doc/src/examples/stickman.qdoc
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+/****************************************************************************
+**
+** Copyright (C) 2009 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies).
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+****************************************************************************/
+
+/*!
+    \example animation/stickman
+    \title Stickman Example
+
+    The Stickman example shows how to animate transitions in a state machine to implement key frame 
+    animations.
+
+    \image stickman-example.png
+    
+    In this example, we will write a small application which animates the joints in a skeleton and
+    projects a stickman figure on top. The stickman can be either "alive" or "dead", and when in the
+    "alive" state, he can be performing different actions defined by key frame animations. 
+    
+    Animations are implemented as composite states. Each child state of the animation state 
+    represents a frame in the animation by setting the position of each joint in the stickman's 
+    skeleton to the positions defined for the particular frame. The frames are then bound together 
+    with animated transitions that trigger on the source state's polished() signal. Thus, the 
+    machine will enter the state representing the next frame in the animation immediately after it
+    has finished animating into the previous frame.
+    
+    \image stickman-example1.png
+        
+    The states for an animation is constructed by reading a custom animation file format and 
+    creating states that assign values to the the "position" properties of each of the nodes in the 
+    skeleton graph. 
+    
+    \snippet examples/animation/stickman/lifecycle.cpp 1
+    
+    The states are then bound together with signal transitions that listen to the polished() signal.
+    
+    \snippet examples/animation/stickman/lifecycle.cpp 2
+    
+    The last frame state is given a transition to the first one, so that the animation will loop
+    until it is interrupted when a transition out from the animation state is taken. To get smooth 
+    animations between the different key frames, we set a default animation on the state machine. 
+    This is a parallel animation group which contains animations for all the "position" properties 
+    and will be selected by default when taking any transition that leads into a state that assigns 
+    values to these properties.
+    
+    \snippet examples/animation/stickman/lifecycle.cpp 3
+    
+    Several such animation states are constructed, and are placed together as children of a top 
+    level "alive" state which represents the stickman life cycle. Transitions go from the parent
+    state to the child state to ensure that each of the child states inherit them. 
+    
+    \image stickman-example2.png
+    
+    This saves us the effort of connect every state to every state with identical transitions. The 
+    state machine  makes sure that transitions between the key frame animations are also smooth by 
+    applying the default animation when interrupting one and starting another.
+        
+    Finally, there is a transition out from the "alive" state and into the "dead" state. This is 
+    a custom transition type called LightningSrikesTransition which samples every second and 
+    triggers at random (one out of fifty times on average.) 
+    
+    \snippet examples/animation/stickman/lifecycle.cpp 4
+    
+    When it triggers, the machine will first enter a "lightningBlink" state which uses a timer to 
+    pause for a brief period of time while the background color of the scene is white. This gives us 
+    a flash effect when the lightning strikes.
+    
+    \snippet examples/animation/stickman/lifecycle.cpp 5
+    
+    We start and stop a QTimer object when entering and exiting the state. Then we transition into
+    the "dead" state when the timer times out.
+    
+    \snippet examples/animation/stickman/lifecycle.cpp 0
+    
+    When the machine is in the "dead" state, it will be unresponsive. This is because the "dead" 
+    state has no transitions leading out.
+    
+    \image stickman-example3.png
+    
+*/