Actor states
From ZDoom Wiki
An actor's states can be defined for an actor within its DECORATE definition. States describe the animations an actor has.
States
These are the predefined states each actor has access to:
- Spawn
- Defines the state that is displayed when an actor is spawned. For monsters this is normally also the idle loop.
- Idle (development version only)
- Defines an alternate idle state for a monster to return to when it has run out of targets. If this state is not present, the monster will return to the Spawn state instead.
- See
- Defines the walking animation for a monster.
- Melee
- Defines the melee (near) attack.
- Missile
- Defines the missile (far) attack.
- Pain
- Defines the pain action. Multiple Pain states can be used depending on the type of damage inflicted. See custom damage types.
- Death
- Defines the normal death sequence. Multiple Death states can be used depending on the type of damage that kills the actor. See custom damage types.
- XDeath
- Defines the extreme (splatter) death sequence.
- Burn
- Defines the burn (fire) death sequence.
- Ice
- Defines the freeze (ice) death sequence.
- Disintegrate
- Defines the disintegration death sequence.
- Raise
- Defines the resurrection sequence.
- note: This is when a monster is being resurrected (ie: by an Arch-Vile), not when its resurrecting another monster.
- Heal
- Define the healing sequence. This is called when this monster is resurrecting another one.
- Crash
- Defines the crash sequence. This is entered when the actor is a corpse and hits the floor.
- Crush
- Defines the crush sequence. This is entered when the actor is crushed by ceiling/door/etc.
- Wound
- This state is entered when the actor's health is lower than its woundhealth property but greater than 0. Multiple Wound states can be used depending on what type of damage is inflicted upon the actor. See custom damage types.
- Greetings
- This is used by the Strife dialog system. It is entered when a conversation is about to start.
- Yes
- This is used by the Strife dialog system. It is entered when the actor reacts positively to the player's choice.
- No
- This is used by the Strife dialog system. It is entered when the actor reacts negatively to the player's choice.
Weapons and custom inventory items define a few more states to define their animations.
Note that you can also define your own states that can be referred to using A_Jump or other jump instructions.
Usage
A state definition is started with the states keyword and enclosed by braces '{', '}'.
A state definition consists of the following:
- State labels
- This is one of the keywords listed above followed by a ':'.
- State definitions
- These consist of a sprite name, a frame sequence, the duration in tics (1/35 seconds) (note: state duration of -1 means forever) and optionally the bright keyword to indicate a fullbright display and an action function name (code pointer.) For weapon attack frames there is also the option to specify a sprite offset with offset (x,y).
- Example
- POSS AABBCCDD 4 A_Chase
- This defines 8 states. Each one of them uses the sprite POSS, has a duration of 4 and uses the code pointer A_Chase which is the standard walk function for monsters. Of these 8 states the first 2 will use the sprite frame 'A', the next 2 the frame 'B' and so on. The length of the frame sequence can be up to 256 characters. Valid frames are 'A'-'Z', '[', '\' and ']'. Different sprites can be freely mixed in an actor definition; however, each separate line of a state definition is limited to one sprite only.
- Example
- note: Sprite name TNT1 means no sprite.
- note: If the frames '[', '\' or ']' are used the frame sequence has to be enclosed in quotation marks ('"').
- note: If a weapon offset is specified with the offset keyword, the state defined cannot have a duration longer than 254 tics. This is a limitation.
- Flow control
- There are 5 different instructions that control the execution order of an actor's frames directly:
- loop
- jumps to the most recently defined state label. This is used for a looping animation.
- stop
- Stops animating this actor. Normally this is used at the end of the death sequences. If the last state has a duration > -1 the actor will be removed. Note that if a state contains only the stop instruction, the actor will behave as if it doesn't have that state. This can be useful, for example, to remove a state that an actor has inherited from its parent.
- wait
- Loops the last defined state. This is useful if a code pointer is used that waits a given time or for a certain event. Currently useful code pointers include A_WeaponReady, A_Raise, A_FreezeDeathChunks, and similar code pointer functionality.
- fail
- Used with custom inventory items, means that the state sequence failed to succeed.
- goto label [+offset]
- Jumps to an arbitrary state in the current actor. With this you can also jump to a state that was inherited by a parent. The statement goto See jumps to the walking animation that has been inherited.
Important note:
This format has been designed for maximum flexibility. As a result no assumptions
are made about what the designer wants. States are never implicitly created.
Examples
This is an example of a state sequence. The rest of this actor has been removed for readability:
actor ZombieMan 3004 { ... states { Spawn: POSS AB 10 A_Look loop See: POSS AABBCCDD 4 A_Chase loop Missile: POSS E 10 A_FaceTarget POSS F 8 A_PosAttack POSS E 8 goto See Pain: POSS G 3 POSS G 3 A_Pain goto See Death: POSS H 5 POSS I 5 A_Scream POSS J 5 A_Fall POSS K 5 POSS L -1 stop XDeath: POSS M 5 POSS N 5 A_XScream POSS O 5 A_Fall POSS PQRST 5 POSS U -1 stop Raise: POSS KJIH 5 goto See } }
This example demonstrates using the stop keyword to remove a state. This definition uses inheritance to define a tougher version of the imp that cannot be resurrected by the Arch-Vile:
actor SuperImp : DoomImp
{
health 1500
mass 200
painchance 10
States {
Raise:
stop
}
}
