>> It might be nice to have better animation support in
>> the language itself, something like ...
>
>  IMO it would be better if things like skeletal animation would be
> a library instead of being a core feature of the scripting language.
>
>  Being a library makes it more flexible and easier to modify. Being
> a hard-coded inner feature makes it rigid and hard to modify.

Perhaps more flexible, but a language syntax for animation
that is designed  to be human readable would be easier to
modify the scenes.
(by definition, since it would be designed that way)

Are we going to put language re-write rules into the SDL?
If so then an #include "animation.inc" could make such
syntax as the previous example optional and easily modified.
Something like the following, which is perty verbose and ugly,
(and incomplete) but only needs to be included by the average
user...

#define MOB {
   #require MOB_IDENTIFIER | MOB_ITEMS
   MOB_ITEMS {
      #require skeleton {SKELETON_ITEMS}
      #require skin {SKIN_ITEMS}
   }
   SKELETON_ITEMS {
      #require [BONE_IDENTIFIER {}]
      #optional [BONE_IDENTIFIER_1 conected_to
                      BONE_IDENTIFIER_2] {
         #local BONE_IDENTIFIER_2_LOCATION =
                   BONE_IDENTIFIER_1_LOCATION + transforms..
     }
   }
   SKIN_ITEMS {
      #require [BONE_IDENTIFIER looks_like {OBJECT_IDENTIFIER}]
   }
   #optional start_at_location VECTOR at_time FLOAT {
      #if (clock = FLOAT) #local LOCATION = FLOAT; #end
   }
   #optional end_at_location VECTOR at_time FLOAT {
      #if (clock = FLOAT) #local LOCATION = FLOAT; #end
   }
}

Post a reply to this message