Sequence

The art.ini section that lays out the frames of every action an infantry type performs.

Specification

Applies to

InfantryType

File

art.ini

Section

[<Image ID>]Image ID: Image= value; ObjectType ID when omitted

Value

string

When omitted

none

The value names another section of the same file. That section carries one entry per action the soldier can perform, and each entry holds up to four fields: the first frame of the run, the number of frames in it, the number of frames from one facing to the next, and a compass point the soldier is turned to when an ordinary run ends.

art.ini

[E1] ; the Image ID of the stock Light Infantry
Sequence=E1Sequence

[E1Sequence]
Ready=0,1,1      ; one frame per facing, frames 0-7
Walk=8,6,6       ; six frames per facing, frames 8-55
Idle1=56,15,0,W  ; one run of 15 shared by every facing, ending facing west
Prone=86,1,6     ; the first frame of each crawl run
Crawl=86,6,6

The frame drawn is the run’s first frame, plus the animation stage taken as a remainder against the frame count, plus the soldier’s heading reduced to one of eight blocks times the per-facing jump. A jump of 0 leaves the run facing-independent, as the idle and death runs above are. A JumpJet=yes soldier with a target uses the direction to that target in place of its own heading.

An entry the named section does not carry leaves that action with a frame count of 0 — but only the first time a type builds its table, so a later rules layer naming a different section merges into the existing one and leaves the actions it omits at their old frames. An action whose frame count is 0 is never started at all — a soldier whose section omits Idle1 simply never plays it.

Entry names

The table names every entry a sequence section may carry and the action each one drives. Not every name earns the frames cut for it, which is what the line below the table settles.

Entry	Action
Ready	Standing at rest
Guard	Standing on guard
Prone	Lying prone at rest
Walk	Walking upright
FireUp	Firing upright
Down	Lying down
Crawl	Moving while prone
Up	Getting up
FireProne	Firing while prone
Idle1, Idle2	The two idle animations
Die1 to Die5	The five death animations, chosen by the warhead that killed the soldier
Hover	Hovering on jump jets
Fly	Flying on jump jets
Tumble	Tumbling on jump jets
FireFly	Firing while flying
Struggle	Struggling inside a web

Four of these are never started by anything: Guard, Die3, Die4 and Tumble. Frames cut for them are never drawn.

An infantry type with no sequence brings the game down

Omitting the key leaves the type with no animation table at all, and the per-frame animation update reads that table without checking it, so the first update of any instance of such a type crashes. Naming a section the file does not carry is a different failure: every action is then left with a frame count of 0, the soldier starts no action and stands on the first frame of its artwork, and that same update reads outside the table on every pass. A type registered only by being named elsewhere — the case Crew describes — has no section of its own and so falls into the first of these.

See also — FireUp, FireProne, Crawls, JumpJet, Crew

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