Graphics

Hello,

I'm starting a project that requires getting a long string from Datalinq, then scrolling that text – to make a ticker.

The most straightforward question would involve getting the text to scroll smoothly. Anyone have any ideas on how to do this? If there were a way I could grab the current frame in visual logic, I could just multiply an increment value and add it to the position of the text. This would be the most preferable way but I'm not sure if it's possible to grab a frame value in visual logic...

I saw the text effects with 'tracks' in the continuous animation tab but the timing parameters aren't exposed in visual logic which would allow me to change the scroll time depending on the width of the text obj's bounding box. One solution I was thinking about would be to set the continuous animation's "cycle" parameter insanely high on a dummy text object, then use that text obj's position as a base for the ticker text. Would there be anything to look out for doing it this way?

Hope that all made sense. Haven't really started yet and I'm trying to get a feel for the best way to go about it, so any advice is welcome. Thanks for taking a look.

Just curious, is it just one string? Or is it continually retrieving a new string (Like a news headlines ticker grabbing headlines)?

This sounds like it's a great job for Scene Groups!

Hey Zachary,

We're actually getting something like a list of class instances in an xml or json file. There will be one instance for each sports team then values for each team's wins and losses. I haven't gotten into this part yet, but we'll be making one long string from that data. The data will be read once at the beginning of the project, then once it's all scrolled through, the ticker will take itself offline.

How do you want the data displayed? If you're getting it in an XML or Json, you might be able to do the assembly and crawl all in one fell swoop. Do you have a sample of how the data is coming in?

For now we're just looking to put the information on one string for a text object, but I think that will work for a final solution as well.

We haven't gotten the data yet but we did get a sample:
https://pa.playsugarhouse.com/api/service/sportsbook/offering/feed?key=217b0d99-5732-46f4-aca9-09f08f9951dc

Thanks!

Yeah, I think I'd try and do it using a Scene Group (The little double scene icon on the Scene Manager).

That's how roll/crawls are done.

Any edits that are done on the actual group itself is like the background to the crawl, and then if you create a new scene and place it inside of the Scene Group, that'll be what crawls along. So you'd create the background and any overarching animations that you want in the group, while the text that you want to crawl will be placed in the Scene that's inside the Scene Group.

From there, you could even make another scene and place it in the group with just an event marker that's set to take it offline once it would become visible and animate some offline animations.

I might try to do a video on that because it's kinda hard to explain it via text...

Hey Zachary,

Thanks a lot for the informative response. You mentioned that scene groups are how crawls are done, so I checked the XPression tutorials and found this that seems to elaborate on what you're saying:

XPression U: Creating a Simple Credit Roll on XPression (Quick Tips 132)

I'm thinking/hoping that between your response and this video I could get this thing off the ground.

Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate the help!

Finally got around to trying this out.. Seems this method is only able to go from top to bottom or bottom to top. Is there a way for it to scroll left to right?

Make sure the effect is set to Crawl and not Roll, then you should see the option for it to be Right/Left or Left/Right

Oh awesome. Thanks again Zachary!