SpawnFader

Based on game build 722832 | Last updated: 2026-04-28

Overview

SpawnFader manages smooth visibility transitions for entities by animating the AnimState colour multiplier from transparent to opaque (fade in) or opaque to transparent (fade out). It uses netvars to synchronize fade state between master and clients, with dirty event listeners handling client-side updates. The component adds the NOCLICK tag during fading to prevent player interaction, and pushes completion events when the fade finishes.

Usage example

local inst = CreateEntity()
inst:AddComponent("spawnfader")

-- Fade in (entity becomes visible)
inst.components.spawnfader:FadeIn()

-- Fade out (entity becomes invisible)
inst.components.spawnfader:FadeOut()

-- Cancel ongoing fade
inst.components.spawnfader:Cancel()

Dependencies & tags

Components used:

• AnimState -- applies colour multiplication for fade effect via OverrideMultColour Tags:
• NOCLICK -- added when fading starts, removed on master when fade-in completes

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
inst	entity	---	The owning entity instance.
_fade	net_tinybyte	---	Fade progress value (0-7 scale). Dirty event: fadedirty. Synced to clients.
_fadeout	net_bool	---	Direction flag: true = fading out, false = fading in.
fadeval	number	0	Current fade progress (0 to 1). Used for animation interpolation.
updating	boolean	false	Whether the component is currently running its update loop.

Main functions

FadeIn()

• Description: Starts a fade-in animation, making the entity gradually visible. Sets fade direction to inward and initiates the update loop.
• Parameters: None
• Returns: nil
• Error states: Errors if self.inst.AnimState is nil when OnUpdate calls OverrideMultColour (no nil guard present).

FadeOut()

• Description: Starts a fade-out animation, making the entity gradually invisible. Sets fade direction to outward and initiates the update loop.
• Parameters: None
• Returns: nil
• Error states: Errors if self.inst.AnimState is nil when OnUpdate calls OverrideMultColour (no nil guard present).

Cancel()

• Description: Cancels any ongoing fade animation. Resets fadeval to 0 and triggers an immediate update to apply the cancellation.
• Parameters: None
• Returns: nil
• Error states: Errors if self.inst.AnimState is nil (no nil guard in OnUpdate called by Cancel).

OnUpdate(dt)

• Description: Update loop. Decrements fadeval by dt each frame and applies colour multiplication to the entity's AnimState. Behavior depends on _fadeout direction: fading out uses inverse quadratic interpolation (k = 1 - k*k) and pushes spawnfaderout event; fading in uses quadratic interpolation (k = 1 - fadeval*fadeval), pushes spawnfaderin event, and removes NOCLICK tag on master when complete. When fadeval reaches 0, stops updating.
• Parameters:
  • dt -- number, delta time in frames
• Returns: nil
• Error states: Errors if self.inst.AnimState is nil — calls OverrideMultColour without nil guard. Errors if self.inst.highlightchildren exists but contains entities without AnimState component.

OnRemoveFromEntity()

• Description: Cleanup handler called when component is removed from entity. Removes event listeners on client to prevent dangling callbacks.
• Parameters: None
• Returns: nil
• Error states: None

OnFadeDirty(inst) (local)

• Description: Property watcher callback. Fires when _fade netvar changes on client. Converts netvar value (0-7 scale) to fadeval (0-1 scale) and starts the update loop if not already updating.
• Parameters:
  • inst -- entity instance
• Returns: nil
• Error states: None

OnDeath(inst) (local)

• Description: Event listener callback. Fires when entity dies. Cancels any ongoing fade animation to prevent orphaned update loops.
• Parameters:
  • inst -- entity instance
• Returns: nil
• Error states: None

Events & listeners

• Listens to:
  • fadedirty (client only) — triggers OnFadeDirty; syncs fade value from master
  • death (client only) — triggers OnDeath; cancels ongoing fade
• Pushes:
  • spawnfaderout — fired when fade-out animation completes (fadeval reaches 0 while fading out). Data: none
  • spawnfaderin — fired when fade-in animation completes (fadeval reaches 0 while fading in). Data: none