Graphics

Hey all. I'm a student at Oswego State University and I've been working on utilizing more of xpression and dashboard's features to improve our hockey graphics package. The next thing I'm looking to accomplish is animating the score field when the value is changed (simple scrolling effect) and adding a variant of our main scorebug to show SOG in a manner similar to HNIC/SN's bug (see attached).

The score value originates from Dashboard and is sent via datalinq. I'm unsure what avenue to take for the scorebug variant, thought transition logic at first, but I'm thinking it might need scripting which I'm still really new to. We are completely student run and everything I've done so far I've picked up on from Ross U videos and this forum. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hey Patrick-  I've used scripting to accomplish this in the past.  I'l try to attach a screenshot and a link for a sample .xpf to show you.  Basically you'll create 2 different text objects.  One that's static, another that is actually datalinq'd to the current score.

When the score changes, it triggers a script in the "OnSetText" area of the datalinq'd text object that tells an animation controller to run.  The animation controller animates the new score into view, while animating the old score out of view.  Then once the animation is finished, a script triggers to update the old score text to the new score text.  

Seeing your current scorebug, I would imagine you're already familiar with Masks, otherwise you'll need to explore that next :)

I'm sure there lots of other ways to accomplish this, but hopefully it helps!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rn446pw2n9iymsv/ScoreChange_Test.xpf?dl=0

Welcome to the exclusive world of Xpression!

The way we've achieved something like this in the past is by using a script. I'm not familiar with Dashboard based workflows, but we use a lot of datalinq driven workflows. We've done the following by applying the script below into a text object's OnSetText event:

dim AC as xpAnimController

Scene.GetAnimControllerByName("AC_ScoreUpdate",AC)

AC.PlayRange(0,30)

This is taking an animation controller that you've animated (what's happening in that AC is entirely dependent on what you need it to do)

Alternatively you could do something more elaborate by utilizing a Scene Director in which the script would look virtually the same just using a different object and method:

dim SD as xpSceneDirector

Scene.GetSceneDirectorByName("SD_Refresh",SD)

SD.PlayRange(0,30)

Regarding the dashboard, you can add a button that "modifies data" and then set up "increment by 1". As soon as the above scripts see a change, they will automatically trigger the animation.

Thanks for your help. Home for the holidays so I'll test these out just after the new year. Any idea of how to get a SOG or other stat graphic to stem off of the main? The text would shrink and bump up as the object animates into view. I am already familiar with Masks and In/Out, B2B scene transition logic terms. Any tips to picking up the OGscript language? No prior experience with programming.