[abdul-rehman]

I have been playing with sprites recently and come across a problem of how to animate a sprite.
After much searching i used the following method to make it animate:

create_sprite(id)
{
    // Create an entity for the player
    g_player_ent[id] = engfunc(EngFunc_CreateNamedEntity, engfunc(EngFunc_AllocString, "env_sprite"))
    
    // Invalid entity ?
    if (!pev_valid(g_player_ent[id]))
        return -1;
    
    // Set some basic properties
    set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_takedamage, 0.0)
    set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_solid, SOLID_NOT)
    set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_movetype, MOVETYPE_NONE)
    set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_owner, id)
    
    // Set the sprite and rendering on the entity
    engfunc(EngFunc_SetModel, g_player_ent[id], g_sprite_name)
    fm_set_rendering(g_player_ent[id], .render = kRenderTransAlpha, .amount = 0)
    
    // Set the sprite size
    set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_scale, 0.05)
    
    // Set the sprites animation time and framerate
    set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_animtime, 0.1)
    set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_framerate, 0.1)
    
    // Spawn the sprite entity (necessary to play the sprite animations)
    dllfunc(DLLFunc_Spawn, g_player_ent[id])
    set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_spawnflags, SF_SPRITE_STARTON)
    
    return g_player_ent[id];
}

However it didnt work and i got puzzled up, can someone tell me how to animate the sprite (I m also attaching it so you can see the animation (in sprite explorer) i m trying to play)

[Arkshine]

Start with

set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_scale, 1.0 )
set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_animtime, get_gametime() )
set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_framerate, 1.0 )
set_pev(g_player_ent[id], pev_spawnflags, SF_SPRITE_STARTON) // (doesn't make sense you set a spawnflag after you spawn the entity...)
dllfunc(DLLFunc_Spawn, g_player_ent[id])

and see what happens.

If working, adjust the value as you want.

[Hunter-Digital]

@abdul-rehman code is good but pev_spawnflags should be before triggering spawn.

Also, stop using fm_* stocks, that one is ok since it does exacly the same thing as engine's stock, but I'd recommend you stick to the simple natives because fm_ prefixed stocks call way more natives than a single engine/fun/cstrike/ham native.

[abdul-rehman]

@Hunter-Digital: I used fm_set_resndering becoz fun's set_user_rendering doesnt work for non-player entities
@Arkshine i set pev_animtime to get_gametime() and also fixed the pev_spawnflags issue and it worked ! however it only worked if pev_framerate is set to 1.0, if i set it to 0.1 it would animate, so what is the problem now ?

[drekes]

Originally Posted by abdul-rehman I used fm_set_resndering becoz fun's set_user_rendering doesnt work for non-player entities

You can use engine's set_rendering() instead.

[Arkshine]

set_rendering() is an engine stock which is basically the same as the fm_ one.

however it only worked if pev_framerate is set to 1.0, if i set it to 0.1 it would animate

You mean NOT animate ? Anyway If I'm right the framerate is the number of frames by second, so it doesn't make really sense to try to use 0.1..

[abdul-rehman]

Originally Posted by Arkshine set_rendering() is an engine stock which is basically the same as the fm_ one. You mean NOT animate ? Anyway If I'm right the framerate is the number of frames by second, so it doesn't make really sense to try to use 0.1..

Sorry, i understood it the wrong way ( i thought the it was the time for 1 frame ) i setted it to 10 (which means 10 frames per second right?) and it works fine
btw i have 2 questions can u please answer
Q1-
How can i stop the animation of the sprite at a particular frame
I tried to set the framrate to 0.0 and it did worked, however i m confused whether this is the best method to do so)
Q2-
When i set the sprite to animate, it only animates 10 frames out of the 12, when i rewrite the sprite to 8 total frames, it only animates 6 out of them! Is it a bug with AMXX or what is exactly the problem.

Btw thankyou all for clearing up my queries once again.

[Arkshine]

Q1 : playing with animtime or framerate would work. Talking about "best method" when you have only one instruction to sent is not worth to waste your time. If it works with framerate, it's fine.

Q2 : Before saying it's the AMXX's fault, check your code/sprite. It can't be AMXX anyway because it sent only instructions directly to the engine. So, most likely your fault if it _really_ doesn't show all the frame.

[abdul-rehman]

Well i could not catch my problem so to fix the issue i added two blank frames in every of my test sprites and it works since it doesnt play the last 2 blank ones btw thanks again.