animating textures ....

I would load all frames of the animation to own textures in memory and just use SetTexture() in right delay...

If I have an animated texture for display using Direct3D I try and make sure that all the animation frames are stored in a single texture - such as a 256x256 or 512x512 sized texture. I then simply update the texture coordinates so that the relevant animation frame is displayed when necessary. This avoids a lot of unnecessary calls to SetTexture.

Sharky

ok sharky ur point was taken....but say that you have an ENTIRE background as an animating texture. then that background should be good quality because its what the player is gonna see the entire time in that area. so if i wanted an animating backdrop. the id have to store all phases of that animation of the backdrop in a single texture and change coordinates as game goes. but then that texture with all the different phases of the backdrop would be HUGE....say the backdrop is 1024x768 right, and if i have 10 phases of that then the texture ill have to load into memory at the begining would be 10240x7680....would the graphics card be able to handle this?

there must be an easier way for pre rendered backdrops
thanks

hi
alfmga we seem from the same aria
I am from UAE.. Dubai
anyway, I can give solution , however , it''s just an idea. Since your background is not going to be entirely animated ( say most of the time ) , you can split up ur textures according to the animation u want . Suppose you are in a big garden, and in the center was a fountain which is the only animated part, see the image below :

http://www.uae-arts.host.sk/example.jpg

it has some disadvantages though , some scenes contain complicated animation which doesn''t suit the method I mentioned. Try to avoid complex scenes as much as possible.IMHO there is no other way.

http://uae-arts.host.sk

thast the thing.......my background IS gonna be animated the whole time for almost every single scene. im making an RPG ala final fantasy.
......hey how bout directShow is that used for this kinda stuff. make my animation into an avi, and then stick it on the background polygon. what do u guys think. would that be convenient

thanks again

well first of, Voodoo 3 cards have a limitation of 256x256 sized textures.

Second, Use a big texture for the background and then smaller animation-textures that you render "on top" of the background. If you really have a whole background where every pixel is supposed to animate, why not use DirectShow and an .mpg (is .avi supported?)

"No lies of sugar can sweeten the sournes of reality"

}+TITANIUM+{ A.K.A. DXnewbie[onMIRC]

ok i get u. sounds like an alternative.
Any idea how they do it in final fantasy. I mean like the graphic rendering technique they use in the final fantasy series