Animation string

Basic format

Animation strings are of the form:

<frame descriptor 1>-<frame descriptor 2>-...-<frame descriptor n>

Frame descriptors are a sequence of lowercase tags followed by an uppercase frame letter and an integer frame duration:

zzA1

For instance:

x-5A3-x-3B2-x-2C1-x-1D1

divides up as:

Tags	Frame	Duration
x-5	A	3
x-3	B	2
x-2	C	1
x-1	D	1

Tags

There are a lot of available tags. Not all of them are understood. Some of them take numeric parameters, which are indicated in angle brackets below. Such parameters must match the regular expression:

 -?+\?[0-9]*

An omitted parameter is treated as 0.

Here's a complete list of all tags. Descriptions in italics may be unreliable.

Tag	Notes
aa
ab
ac
ad
ae	Never used?
af
ag
ai
am
ao
as
at
aw
ax
ar
al	Never used?
b<...>	The b codes control the rendering method used for the sprite. A variable b is set to a visibility level, and is linearly interpolated throughout the frame from the bs value to the bf value, if the bs value has been specified and is not zero. Otherwise the b value is set to the bf value. <math> b = bs ? (bs + (bf - bs) * tick / ticksThisFrame) : bf </math> The bf value is set by the tags bb, bf, bj, bl, bm. These tags all also set some bflags which control the rendering effect.
b1	= 0x2000
b2	= 0x4000
bb<n>	= 0x0010, bf := n Screen shake with magnitude n
be	= 0x0800 Something related to victory/scrap/destruction animations?
bf<n>	= 0x0001, bf := n Blend finish with opacity n < 256
bh	= 0x0040
bl<n>	= 0x0008, bf := n
bm<n>	= 0x0100, bf := n
bj<n>	= 0x0400, bf := n
bs<n>	bs := n Blend start with opacity n < 256 (the sprite is drawn at this opacity at the start of the frame and gradually transitioned to whatever is set as the blend finish value)
bu	= 0x8000
bw	= 0x0080
bx	= 0x0002
bp<...>	The bp codes control scene and entity lighting and colouring. A variable bp is set to a colour level, and is linearly interpolated throughout the frame from the bpb value to the bpp value. The bpd tag specifies a reference colour (r,g,b) by palette index. bp = bpb + (bpp - bpb) * tick / ticksThisFrame for i = bps to bps + bpn: if bz: m = max(r_i, g_i, b_i) r_i' = r_i + m/64 * bp/64 * (r - r_i*) g_i' = g_i + m/64 * bp/64 * (g - g_i*) b_i' = b_i + m/64 * bp/64 * (b - b_i*) else: r_i' = r * bp/64 g_i' = g_i * (1 - bp/64) + g * bp/64 b_i' = b_i * (1 - bp/64) + b * bp/64 r_i = max(0, min(63, r_i')) g_i = max(0, min(63, g_i')) b_i = max(0, min(63, b_i')) In the above, r_i* is the original (unmodified) value.
bpd<n>	bpd := n Specifies a colour (reference palette index)
bps<n>	bps := n Starting palette index
bpn<n>	bpn := n Palette entry count
bpf	Blend Palette Fighter: If this is the HAR for player 2 then bps48 bpn48 (second robot's colours) else bps1 bpn47 (first robot's colours)
bpp<n>	bpb := n, bpp := n Set both initial and final colour level.
bpb<n>	bpb := n Initial colour level for blending. Specify bpp first.
bpo	bpo := 1 Disables palette effects. Only used in CREDITS.BK.
bz	If specified, a colour tint effect will be used, otherwise a green-blue lightning effect will be used.
ba<n>	Only used by CREDITS.BK
bc<n>	Only used by CREDITS.BK
bd	Only used by CREDITS.BK
bg	Only used by CREDITS.BK
bi<n>	Only used by CREDITS.BK
bk<n>	crashes if not in arena?
bn
bo<n>
br	Draw additively
bt
by
cf	Used by Shadow's destruction (AF1:61)
cg	Used by Katana's rising blade (normal and extended) (AF5:22,23)
cl	Used by Pyros' scrap (both parts) (AF3:35,38)
cp	Apply the damage for the current animation to opponent
cw	Used by Flail's charging moves (charge punch, strong punch, scrap 2) (AF7:33,35,36)
cx<n>	Used by: Jaguar's ?? (AF0:38) Thorn's off-wall attack (AF2:39) Electra's ?? (AF4:33) Katana's razor spins (AF5:25,26,27,28) Flail's chain spins (AF7:31,39), Gargoyle standing pose and diving claw grab (AF8:1,35), Chronos' ?? (AF9:38,39)
cy<n>
d<n>	d1 is the animation string for the third to last frame in all the scrap metal damage bits that fall off of a HAR. From BK files, seems to be related to animations looping, although changing the value of 1 to 9 doesn't seem to have an appreciable effect
e
f	toggle flag Flip sprite verticially
g
h
i
j<...>	It is hypothesized that the j tags define which moves can 'chain' to which other moves. Possibly jh moves only chain to high moves, jm moves only chain to mid moves, jl moves only chain to low moves. (The distinction between a mid and low move is unclear at this point.) jf moves appear to chain to your scrap move (f=finisher here). It is unknown whether jn<n> is part of this block of tags or a separate tag.
jf2
jf
jg
jh
jj
jl
jm
jp
jz	combination of all other j flags except jn. Only used by (AF5:35).
jn<n>
k<n>
l<n>
ma<n>	if n == 1000 then n := random(360)
mc
md<n>	Destroy animation n
mg<n>
mi<n>
mm<n>	mm := n
mn<n>
mo	something involving HARs, applied to object mm
mp<n>
mrx<n>	mx := random(320 - 2*mm) + n
mry<n>	my := random(200 - 2*mm) + n
ms	my := -4 * (f1C - 188)
mu<n>	similar to mo, n < 1024, applied to object mm
mx<n>	mx := n
my<n>	my := n
m<n>	Create instance of animation n
n
ox<n>	ox := n
oy<n>	oy := n
pa
pb<n>	n < 512
pc<n>	n < 512
pd<n>	n < 256
pe	make pa, pb, pc, pd operate on the other HAR
ph	disable pa, pb, pc, pd
pp<n>
ps	update a color palette
ptd<n>
ptp<n>
ptr<n>
q
r	toggle a global Flip sprite horizontally
s<n>	Play sound n
sa
sb<n>	same as se<n> plus setting one other value to n
sc<n>	sc0 is different from other sc tags
sd
se<n>	similar to sl<n+1> (the latter also clears the high byte of the value)
sf<n>	Sound frequency n
sl<n>	Sound loudness n
smf<n>
smo<n>	Play music track <n>. The track to play is one of the following: 0 - No music 1 - End.psm 2 - Menu.psm 3 - Arena0.psm 4 - Arena1.psm 5 - Arena2.psm 6 - Arena3.psm 7 - Arena4.psm
sp<n>	Sound panning n?
sw<n>	sw<n> sets an internal counter to max(current value, n). This counter is decreased at a rate of either 2 or 4 units per game tick, down to 0. If the counter gets to 100 or above, the game pauses for a little while.
t
ua
ub	motion blur
uc
ud
ue
uf
ug
uh
uj
ul
un
ur
us
uz
v
vsx	also does v. Never used?
vsy	actually vsK where K is anything other than x. also does v. Never used?
w
x<...>	/x-?\+?=?-?\+?[0-9]*/ is accepted but in practice it'll be one of...
x-<n>	Move x by n left?
x+<n>	Move x by n right?
x=<n>	Interpolate to x=<m> on next frame?
x<n>	If unspecified, a value of 100 is assumed. Set x to n?
y<...>	/y-?\+?=?-?\+?[0-9]*/ is accepted but in practice it'll be one of...
y-<n>	Move y by n left?
y+<n>	Move y by n right?
y=<n>	Interpolate to y=<m> on next frame?
y<n>	If unspecified, a value of 100 is assumed. Set y to n?
z<...>	The z tags specify which attacks the player is invunlerable to, for the duration of the frame.
zg	0x0004 Never used?
zh	0x0040 Never used?
zj	0x0080 Player is invincible to jumping attacks?
zl	0x0010 Never used?
zm	0x0020 Never used?
zp	0x0100 Player is invincible to projectiles?
zz	0xFFFF Combination of all other z flags. Player is invincible for this frame

Error handling

A handful of animation strings used by the AF and BK files provided with OMF2097 are ill-formed. The behaviour in the case of ill-formed strings in the OMF engine is inconsistent, but at least the following non-tags must be accepted and ignored by any correct parser:

Tag	Used by	Notes
zc	Pyros' Shadow Super Thrust x+4zcubs21l50zp	Probably a typo for zp. It looks like someone added 'zp's at the end of all the tags later when it was found to be not working properly (probably because of this zc). The tags for the frames before and after both contain zp.