Loop animation 5 times then stop?

I made an animation in milkshape and in blitz I want the animation to play 3 or for times and then stop until the player collides with it and then play 3 or 4 times again.

So far all I can get is

if the player collided then the animation does not play

or

if the player collided then the animation plays forever

What is a way to get it to play 5 times then stop?

 If EntityCollided(player,2) Then
 strike=1
 ;St=0

EndIf

If strike=1 Then
	PointEntity Sting,camera
	PointEntity Sting2,camera
	PointEntity Sting3,camera
	
	

	
	Animate Sting,3,.4,0,10
	Animate Sting2,3,.6,0,10
	Animate Sting3,3,.5,0,10
	
	;Animate Sting,1,.4,0,10
	;Animate Sting2,1,.6,0,10
	;Animate Sting3,1,.5,0,10

	
EndIf
strike=strike-1

If strike < Rnd(-200,-660-Rnd(-1,100)) strike=2
	
	;If strike=2 Then
		;Animate Sting,0,.4,0,10
		;Animate Sting2,0,.6,0,10
		;Animate Sting3,0,.5,0,10
		;St=0
		
		
	;EndIf

Well, when you animate, look at using the one-shot animation flag (animate once only), with the Animate command. Then check to see if the entity is still animating with the Animating command. Something like this i'd imagine:

[code]
counter=0
While Not Keyhit(1)

If counter<=3 then
If Animating(entity)=false Then
Animate entity,3 ; one shot animation.
counter=counter+1
End If
End If

UpdateWorld
RenderWorld
Flip
Wend
End

Ok so I tried that but it did not work correctly, better but still not right. So I chaneged some things. here is what I did...


;if players < 12 player is in range
;if players in range (pir) then pir = true
distance# = EntityDistance# ( player,Sting)
If distance# < 12 Then
pir = True
Else pir = False
EndIf

PointEntity Sting,camera
PointEntity Sting2,camera
PointEntity Sting3,camera

; Then here when player is in range the animation should
;start but instead it pauses and then continues only when
;pir = 0. ie players out or range.
If pir = True And distance# < 25 Then

Animate Sting,pir,.4,0,1
Animate Sting2,pir,.6,0,1
Animate Sting3,pir,.5,0,1

EndIf

If distance# > 25 Then

Animate Sting,0,.4,0,10
Animate Sting2,0,.6,0,10
Animate Sting3,0,.5,0,10


End If

It just would not make sence for a giant scorpian tail stiking out of the ground to wait till your out of range to
strike.
Could this be a bug?
ha ha get it? bug?

You don't seem to have the counter variable i did, to animate it five times. And your not checking to see if the entity is still animating either.

"You don't seem to have the counter variable i did, to animate it five times"
Acualy I did try it. But it wasn't working and just now I
tried it again and what happens is the animation just keeps playing even before the player has come anywhere near it.

I have changed the collision check from a collition box to a math check (pir) player in range. And now I just want it to be on/off.If the player is in range play the animation
until the player is out of range.

Its a funny thing that,when all the conditions for the animation to play are true and that it does not animate till the conditions are false.

So I have made some ajustments to an example program to more
acuretly desribe the problem. It needs no models to be loaded so it will work on your machine. I think that the problem is that the animation is restarting on the first frame with each iteration of the main loop. So blitz does not see the problem and we dont see an animation.
All I did is place the animation in a if statment.
If *keyhit* space bar then anim. This works
If *keydown* space bar then anim. This does not work because
it is restarting with each loop until you release the spacebar. So it is exactly what is happening in My program.
The animation starts over and over when condition pir = true but will not complete the animation until (pir) 0r keydown space bar = false.
Please try it.

;Create 3d animation example

;Set up a simple nice looking level
Graphics3D 640,480
camera=CreateCamera()
PositionEntity camera,0,12,-12
RotateEntity camera,35,0,0
light=CreateLight(2)
PositionEntity light,1000,1000,-1000
ground=CreatePlane(2)
EntityAlpha ground,0.5
EntityColor ground,0,0,255
mirror=CreateMirror()

;Lets make a bouncing ball that squashes on impact with the floor.
ball=CreateSphere(16)
EntityShininess ball,1
EntityColor ball,255,0,0

; Lets animate him and "record" the 3D animation for later playback
bloat#=0 : flatten#=0 : ypos#=10

For frame=1 To 10
;Drop the ball from height 10 to 2
ypos = ypos - spd#
spd#=spd#+.2
PositionEntity ball,0,ypos,0
ScaleEntity ball,1+bloat,1+flatten,1+bloat

;If the ball is low enough make it look increasingly squashed
If frame>8
bloat=bloat+1.5
flatten=flatten-.25
Else
flatten=flatten+.05
EndIf

;Record the frame!
SetAnimKey ball,frame
Next

;Now we need to add the frames we've just made to the sequence of "film"!
seq = AddAnimSeq(ball,frame-1) ; total number of frames


While Not KeyHit(1)
If KeyDown(57) Then
anim(ball)

End If 


UpdateWorld
RenderWorld
Flip
Wend
End

Function anim(ball)
;Play it back ping-pong!
Animate ball,2,0.15
If counter<=3 Then 
If Animating(ball)=False Then 
Animate ball,3 ; one shot animation. 
counter=counter+1 
End If 
End If 

End Function

If we can get this program to work so that as long as keydown space bar = true then animate 1 time then check if animation is done, then check if condition is still true,and if it is play animation again ect...ect...I am sure I can get MY program to work the same way.

anybody?

have u globaled the counter variable?

I got It figured out. thanks anyhow.
It was so easy! And I make things so complicated!

if keydown(57) = true and animating(ball) = false then
animate ball,3,0,0,0
endif