specifications

Animation type
  - BAB makes plane picture animation (ATC/AVP animation).
  - This is one of the SC4-standard-animation types.
  - Automata (car, train …) and some animated-props (beam light, compound
    animation. ... ) are using another (S3D-wire framing) type.

              
            ATC/AVP                          S3D (Wire Frame)                     S3D (Textured)
       IID:0x282B0000                       IID: 0x298E0000

Maximum animation size
  - Small size is 124x124 pixels and Large size is 248x248 pixels.
  - Small size is SC4-standard.
  - Large size is a composite of 2 or 4 Small size animations.

   
             Small Size (Max.)                        Large Size (Max.)


Prop number
  - Small size has 1(2) and Large size has 2 or 4 (4 or 8) props.
  - ( ) means “with night scene”
  - BAB can make night scene (SC4-standard does not have it), but the night-light colors
    are blended by BAB itself referring the night-color coefficients in the gmax(BAT) script.
    BAB-animation's night-scene is not the effect of SC4-system.

                          
                       Day scene                            Night Scene


Zoom level
  -  3, 4 and 5 are visible (1 and 2 are invisible by SC4-system settings).
     On some situations, it is needed substitute props for Zoom-level 1 and 2.
   

     Zoom:              5                                                  4                             3               2           1    

Frame number
  - Maximum frame number of a sequence is variable by the frame size.
  - Animated-prop has only one sequence, and each frame of the sequence is sorted on
    a container-plane (256x256px. bitmap) and the container is stored in FSH.
  - The container’s maximum number is 255.
  - Maximum frame number is counted by counting how many frames are able to be
    placed on the 255 containers.
  - Large frame number often occurs an error "Memory over flow"  (BAB will be shut down).
   
             ( A container plane )


Sequence time
  - Frame number / 10 = seconds.
  - SC4-animation’s FPS is about 10.


Object's color
  - BAB treats real-black(0,0,0) color as transparent color.
    Also, when the object that is attached dark-near-black texture is animated to very small
   size, often the object's color turns to real-black and makes a hole on the animation.


Modified BAT(gmax) scripts
  - Added automatic-full-export and manual “step by step” export.
  - Added automatic closing of BAT.
  - Added Large and Small SBB maker.


BAB's Functions
  - (A) Processing BAT exported pictures for the animation.
  - (B) Showing animation for testing movements.
  - (C) Editing frame number.
  - (D) Composing frames as a animated-prop(s) with selected properties.


The flow of Animated-lot construction
  [ BAT ] - Making animation-models and animating them.
  [ BAB ] - Ordering the BAT to exports all pictures of the animation.
               - Trimming pictures to cut out in same size by each view-point by each zoom-level.
               - Editing frame number (add, sub., … if needed)
               - Building up animation prop(s).
  [ LotEditor ] - Placing the animated-prop(s) on the lot.
  [ SimCity4 ] - Placing the lot on the city-map.


Known problems
  - When using a Large-size animation, synchronization of prop(s) falls in disorder at
    the moment of Day and Night-time changing.
   
    (It can be solved by map-rotation)

  - Thin lines appear on props’ border of Large-size animation.
      
     (It cannot be solved)

  - Animation is oriented to the right direction on the LotEditor, but on the game-map
    the animation is oriented to the wrong side.
    This problem seems to be SC4-systems' bug.
    It is solved to rotate animated-props to the 90 degrees left on the LotEditor.

Unidentified problem
  - “How many kinds of animation” effects badly at the SC4-system.
     But when the animations are too much to display, the SC4-system seems to skip
     overflowed frames.