Pokemon entrance animations documentation?

[silentgamer64]

One of the highlights in the v18 change log was this:

Added support for playing a one-off animation when a Pokémon appears in battle (playing its cry is part of this)

Is there any documentation for this yet? I noticed that v18 didn't come with any additional battler folders for animation frames/gifs.

I'm sure many people here would love to know how to make their Pokemon animate like they do in Crystal/Emerald/Gen 4.

 

[Golisopod User]

There is a method called pbIntroAnimation which handles this. But currently it does nothing. You need to set it up yourself

 

[silentgamer64]

There is a method called pbIntroAnimation which handles this. But currently it does nothing. You need to set it up yourself

Wow. I wouldn't really consider that "support" then. Setting up an empty method and calling it where you want is easy enough. The animation is the hard part, so the fact that the code isn't there for it is a real bummer.

 

[Golisopod User]

It does support it, you need to set it up. That's like saying Essentials doesn't support Gen 8 because its not included in the base code. The functionality is all there, you need to set it up. The difference is that many people want Gen 8 so they are setting it up in a public Resource, but 2 frame Animations is a niche feature so you'll need to set it up yourself until a public Resource of it is released.

 

[silentgamer64]

It does support it, you need to set it up. That's like saying Essentials doesn't support Gen 8 because its not included in the base code. The functionality is all there, you need to set it up. The difference is that many people want Gen 8 so they are setting it up in a public Resource, but 2 frame Animations is a niche feature so you'll need to set it up yourself until a public Resource of it is released.

Data entry isn't really comparable to setting up and programming animations in the scripts from scratch though. Essentials provides Gen 8 enthusiasts with Gen 1-5 files as direct examples to base their work off of. No such example exists in Essentials for setting up this kind of sprite animation.

I also disagree that intro animations are a "niche" feature. If they existed in Essentials as an option by default, I'm willing to bet most people would use them to give their games a little more flair, unless of course the game is trying to emulate the first 3 generations of games which didn't feature those animations.

And judging by how popular EBS was, I'd argue that animated sprites in general are very much desired beyond a "niche". Unfortunately EBS only ever supported Gen 5 style animations. So hopefully a resource similar to it is eventually released to complete Essentials' support for intro animations.

 

[Golisopod User]

There's no "programming". Its all there you just need to look for it. And when I say Gen 8, I mean code for Gen 8 moves and abilities.

 

[silentgamer64]

There's no "programming". Its all there you just need to look for it. And when I say Gen 8, I mean code for Gen 8 moves and abilities.

I do understand what you mean about code for Gen 8 stuff, but that still seems significantly more niche than a feature that has technically existed across Gens 2-4.

When I see that a program has "support" for something, I expect it to do what it says on the tin, and I think in this case the tin failed to mention "some assembly required". I just don't understand why every single user interested in this feature must look through the code to set up the animation function themselves, when having it come pre-built in the scripts with a simple boolean in the settings to toggle on the animations would have sufficed.

I don't see a reason to rig it myself if a public Resource is likely to release later anyway, having multiple people working independently on the same thing is pointless. Thank you for clarifying the state of the feature though.