Animated texture

[l0ndIx]

Guys do you know how to make animated textures? Like on tv, screen etc.

[Marco Skoll]

If we're talking about TVs and monitors, the question is: Do you want it to just play the same short clip over and over on a loop, or are you looking for proper video playback?

(Also, to an extent, what is the source of your texture?)

Because these are considerably different challenges.

[l0ndIx]

Originally posted by Marco Skoll:

If we're talking about TVs and monitors, the question is: Do you want it to just play the same short clip over and over on a loop, or are you looking for proper video playback?

(Also, to an extent, what is the source of your texture?)

Because these are considerably different challenges.

Like this https://youtu.be/-0sAgVikr-c

[Marco Skoll]

Originally posted by Fazbear_Productions:

Like this

That's not a very helpful answer, because what's important is what you think is happening there that you want to replicate.

So, again, do you want to just play the same short clip over and over on a loop, or are you looking for proper video playback?

(Also, I did ask more than one question).

[l0ndIx]

Originally posted by Marco Skoll:

Originally posted by Fazbear_Productions:

Like this

That's not a very helpful answer, because what's important is what you think is happening there that you want to replicate.

So, again, do you want to just play the same short clip over and over on a loop, or are you looking for proper video playback?

(Also, I did ask more than one question).

Video playback

[Marco Skoll]

While video playback within SFM of longer sequences than practicable with Source's standard animated textures is theoretically possible, it very much falls into the realm of "advanced users only".

A (short) example can be seen here, but the approach here could theoretically support 1800 frames of playback (75 seconds at 24fps, but this test is running at 60 fps):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1128700370
The core of this approach is to tile the frames of the video into a 6x10 grid that is then converted to a VTF texture.

The way I handled this was via VirtualDub to turn the desired footage into an Image Sequence, then ImageMagick to batch process that sequence into the textures, which are then converted as a batch in VTFEdit - although, theoretically, other programs may be suitable.

There's then a custom model with 60 bodygroups (all very simple 16:9 rectangles, each with their UVs set to use a different frame from the texture), and 30 skins.By animating the bodygroups and skins, you can display the frames sequentially considerably more memory efficiently than a layered VTF will allow.

With just a layered VTF, you will likely have to considerably compromise on quality, frame rate and playback duration, as very large layered VTFs tend to cause problems, if they can even be assembled at all. (Which is part of why normal animated textures are usually limited to no more than brief repeating sequences).