0;
		llSetColor( <0,0,0>, 0 ); // 0,0,0 is black. 
		llSetColor( <0,0,0>, 1 );
		llSetColor( <1,1,1>, 2 ); // 1,1,1 is white. Image only shows on this face (#2)
		llSetColor( <0,0,0>, 3 );
		llSetColor( <0,0,0>, 4 );
		llSetColor( <0,0,0>, 5 );
	}
	
	changed( integer ch )
	{
		if( ch & CHANGED_INVENTORY ) {
			reload=1;
			llSetTimerEvent(2.0);
		}
	}

	touch_start(integer nd)
	{
		if( llGetListLength(pictures) > 0 ) {
			integer i=6;
			while( i > 0 ) {
				i--;
				llSetTexture( getSlide(slideno+(i-2)), i);
			}
			slideno = (slideno+1)%llGetListLength(pictures);
		}
	}		

	
	timer()
	{
		if( reload == 1 ) {
			reload = 0;
			loadPictures();
			return;
		}
		integer i=6;
		while( i > 0 ) {
			i--;
			llSetTexture( getSlide(slideno+(i-2)), i);
		}
		slideno = (slideno+1)%llGetListLength(pictures);
	}
}

Thanks Rolig for your input and the script, I shall give that a try.

I have only ever used my script for some LED lights that I designed for a Laptop display to indicate when I was online or offline.

I designed these attached textures green for offline and red for online with another texture on a prim over the top to finish it off.

The end effect with the LED lights was that they would give the effect that every second one more light would be added as the script went through the animation cycle and then when it reached the maximum lights it would reduce again and I only wanted it to appear on one prim face.

What I thought was funny is the lag you mention re my script but for my use it most probably adds to the end effect that I wanted and is with out doubt not noticeable.

I would still like Anya though to follow up on what she meant about all or nothing.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is what I need really , just one thing, I need the textures to swap faster.
Larrie your very helpful, thank you very much.

Anubis, as I look back at one of your last posts, it strikes me that you may be asking for something a little different than I thought. You actually want to have an animation on the face, not a set of different textures, right? What we have been recommending is a way to cycle a completely new texture onto a face every few seconds. It might be better instead for you to use a GIF animation. I haven't done that, myself, but the topic comes up in this forum periodically -- actually came up about two weeks ago, in fact -- so you ought to be able to find some tips by searching old posts. Try typing "GIF" into the search box for this forum and see what happens. Or you could wait until Chosen Few sees this thread and explains how to do it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

What you and Larrie have gave is fine, just trying to make it run faster and been messing with the speed. It's not going as fast as I want but it may still work.

default
{
state_entry()
{
llSetTextureAnim(ANIM_ON | LOOP, 0, 1, 5, 1, 0, 4.0);
}
}

this simple script is fast and is on one side but does not animate from its own inventory, it still slides the texture. btw , I am not good at writting scripts , can mod them somewhat.

Anubis,

I am going in world to see which part of the script speeds things up, you can contect me there and/or I will post back here anyway for other readers.

How fast do you want it to go?

Yeah, I use brute force and a lot of trial and error with scripts too. You're right about this one sliding the texture. That's what happens when you use the llSetTextureAnim function. I actually like that effect for doing slide show type displays. The script I posted uses llSetTexture instead, so it simply pops the new texture onto the prim face.

Anubis

You most probably already know but the last digit 4.0 was the speed I had set, 1 is slow and the higher the number the faster it goes. I set it 100 inworld and it was fast. I think also it depends on the texture as well you are animating and the end effect you are looking to get.

Good luck with it.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlSetTextureAnim

Can animate one or all faces.
Can smoothly slide or rotate, or can swicth between frames.
All frames are contained in one texture - so there is no frame delay.
Can go fast enough to look like smooth motion (>10 frames/sec)

There are a few reasons to use texture loading instead, together with the consequent server lag, slowness and texture download delays.....

The single texture containing all frames is limited to 1024x1024. So if you need many high resolution frames, they may not fit (eg max 16 256x256 frames).

Texture changes are not synchronised for different residents or for other in-world events.

Texture has to be replaced as a whole, so if you need to regularly changing single frames, external editing fuctions are required (eg ad boards).

No, you're not missing anything. I posted nonsense

You can not have more than one animation on a prim. You can have an animation on just one face. I realized I posted bad info as I was working with anims today.