Storyboard missing key animation

Solar2D Composer
#1

Hi,

Recently I converted from the old, traditional Director library to the Corona official Storyboard one but noticed one key animation missing in the scene switch api. We have the ‘fromBottom’ animation, but what if you then want to go back to the previous scene, the only logical and ‘natural’ animation would be one that pulls the scene that slided up downwards again while the old scene is static in the background.

Director lacked this animation but because it was open source we could very easily add it ourselves, but with storyboard it’s a bit trickier as we do not have access to the lib code. So Corona staff can you please just add that animation in real quick because one can’t survive without the other and there really is no use for ‘fromTop/fromBottom’ if you can not logically animate the scenes back to the previous again, because the animation itself serves the purpose of animating an ‘overlay’ scene. Logically the old scene should be static in the back during the back animation.

Sorry for the dupe threads, didn’t know about this board before I posted the other thread.

Thanks,

Edit: referred to the wrong effect, should be fromTop/bottom not slide.

#2

There is a “slideDown” animation available to the gotoScene function:

http://docs.coronalabs.com/api/library/storyboard/gotoScene.html

Let me know if I misunderstood the question.

#3

The slideDown animation doesn’t keep the incoming scene static in the back, it pushes both scenes downwards which isn’t a logical ‘go back animation’ from the fromBottom animation.

My bad just noticed I used slideUp as reference in my original post. What I meant was a good counter effect to the ‘fromTop/fromBottom’ effects. There is currently no logical way to go back from a scene that was animated in using those effects, which there should be as it’s really easy to implement them.

//

#4

Ah, gotcha.

Just an FYI, and I’m sure Brent and/or Rob will weigh in eventually, but Storyboard is being “sunsetted” in favor of the Composer API. I don’t think any additional development will be taking place on Storyboard, so transitioning straight to Composer from Director might be the best move.

FWIW, you might need to roll your own scene to/from logic given how Composer handles the way scenes are loaded. It sounds like you don’t want to purge the previous scene that is transitioned from, so using an overlay, or even just sticking all objects in a display group and animating that within the same scene, might be a solution that would work for you.

#5

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I transitioned over to Storyboard a few months ago so our apps are already deeply rooted into storyboard. I’m aware the API is being deprecated but would very much appreciate just this small update as it really doesn’t require anything, it’s just copypasting the code of a previous effect and make the transitions behave as requested. I would do it if it was possible but sadly the api is closed source hence the request.

I tried your method as well, but due to our app being based on a very logic system that relies heavily on sceneswitches, etc and rarely uses any if statements, I’d rather have the effects of scene switches work as expected rather than do a comprehensive workaround just to be able to simulate this one effect.

Also, afaik composer lacks this effect as well so might be high time to squash to flaws with one bat.

/ Skatan

#6

Actually we have put the source for storyboard on github: https://github.com/coronalabs/framework-storyboard-legacy

But storyboard seems to support a “fromTop” and “fromBottom” effect that should do what you want. 

Rob

#7

Nope, what these do is animate the incoming scene in, but there is no way to animate that very same scene ‘out’ in a similar manner. For example if you animate a scene as an overlay fromBottom, there is no way to then animate that same scene back toBottom while the previous scene remains static in the back, as you’d expect when tapping ‘back’ from that scene.

Thanks for the link though. Would be nice to have these effects already built in though as they are so essential. You have one half implemented but without the other there’s really no need for either.

Skatan

#8

I really don’t understand the effect you’re going for, so now I’m intensely curious as to the behavior you’re describing. Do you have a game/app/youtube link displaying the behavior you are describing?

#9

Yes tonnnns of apps use this effect. Use Safari and tap bookmarks for example. The scene animates in fromBottom, there is no other logical way to animate this scene back besides with a ‘toBottom’ effect. Without the toBottom effect there would be no use for the fromBottom one.

#10

If you do a fromBottom in-bound, then you can do a fromTop out-bound to undo it.  If you’re using Overlay’s however, there is a bug in Storyboard where storyboard.hideOverlay() ignores transitions.  This should be solved in Composer.

Rob

#11

There is a “slideDown” animation available to the gotoScene function:

http://docs.coronalabs.com/api/library/storyboard/gotoScene.html

Let me know if I misunderstood the question.

#12

The slideDown animation doesn’t keep the incoming scene static in the back, it pushes both scenes downwards which isn’t a logical ‘go back animation’ from the fromBottom animation.

My bad just noticed I used slideUp as reference in my original post. What I meant was a good counter effect to the ‘fromTop/fromBottom’ effects. There is currently no logical way to go back from a scene that was animated in using those effects, which there should be as it’s really easy to implement them.

//

#13

Ah, gotcha.

Just an FYI, and I’m sure Brent and/or Rob will weigh in eventually, but Storyboard is being “sunsetted” in favor of the Composer API. I don’t think any additional development will be taking place on Storyboard, so transitioning straight to Composer from Director might be the best move.

FWIW, you might need to roll your own scene to/from logic given how Composer handles the way scenes are loaded. It sounds like you don’t want to purge the previous scene that is transitioned from, so using an overlay, or even just sticking all objects in a display group and animating that within the same scene, might be a solution that would work for you.

#14

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I transitioned over to Storyboard a few months ago so our apps are already deeply rooted into storyboard. I’m aware the API is being deprecated but would very much appreciate just this small update as it really doesn’t require anything, it’s just copypasting the code of a previous effect and make the transitions behave as requested. I would do it if it was possible but sadly the api is closed source hence the request.

I tried your method as well, but due to our app being based on a very logic system that relies heavily on sceneswitches, etc and rarely uses any if statements, I’d rather have the effects of scene switches work as expected rather than do a comprehensive workaround just to be able to simulate this one effect.

Also, afaik composer lacks this effect as well so might be high time to squash to flaws with one bat.

/ Skatan

#15

Actually we have put the source for storyboard on github: https://github.com/coronalabs/framework-storyboard-legacy

But storyboard seems to support a “fromTop” and “fromBottom” effect that should do what you want. 

Rob

#16

Nope, what these do is animate the incoming scene in, but there is no way to animate that very same scene ‘out’ in a similar manner. For example if you animate a scene as an overlay fromBottom, there is no way to then animate that same scene back toBottom while the previous scene remains static in the back, as you’d expect when tapping ‘back’ from that scene.

Thanks for the link though. Would be nice to have these effects already built in though as they are so essential. You have one half implemented but without the other there’s really no need for either.

Skatan

#17

I really don’t understand the effect you’re going for, so now I’m intensely curious as to the behavior you’re describing. Do you have a game/app/youtube link displaying the behavior you are describing?

#18

Yes tonnnns of apps use this effect. Use Safari and tap bookmarks for example. The scene animates in fromBottom, there is no other logical way to animate this scene back besides with a ‘toBottom’ effect. Without the toBottom effect there would be no use for the fromBottom one.

#19

If you do a fromBottom in-bound, then you can do a fromTop out-bound to undo it.  If you’re using Overlay’s however, there is a bug in Storyboard where storyboard.hideOverlay() ignores transitions.  This should be solved in Composer.

Rob

#20

Sorry for the delayed response. We decided to abandon the features requiring this animation before, but are now working on a new app that will require it again and it has been 2 months without this being implemented so I’m guessing you guys are not even considering it right now.

Sure, you CAN use the fromBottom/fromTop combination, but it wont make any sense! If you animate a scene in fromBottom, it comes in as an overlay on top of the previous scene. The ONLY logical way to animate this scene away is to animate it back down from where it came while the previous scene remains where it was. Using fromBottom / fromTop as a combination just doesn’t make sense visually.

It shouldn’t have to take this long to convince you guys about why this animation is key. One does not work without the other. Just take a look at the animations for entering/leaving the pages for composing a new email in the iOS email app, or the Safari bookmarks. It took us 1 minute to add this essential animation to Director, is it really THAT time consuming to just add it to Storyboard and Composer as well?

Thanks,