Animation editor

20.09.2009

One of the coolest parts of the Driftmoon editor is the Animations editor. You can create any number of animations, and play them using scripts, or let them just loop on their own. Animation in Driftmoon is based on keyframes. All you have to do is select the frame you want, and then select the part of the object you want to move, and move it there with the mouse. You can then preview the animation to see your changes. By default all animations return to their starting point by the end of the animation sequence, so you don't even have to worry about looping the animation.

One of the things I've added lately is the ability to change the image by frame. Notrium modders will remember this was the way all Notrium animations were done, you drew up a bunch of frames and tried to make them look smooth. So this is possible even now, and I'm using it in this image to change the hand image into an orb at some point of the animation. You can also scale any part of the object within the animation. You could make a bouncy ball, or a wobbly slime monster.

All characters are animated using this system, but you don't have to redo all animation to each character. All humans have a base object that holds their animations, and you can just change the textures for each of them to make them look different.