Trying to understand animations vs graphics

Hi everyone.

Every once in a while I'll post a little thread asking about the technical limatations of this game's engine and what it can and can't do (though the recent surprises in four-legged rigs and power animations have rather surprised me).

What I'm curious about are what constitutes an animation and what is a graphics effect. I'll give an example. For me, force fields in this game, regardless of color, tend to have a milky swirling effect that if I look at it too long seems to induce a little naseua so I do my best to avoid it. However, in what I'd call more 'modern' games (in the sense that the game has been developed in the last five years or so) I've seen force fields represented by a clear but distorted visual like a funhouse mirror. This also crops up in air distortions (to simulate moving very fast) as opposed to the only effect I can think of, which is the Afterburner effect for fly.

So is one a graphics effect or animation? And if so, is it an impact on a game's system in terms of frame rate or something optimised for the game engine which it resides in?

I'm only a player of games as opposed to a student of them, and what I consider cutting edge graphics may not be what I think they are. Any and all responses would be welcome.



S.

The effect you described can be done with textures.

For dogs and attack animations, it requires animations to be done by messing around with the bones of the models and making sure everything moves smoothly and properly.

a quick summary

animations are how something moves, graphics are effects that are created.

for those Forcefileds you mentioned....

How a FF user moves their arms when casting the field is an animation, the actual field itself is a graphic(or a combination of many).