Control animated token playback via API (and fix related bugs)

Hey there!

The ability to use animated tokens in our games has been pretty nice. However, I believe there is a much larger potential for the system than what is currently available.

For instance, in our game, I'd like to be able to have a different animated image displayed for each PC based on their current HP / death saving throws, like this. However, this is currently only possible with the help of clientside code injection, because of a bug in Roll20 that prevents animated tokens from animating when set/created by the API.

I would appreciate it tremendously if the following changes were made (in order of importance):

• Animated tokens would continue to play as expected, after being set/created by the API
• Animated tokens could be played/paused via an API command
• Animated tokens could be given a tint/color while continuing to animate

Thank you!

I am very interested in animated tokens and would like to be able to create them as well.  Flowing water on a tile set. A creature that constantly moves / breathes and when given different commands would perform different animated looops.  ie: walking forward, looking around, attacking, dying, being hit by an arrow, hit by sword and other things.  But I would settle for creating a drag and drop animated  fire pit or wall sconces.  How can I help with the creation of animated assets?  I would love to be a part of making it work.  

Having a fully 3D environment would be a dream.  What are the possibilities of that ever happening?

Drew Zane

aka QuickQuests

Interesting suggestion! I'll vote for it!

Oh man this needs to be fixed yesterday:  I'm all set up with the script and animations for API-triggered lightning flashes in my skyline, but because of this bug the only way I can make it work is to set the lightning animations on a loop and toggle them from the "walls" layer to the "map" layer and back again to briefly display the animation for a lightning flash.

Ryan said:

Oh man this needs to be fixed yesterday:  I'm all set up with the script and animations for API-triggered lightning flashes in my skyline, but because of this bug the only way I can make it work is to set the lightning animations on a loop and toggle them from the "walls" layer to the "map" layer and back again to briefly display the animation for a lightning flash.

Likewise! I have a huge trove of effects and scripts that I'm dying to use, and they're all just gathering dust, waiting for this one bug to be fixed.

Yes please. I just spent a week making a bunch of campaign animations, went to the API forum and found this wasn't possible. Until the ability to automate animations is available, they can only really be used as background elements.

*grumble*  I feel there has to be a better way to bring issues like this to the Roll20 team's attention.  There just aren't enough API coders in here to overcome the majority of people focusing on direct features.

Fek said:

Ryan said:

Oh man this needs to be fixed yesterday:  I'm all set up with the script and animations for API-triggered lightning flashes in my skyline, but because of this bug the only way I can make it work is to set the lightning animations on a loop and toggle them from the "walls" layer to the "map" layer and back again to briefly display the animation for a lightning flash.

Likewise! I have a huge trove of effects and scripts that I'm dying to use, and they're all just gathering dust, waiting for this one bug to be fixed.

We've been banging our heads on this issue for months now.  I'm semi-decent with scripting, do you know of any way we could dig into the code and figure out the fix and just present it to the team?  I have no problem putting in some decent energy to figure out how this works:  I mean, honestly, how can it be anything more significant as a switch that triggers off of object creation?

Ryan said:

We've been banging our heads on this issue for months now.  I'm semi-decent with scripting, do you know of any way we could dig into the code and figure out the fix and just present it to the team?  I have no problem putting in some decent energy to figure out how this works:  I mean, honestly, how can it be anything more significant as a switch that triggers off of object creation?

I've already come up with a clientside hack, but it's ugly and inefficient (and requires script injection, which I doubt R20 appreciates). A proper solution would require access to the backend, which we don't have.

As a fellow software developer, one of my very least favorite things in the world is when someone suggests that a bug fix / feature "should be easy," so I'm not gonna do that here. I just wish this fix was a higher priority. It seems like a high value:effort ratio, and it's getting drowned out / forgotten as the R20 team focuses on other issues.

Need this one!

This would be invaluable, especially in larger games to keep track of what is going on. Being able to morph a token would also be useful for shape-shifters, pilots, etc.

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Yes please. This would open up things to be much more dynamic in many ways.

The tint/color with animation continuing is something that comes up for me often. I want to tint something slightly, can't do it without stopping the animation entirely. I do like how animations pause when they are out of sight in the fog-of-war, but that makes me wonder if it was coded to stop on tint for this reason. 

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