blink effect?

[dibb1er]

is it possible to make a part of the skin blink?

in other words, can i select a part of the skin to flick between a dark texture and a light texture at a set interval?

i know that we can change parts of the skin at certain triggers (e.g. the popular light, when a button is depressed...), so i was just wondering if what i am after is possible or not.

to give you an idea of what i am thinking of doing (if possible    ), is to get the neon(?) in the AJ8 skin to flicker on and off.

p.s. keep up the good work. can't wait for the new update 

[MrD]

Maybe some kind of animated GIF would work?   I'm not sure if they can be used in a skin now or not.

[dibb1er]

Maybe some kind of animated GIF would work?   I'm not sure if they can be used in a skin now or not.

hmm... nope...

just tried it, doesnt seem to like gifs 

thanks for the suggestion anyway. 

[Chris]

Sorry, GIFs are not supported due to patent issues (although I think the patent may have expired...).

If there is demand for this, I could add multiple frames for icons, with each frame being a separate image... I would have to support a frame rate and a loop setting for each icon.  Hmm.  This probably wouldn't be terribly difficult to do if each frame was a separate image.  For loop settings, I guess it would be best to support a mode (forward or forward and back) and a loop count (number of times to loop or infinite).  These would replace the OnImage and OffImage, so the settings could be different for each, and if it was mapped to MSG_START it would just run forever.  Is there demand for this?  Is that a silly question? 

--Chris

[dibb1er]

a demand?
no, was just wondering if was possible with the current code.
So, dont put yourself out on my account, I think wincab is perfect for my needs as is (erm... except for the id tag stuff   

[chipsdad]

This would be cool if you wanted to use a mechanism graphic.  Turning record/cd.

[Chris]

This would be cool if you wanted to use a mechanism graphic.  Turning record/cd.

Hmm.  Would need a message for the inter-song pause; that's easy enough to add.

While I'm on that subject, are there any other state messages that should be detectable?  Actually, that sounds like a new thread...

[dibb1er]

Sorry, GIFs are not supported due to patent issues (although I think the patent may have expired...).

did a little reading tonight, and noticed that (supposedly) the final patents on the GIF format ran out on 1st October.

did a little more reading, and noticed  that regardless of whether the above is 100% true or not, the decoding (i.e. displaying) of GIF files is allowed without fear of having to pay royalties (although you might want to double check this).

um, hope this helps, as i assume from xk's "1957 Rock-ola" thread that you are thinking about animation in one form or another.....

[Chris]

Sorry, GIFs are not supported due to patent issues (although I think the patent may have expired...).

did a little reading tonight, and noticed that (supposedly) the final patents on the GIF format ran out on 1st October.

did a little more reading, and noticed  that regardless of whether the above is 100% true or not, the decoding (i.e. displaying) of GIF files is allowed without fear of having to pay royalties (although you might want to double check this).

um, hope this helps, as i assume from xk's "1957 Rock-ola" thread that you are thinking about animation in one form or another.....

Yes, but I'm not sure animated GIFs are worth the effort.  I was planning to use a list of still images; if I use animated GIFs it'd probably be a support nightmare dealing with all the little features and inconsistencies and such.  If I plan it well, you'll be able to pull off some really neat tricks; if I don't plan well it has the potential to be a performance and memory hog that will do more harm than good.  It does require a fairly complete rebuild of the structures and the skin reader, though, and of course I want to try to keep backward compatibility, so it's not anything that's going to appear overnight.

I haven't wanted to talk about it too much because I'm afraid of "over-promising", and my free time has been so limited I haven't been able to pay proper attention to it, but the idea is that you'll have image lists that can animate once or loop, and the loop can either be forward or forward and backward; you can set animations to either synch to themselves or to the master clock.  You can also have images changed based on values, and if I do it right those images could also be animations.  Probably the harest part will be creating the parameters to define this all in the skin file in some coherent fashion.

I could probably support basic animated GIFs with consistent frame rates; I'll look into it.