AnimatedSprite misbehaving - refusing certain animations? (SOLVED - Rewrite implement to a queue)

SnapCracklins

So, I have a game where the character can hide when a flag is flipped. EVERYTHING about the function works except for two animations that, for some reason, will not change when called in functions. What I am doing: Having an animation play and then changing the player's hidden status (and going invisible and disabling collision box) when done. Everything else works. Movement works and movement cancelling works. Boolean and area signals all good. Triggers and signals work. It's just these TWO FREAKING ANIMATIONS. (Literally, calling every other animation from the same AnimatedSprite works. I'm even using the same methods). What am I doing wrong?

HIDING ACTION/INPUT TRIGGER:

### hiding function on button press (checks boolean)
func hide_lydia():
	anim_hide()
	is_hidden = true
	can_hide = false
	print("Hiding!")
	print("Is hidden = " + str(is_hidden))


### revealing function (checks other boolean)
func reveal_lydia():
	anim_reveal()
	is_hidden = false
	can_hide = true
	print("Revealing!")
	print("Is hidden = " + str(is_hidden))

ANIMATION FUNCTIONS:

### hiding and reveal animations and yields ______________________________
func anim_hide():
	anim.play('hide')
	yield(anim,"animation_finished")


func anim_reveal():
	anim.play('reveal')
	yield(anim,"animation_finished")

RichNaoo

Hopefully you figured it out already but the only thing I can think of is that the animation names aren't correct. If so the animated sprite would keep doing what it was doing before calling play("anim_name").

SnapCracklins

@RichNaoo said: Hopefully you figured it out already but the only thing I can think of is that the animation names aren't correct. If so the animated sprite would keep doing what it was doing before calling play("anim_name").

That was my first thought but alas, not so. My suspicion though is that it may be because i put an “idle” animation in and it checks during _process. Yield and such work, it just shows the wrong thing. I have a feeling it going to require some recoding. Ah well. That’s learning for you.

Gowydot

This info may or may not help your case but I read from an expert coder here that it is a good idea to avoid using Yield in most, if not all, cases. I'm not a coder so what I got from his explanation is that it can mess up with other process. Good luck.

RichNaoo

I believe this will give some insight as to what is happening: https://godotengine.org/qa/19040/yield-inside-another-function?show=19040#q19040

Whenever you call yield only the current subroutine (CS term for method or function) gets paused until the signal is given to the yield function. So if that is all that the function does there is no use for yield. Yield doesn't pause anything else. Everytime the idle animation is played by your _process() method the hide and reveal animations get stopped.

In the official godot docs the explanation is even clearer: coroutines-with-yield

Coroutines with yield

GDScript offers support for coroutines via the yield built-in function. Calling yield() will immediately return from the current function, with the current frozen state of the same function as the return value. Calling resume() on this resulting object will continue execution and return whatever the function returns. Once resumed, the state object becomes invalid. ...

RichNaoo

@Gowydot said: This info may or may not help your case but I read from an expert coder here that it is a good idea to avoid using Yield in most, if not all, cases. I'm not a coder so what I got from his explanation is that it can mess up with other process. Good luck.

With the knowledge of my previous comment I would say this has no ground. I myself have found a very useful case for yield where I play an out animation and then yield before I call queue_free(). Perhaps it can mess up when your yielding method accesses some variable that is accessed in a different location which could result in race conditions.

Megalomaniak

I think that advice was targeted at developers who don't understand yield properly. It exists for a reason, but if you don't really understand it you are very likely going to make hazardous use of it that might do more harm than good.

RichNaoo

@Megalomaniak said: I think that advice was targeted at developers who don't understand yield properly. It exists for a reason, but if you don't really understand it you are very likely going to make hazardous use of it that might do more harm than good.

I agree but avoiding it won't result in learning so I kinda think of it as a form of gatekeeping

SnapCracklins

I understand the risks of yield. It is however the only way I know of to incorporate delays or waits in Godot when paired with a timer (i currently only use when the signal is directly called with a timer in yield’s arguments), It works well in the stamina meter function i am using but i have noticed some error messages in loops that use it when i change scenes. I tried timer objects already there and it just doesn’t work, so I use it to create gaps in the stamina regain function for progression purposes.

However, it seems I am learning that yield is hazardous especially when it comes to animations. I may have to develop a different approach, obviously. I think @RichNaoo hit the nail on the head with the _process error and that idle animation, i think’s that my culprit .

Thanks everyone for the constructive feedback.

RichNaoo

You can connect a function or method to a signal if you want @SnapCracklins either through the editor by selecting the wanted signal in the signal dock when you have a node selected. Or by code with the connect() method. Take a look at the docs for clear instructions

SnapCracklins

Well, thanks all, seems the advice here helped me solve this problem. The cause: Idle animation on process interrupting hide animations The cuplrit: * Animations tied to state machine causing stack frames on animation

The solution: Turn hiding into a set of substates/bools that toggle on animation endings, adding yields to one-shot animations Rebuilt the code as my original had a lot of redundancies. Also, I changed my stamina meter functions as I did so and fixed some bugs it had for good. I think my player object is finally done.

MY HIDING VARIABLES:

### hiding controls and direct sprite/collision refs
var is_hidden = false
var can_hide = false
var hide_out = false
onready var anim = $AnimatedSprite
onready var box = $CollisionShape2D

HIDE COMMAND IN INPUTS

	### E button is Hide command ________________________
	if Input.is_action_just_pressed("hide"):
		### check for area, bool flips by event class, play first animation ___
		if can_hide == true:
			print('hidden...')
			anim.play('hide') ## first hide animation
			is_hidden = true
			can_hide = false
		### flip hidden status/flag if already hidden, move to next step ________
		elif is_hidden == true and hide_out == false:
			hide_out = true
			anim.play('out')
			yield(anim,"animation_finished")
			is_hidden = not is_hidden
			hide_out = not hide_out
			playerState = 0 ### return to idle
		### ignore hide command if not in area
		elif can_hide == false: ## flag prevents double hiding, bool flips at event
			print('Cannot hide here.')

ANIMATION PROCESS (anim is $AnimatedSprite reference)

### match state with animation ________________________________________
func anim_ctrl():
	### ignore action states if hidden
	if is_hidden == false: 
		match playerState:
			actionStates.IDLE:
				anim.play('idle')
			actionStates.WALK:
				anim.play('walk')
			actionStates.RUN:
				anim.play('run')
	if is_hidden == true and hide_out == false: ### is_hidden step
		yield(anim,"animation_finished")
		anim.play('kneel')
	if is_hidden == true and hide_out == true: ### return to idle step
		yield(anim, "animation_finished")
		anim.play('idle')