Animation Pattern Trigger: Play to Next/Previous Step, Play relative to currentTime

[ClubJulze]

I have been building a scene using buttons that raise and lower a platform and realize I cannot figure out how to have one button raise the platform and another button lower it. You can only play the animation from a set time to another set time.

It would be extremely useful if there was a trigger that played the animation pattern to the next or previous step in the animation. So right now, I either use a slider (which isn't very immersive for the scene) or I make buttons that turn invisible after being pressed and are replaced by other buttons which will likely take hours.

I may completely give up on the scene due to this issue and that just feels pretty shitty as I've already spent a few hours on it.

 

[yasparukko]

Timeline has animation "next frame" and "previous frame" option
I had similar problem, you have to set animation speed to "0" and animation "next frame" or "previous frame"

 

[ClubJulze]

Timeline has animation "next frame" and "previous frame" option
I had similar problem, you have to set animation speed to "0" and animation "next frame" or "previous frame"

I tried this and all it does is skip to the frame. This is a problem because I want it to PLAY the animation to the next or previous frame. Not just move it immediately to the next/previous frame. This is not immersive in any fashion as it's an instant teleport and can completely break physics when a person is involved.

 

[yasparukko]

I'm sorry, I understand now, you are right...
If we could set negative speed value in timeline (-1) it would be easy to do, one button sets speed to 1.0 the other button to -1.0, and it would be going in both directions, and you could add triggers to set speed to 0.0 for the platform to stop, but only Acidbubbles can add this functionality to timeline
At the moment timeline does not accept negative values for speed

 

[ClubJulze]

The answer to the issue isn't with a third party plug in though. For simple animations, Animation Patterns are easier than using timeline (IMO). I hardly ever use Timeline since all our more complicated animations are mocapped.

 

[yasparukko]

Sorry, I forgot about animation patterns, and thinking about it, its actually easy to do what you want with animation patterns!
You create animation pattern with as many steps as you want, and you can move your platform between them by changing animation speed from -1 to 1, and 0 to stop it.
Each animation pattern step would set the animation speed to "0", and two buttons would set the speed to "-1" and "1".
You press the button and your platform would move 1 step up or down, this should work
Or, you could have 3 buttons,
1st to go up, animation speed 1.0;
2nd to go down, animation speed -1.0;
3rd to stop moving, animation speed 0.0;

 

[ClubJulze]

That is a really good idea. Thanks. It would still be nice to have the triggers I requested, as well. It would streamline editing.

 

[ClubJulze]

Sorry, I forgot about animation patterns, and thinking about it, its actually easy to do what you want with animation patterns!
You create animation pattern with as many steps as you want, and you can move your platform between them by changing animation speed from -1 to 1, and 0 to stop it.
Each animation pattern step would set the animation speed to "0", and two buttons would set the speed to "-1" and "1".
You press the button and your platform would move 1 step up or down, this should work
Or, you could have 3 buttons,
1st to go up, animation speed 1.0;
2nd to go down, animation speed -1.0;
3rd to stop moving, animation speed 0.0;

This worked masterfully, BTW. Brilliant suggestion. I created a couple physical buttons that Set the Animation Speed and Plays the Animation on Press and Pauses the Animation on Release. This combined with some hydraulic sound effects make a very immersive effect.

 

[yasparukko]

This is great, I am very happy to hear that
Btw, I am not sure if you are already using it, its very helpful to use "UIButton KB Shortcut" plugin with buttons, you can assign keyboard shortcut for any button, makes it so much easier