Spawnfader

Overview

The Spawnfader component controls the visual appearance of an entity during its spawn and death phases by smoothly transitioning its opacity via animation color overrides. It supports both server-authoritative (master sim) and client-side fading, integrates with networked state, and ensures consistent visual behavior across clients. It also manages the NOCLICK tag to prevent interaction during transitions.

Dependencies & Tags

• Component Dependencies: Requires the entity to have a valid AnimState component and highlightchildren (optional) for child entity color overrides.
• Tags Added: NOCLICK (added while fading; removed upon completion on master sim).
• Tags Removed: None.
• Network Events Used: Listens to "fadedirty" and "death" events on non-master clients; pushes "spawnfaderin" and "spawnfaderout" events upon completion.

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
inst	Entity	nil	Reference to the entity the component is attached to.
_fade	net_tinybyte	net_tinybyte(inst.GUID, "spawnfader._fade", "fadedirty")	Networked property tracking fade progress (0–7 range).
_fadeout	net_bool	net_bool(inst.GUID, "spawnfader._fadeout")	Networked boolean indicating if fading is outgoing (true) or incoming (false).
fadeval	number	0	Local normalized fade value (0 = fully visible, 1 = fully hidden).
updating	boolean	false	Indicates whether the fade animation is currently running.

Main Functions

FadeIn()

• Description: Initiates a fade-in animation (opacity increases from 0 to full), hiding the entity during spawn and gradually revealing it. Also adds the NOCLICK tag and starts the update loop.
• Parameters: None.

FadeOut()

• Description: Initiates a fade-out animation (opacity decreases to 0), used during entity death. Adds the NOCLICK tag and starts the update loop.
• Parameters: None.

Cancel()

• Description: Immediately halts the current fade animation and resets visual state to fully visible (unless already complete). Does not remove tags or stop updates automatically.
• Parameters: None.

OnUpdate(dt)

• Description: Called every frame while fading to update the entity's and its children's color multiplier opacity using a quadratic easing function. Handles cleanup (tag removal, event push) when fade completes.
• Parameters:
  • dt (number): Delta time in seconds since the last frame.

OnRemoveFromEntity()

• Description: Cleans up event listeners on non-master sim clients when the component is removed from its entity.
• Parameters: None.

Events & Listeners

• Listens to:
  • "fadedirty" — Triggers OnFadeDirty to sync fade state on non-master sim clients.
  • "death" — Triggers OnDeath, which calls Cancel() to stop any active fade and reset state.
• Pushes:
  • "spawnfaderin" — Pushed when fade-in completes (fadeval <= 0 and not fading out).
  • "spawnfaderout" — Pushed when fade-out completes (fadeval <= 0 and fading out).