The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I'm n-noticing some oddities when the ZoqFotPik do their st-stuttering, which may (or may not) help those more talented than me in squishing it:

• The audio starts playing, and the subtitle prints in the wrong location, then the Fot looks at the one who is supposed to be speaking.  Once that mini-animation is done, the audio restarts and the subtitle re-displays in the proper location.  The question of  whether this is considered a "false start" or an "unecessary restart" is officially posed.
  
  
• When the first screenful of subtitles for any particular alien disappears, the Fot stops looking at that particular alien.  I believe the proper behaviour is for the Fot to look at whomever is talking, and at the middle when noone is talking. (or, I suppose it would be looking at "you" while your character is talking)

Is it worth banging my head against my desk on this one, or is this supposed to be rectified by The Great Resource Re-Write of '03?

I don't think this has anything to do with the resource stuff (and even if it does, finding the problem would be useful).  I also noticed it.  I don't think it is related to the patch I applied to get rid of the overlapping subtitles, but it is possible.

It is not related, unfortunately; although now that the subtitle crufties are cleared up I was able to report what seems to "really" be going on.

A most excellent catch on the subtitle cruft bug, BTW. I'd been looking around for days (off and on) trying to figure out where put put that line, and unfortunately never came anywhere NEAR the right place.

As for the problem, I think you'll find that fixing the 'bad' text positioning will fix the stuttering too (assuming of course, it gets fixed right :)

As for the animation, I haven't looked at it at all, but I think your assesment of how it should work is correct.

If you feel up to taking it on, go for it.  I was considering looking into the stuttering, but really don't have time to do so.

As far as the animation, I don't think that's necessarily buggy. In normal conversations, when someone you know well is talking (zoq, pik), you might look at them for a while, then look at the person who is least familiar and also the reason for the conversation (the captain) even while your friend (zoq, pik) is still talking.