Anyone who's ever made a space map probably wanted to have the frigates move, anyone who's ever animated probably realized how hard it would be to animate each individual gun and gave up on the idea. Well with the help of AceMastermind I've figured out how to have mobile frigates with guns and only need one animation.

Before I teach you how to animate multiple objects you should review the basics of animation. If you are comfortable with animations in ZE continue with this tutorial, if not go read the basic animations guide in the FAQ tread before continuing.

Ok, so the process is actually much simpler than you may think.

step by step instructions w/ explanations
1) name EVERY object that your going to have move in the group, if its a frigate name the ship and each of its guns accordingly, you need to do this because you'll be listing them later on and you need easily remmemberable names

2) Make an animation for the central object, by that I mean that if you animating a frigate create an animation just for the frigate to follow, it can be whatever you want it to be.

3) Look on the bottom right area of the screen in animation mode and you will see a panel called hierarchies. It should contain the following fields. Root Name (name of parent object, aka the object with the animation), Selected Obj (a child object which will follow in perfect proportion to the parent object, there can be multiple ones per parent object), Hier list (just a list of differant hierarchies, you will need one per frigate),obj list ( a list of all the child objects in each animation.

4) Hit the add button at the bottom of the Hier list. Input the name of your frigate under Root Name. Don't forget to hit enter at the end of each line to avoid typos.

5) now hit the add button at the bottom of the obj list. Input the name of a turret. Rinse and repeat for each one of the turrets. DO NOT make a separate hierarchy for each turret, just use one per frigate!

6) once you've input all of the hierarchies just create an animation group. MAKE SURE YOU INCLUDE ONLY THE FRIGATE IN THE ANIMATION GROUP DO NOT LIST TURRETS. Never attempt to animate a child object, you won't like what happens.

*note* when you try to play the anim in ZE it will not move the turrets however trust me on this one it will work ingame, why IDK by it does so just go with it.

Questions or comments?

wishihadaname wrote:Questions or comments?

Yes, thanks for asking.

Why are you making a tutorial for something that
a) Was just told to you how to do, and
b) Is already explained in the docs?

As a general rule, if you just learned how to do something, you shouldn't make a tutorial on it. I appreciate your willingness to help others, but the tutorial in the documentation is both more concise and more clear.

Sorry, I thought i'de synthesize the idea and not everyone actually reads the docs. Sorry if its not useful.

wishihadaname wrote:Sorry, I thought i'de synthesize the idea and not everyone actually reads the docs. Sorry if its not useful.

And what makes you say that?

Well I ussually dont mostly because alot of them use technical language and I have no formal training in computer language at all. I think i'll just delete this then, thanks again for helping me figure it out, I thought it would be useful to have as something other people could do.

Ping wrote:

wishihadaname wrote:Sorry, I thought i'de synthesize the idea and not everyone actually reads the docs. Sorry if its not useful.

And what makes you say that?

I didn't.

wishihadaname wrote:Well I ussually dont mostly because alot of them use technical language and I have no formal training in computer language at all. I think i'll just delete this then, thanks again for helping me figure it out, I thought it would be useful to have as something other people could do.

Just 'cause you don't doesn't mean everyone doesn't. And the documents were easy for me to understand, and I have no training in computer language, either, and I don't know what "technical language" you're referring to is. The developers wrote it so people with no computer experience can understand it. The only reason I used Fierfek's guide was to be 100% sure I was doing everything correct.

Alright, My apollogies for attempting to be helpful, i'll leave tutorial writers to the people that know what their doing then.
Could an admin just delete this topic please?

If this is being deleted it's just as well I saved it to my computer. I also have trouble with the documentation sometimes, especially the Jedi Creation one.

wishihadaname wrote:Alright, My apollogies for attempting to be helpful

You never have to apologize for that. I won't delete the topic as there's no reason to remove any source of information. All I want to encourage you to do is - in the future - before you consider writing a tutorial for something, please make sure to already know the material (writing what you're learning down to help the learning "take" is a fine idea, but that shouldn't necessarily be directly transcribed as a learning tool for others) and please make sure that you expand upon what is already given.

Why people don't read the docs is really beyond my comprehension. It's okay for somebody to not understand them and ask specific questions about them or to miss things in them (I can admit, I never realized the animation doc explained the process this topic is about), but to not read them at all? They were included with the tools for a reason.

not read them at all

I don't think anyone outright ignores them (but it's really obvious if they do) but many people seem to have trouble with parts of them, myself included.

Same, I read the docs, didn't understand about 70% of them though.

wishihadaname wrote:Same, I read the docs, didn't understand about 70% of them though.

Then ask questions and open your mind to knowledge.