SLD File Documentation 100%?

[UnluckyForSome]

I was looking through the openage SLD documentation here

https://github.com/SFTtech/openage/blob/master/doc/media/sld-files.md

and the SLD Extractor which seems to follow it here:

https://sld.aoe2.se/

I think the implementation with duplicated blocks from the previous frame is slightly incorrect, and this could mean the documentation might be slightly wrong? Although I can't work out exactly how.

On some of the sprites (ones with portions which are static for several frames) the algorithm also incorrectly copies blocks elsewhere - see the war wagon death animation:

It seems a lot of the blocks from the collapsed wagon are correctly copied from the previous frame (because they're not moving) but then also blocks by the horse's head are also being incorrectly copied.

If any of the openage community could help me in understanding why this could be the case, i'd be able to update the SLD Extraction JS code and fix it so it's perfect. I'm sure there is a rule that might not be documented or something...

Many thanks!

[heinezen]

There absolutely is a chance that the docs are wrong here (or incomplete). Back when I reversed this, there was a lot of guess work involved and I am not sure if we got everything right. Maybe there is a flag or something else that cancels out the copying...

I'd have to revisit the documentation with your specific example to be sure. I'll try to investigate to see what's wrong. Might take a while :D

[UnluckyForSome]

There absolutely is a chance that the docs are wrong here (or incomplete). Back when I reversed this, there was a lot of guess work involved and I am not sure if we got everything right. Maybe there is a flag or something else that cancels out the copying...

I'd have to revisit the documentation with your specific example to be sure. I'll try to investigate to see what's wrong. Might take a while :D

I’ve just discovered that a tool authored by the same person (WAIFor’s Java ‘SMX Workshop’):

https://aok.heavengames.com/blacksmith/showfile.php?fileid=13410

actually doesn’t suffer from those duplicated blocks when extracting SLD’s - so maybe it’s just a problem with the Javascript tool! I’ve reached out to him on some obscure Chinese forum he seems to be active in.

In other words, your documentation is probably right! 😀

P.S if you wanted to compare notes, this might have value after translation:

https://www.hawkaoe.net/bbs/thread-148633-1-1.html