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(Animated Textures) We have all seen those cartoon documentaries in which we are shown a
number of pages, each with a drawing on it slightly different from the
drawing on the previous sheet. Then, when the pages are flipped quickly
in succession, we see the illusion of motion. Well, animated textures
work in exactly the same way. You have to create a series of textures,
each one slightly different from the one before.
Adding animated textures to your track is very easy. The first
thing you need to do is open up the textures box and load the textures
you want to use for your animation. These must be already made, and
in the standard 64x64 pixel ACT & RAW file format. For the purposes
of this demonstration I will use the spiraling textures from Chase the
Dragon by Guitar Bill.
In order to animate a texture, select it by clicking on it with the
mouse. It will be outlined in red. Then, hold the Ctrl key
while clicking on the other textures in the order you want them to appear
in the animation sequence. As you do this, a number will appear indicating
the texture's place in the sequence. The first texture will
remain un-numbered, and it is this first one that you must paint into the
terrain in order for the animation to work correctly. Do not paste
the other textures. Note that the texture will not be animated on
the main Traxx display, but it will work fine when you launch your track
in MTM2.
To check that you have done things correctly, or just to see how the
animation will appear, you can preview it by clicking the animation button
in the textures box.
This will bring up the texture animation box, and it will look almost
exactly like this.
You should be able to see your animation sequence working in the little viewing screen. The file list on the left hand side are the textures used for the animation. The Un-Animate button will remove all animation settings for this sequence. The Period (ms) is the amount of time each frame is shown, in milliseconds. The default is 250, which is 4 frames per second. The lower the number, the faster the animation will run. If everything is the way you want it to be, click OK and continue with
your track.
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