Gameplay animation (experimental)

[Lodici]

Just committed a new experimental feature that will play an animation when an AI draws a card from its library. The card zooms out from the hand icon to the center of the screen where it is displayed at its full size (if possible) for a short period of time before zooming back down to either the stack or battlefield area. You can cancel the preview by clicking on the screen or hitting spacebar or enter.

A new setting in the Gameplay section of the preferences dialog can be used to switch the animation on or off. It is off by default.

This introduces a new external libary - trident-1.3.jar - which I have added to build.xml so you will need to do a build to pull this file from Maven and then add a reference to it before running. It is about 105 KB.

There is still much that can be improved but even at this initial stage I think it adds a lot of value and is worth introducing to the main branch. It introduces a more natural transition between gameplay states and makes it much easier to follow what the AI is doing (especially in an AI v AI game). Ultimately with the appropriate animations I think you could add an option to hide/dock the left hand panel so that the battlefield takes up the whole screen which I think would be attractive to advanced MTG players.

[melvin]

Looks cools. I think you mean to say when the AI plays a card from his hand? Just pushed a changeset that includes the new jar on the class path of the jar, without this the lib is not loaded when the main jar is run.

[Lodici]

Looks cools. I think you mean to say when the AI plays a card from his hand? Just pushed a changeset that includes the new jar on the class path of the jar, without this the lib is not loaded when the main jar is run.

You are right, getting my libraries and hands mixed up.

[Huggybaby]

Thanks, I've been asking for this feature for years, you can see my posts somewhere in the Incantus and Arcane forums for proof.

Will the card spin or rotate as it zooms in and out?

[Lodici]

Will the card spin or rotate as it zooms in and out?

Not at the moment. Wouldn't that a look a bit weird and maybe a bit OTT for drawing a card from hand? I think it would be fairly simple to do though so I might have a play at some point since the actual technique might have uses in other places - eg. an animation for when a card is sent to the graveyard (with suitable sound effect).

[hong yie]

another important moment is
when AI playing instant against our spell in stack. i oftenly have to check the graveyard to know what the card the AI has just played. i hope it will soon be applied too.

[Huggybaby]

Will the card spin or rotate as it zooms in and out?

Not at the moment. Wouldn't that a look a bit weird and maybe a bit OTT for drawing a card from hand? I think it would be fairly simple to do though so I might have a play at some point since the actual technique might have uses in other places - eg. an animation for when a card is sent to the graveyard (with suitable sound effect).

If a card spins or rotates end over end, either way I don't think is a problem since it's a brief animation.

[ShawnieBoy]

Will the card spin or rotate as it zooms in and out?

Not at the moment. Wouldn't that a look a bit weird and maybe a bit OTT for drawing a card from hand? I think it would be fairly simple to do though so I might have a play at some point since the actual technique might have uses in other places - eg. an animation for when a card is sent to the graveyard (with suitable sound effect).

If a card spins or rotates end over end, either way I don't think is a problem since it's a brief animation.

A simple transition animation from a face down card to a face up card.

Could be used for drawing, revealing from hand, morph (when implemented), and Milling.