Graphics

Normally I'm good at this logic stuff, but I've hit a wall. A coworker was setting up a fairly complex lower third and asked for my help because things weren't working as expected. Thinking there were too many moving parts (top line same/different, image same/different, bottom line same/different, franchise same/different, live/not live) I decided we should turn off everything she had set up and compartmentalize each test case.

So I set up an image check with a back-to-back condition. If the image material is different, play the image change animation. If not, null. Worked great. Encouraged, I did the same with top line. If text is different, play the top line change animation. If not, null. Didn't work, just cut.  So I tried adding a condition that the scene also had to be the same. No joy. Turned it off and tried the same with the bottom line. Also no good. So image works, text doesn't.

What am I not getting? My understanding is the condition says: if the text of Top Line is different (it is) then play the Back to Back In animation (Top Line Change). But the text IS different and the animation controller doesn't play. It just cuts. Even though that exact thing worked with the image.

Side note: Is this the best way to do this sort of thing? Multiple isolated rules versus a few rules with multiple conditions? Seems like one condition being wrong would cause the entire rule to resolve false.

It could sound like there is some kind of problem in either the Back-to-Back-in SceneDirector or the Back-to-Back-out SceneDirector.

Have you checked that these two are set up correctly?

They look fine. Both have just a single animation controller that moves the text up on the Y axis: middle-to-top for Out, bottom-to-middle for In. Like I said, I figured she had too many moving parts and I was trying to distill everything down to its most basic.

Do you have the outgoing or incoming scene on top, in the transition?

I think we sorted it out. Can someone tell me if this is right: If Transition Logic resolves a rule as True, it stops looking? So if all Rule #1's conditions resolve True, it never looks at Rule #2? Therefore each Rule must have a condition comparing all elements? You can't have, say, a Rule that checks the image and a Rule below that that checks the top line text because if the image Rule proves to be True, the text Rule will never be considered.

You are right, that when Transition Logic reach a True it will stop looking.

If you need something more complicated you need some scripting.

Here you would be able to check multiple conditions and run SceneDirectors or Animation Controllers based upon that.