SI FAQ: Transition Deko Objects Simultaneously

How do I get multiple text objects to transition simultaneously?

How do I get multiple text objects to transition simultaneously? "I have three Transition Deko objects in my scene, each set up with an hscroll transition. I change the text override parameter of all three in the same frame of an Action, but when I play the Action, they transition sequentially. How do I get them to transition together?"

It sounds like you have the Deko objects set for Automatic Update and "auto" Transition Triggering, the default settings. When you make a change to the text override parameter, the object immediately starts rendering the new text. The rendering isn't instantaneous - it make take a couple frames or so. When the rendering is complete, the on-screen graphic automatically begins its transition to the newly rendered bitmap.

The trouble is, deko objects are rendered one at a time. Even though you change the text override value simultaneously, the three objects are rendered sequentially. Since Transition Triggering is set to "auto", each object begins its transition as soon as its rendering is finished, and you see them transition sequentially.

To fix this, you have to manually trigger the transition of all three objects simultaneously. Set the Transition Triggering chooser to "manual" for each of the three objects. Next you have to figure out when to do the triggering. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to tell DekoCast to trigger the transitions of a set of Deko objects when they have all finished rendering. There are two likely approaches you might use:

Trigger the transition in the same Action in which you change the text override. Just leave enough time (maybe a half-second - you need to experiment) between changing the text override and triggering the transition to be sure that all the objects have finished rendering when you try to transition them.
Split changing the text override and triggering the transition into two separate Actions, and play them separately. Changing the text override is kind of like the "Cue" step, and the triggering is when you "Take" the changes to air.

To add the transition triggering commands to an Action:

Select the Action
Move the Timeline Thumb to the time at which you want to do the triggering
Turn on Animate Mode
Select each Deko object in turn and press the Update button in its editor
Turn off Animate Mode

When you press the Update button, a new Action Item gets added named something like "Transition Deko 1 start transition", with a single keyframe at the chosen time.

If you're a RocketEngine API programmer, you can monitor the render count parameter of the last Deko object to have its text override set. When this value drops to 0, it means all the rendering has finished and it's safe to transition all the Deko objects. It doesn't matter if you set the text override values at the same time, but it's very important to set the start transition parameters simultaneously. Set the Mode property of your RocketEngine.Application object to rxmQueued before setting the start transition parameter values to 1, then set the Mode to rxmImmediate to set all the values atomically.

last modified 8/27/2005

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