Idle view resets and animates instead of view 83 for NPC (WHY?!!)

[ManicMatt]

ARGH!!! This is really pissing me off!!!

I have idle characters in every single room, and they all animate fine when asked.

EXCEPT the NPC "master".

He has the same line set as everyone else in "before fade in":

character[MASTER].SetIdleView(62, -8);

Now I have set an interaction with him so when player looks at him, he plays a "quick animation". Which is view 83, loop 0, and speed 0.

Instead of playing animation, he just resets his idle view and the game plays that before releasing control.

WHY?!! The other characters in different rooms don't have this problem.

What the hell am I missing, with such a simple set of commands? It must be ME, I must be going mad.. 

EDIT: If I remove the idle view command from the script he will do the animation. Why are they conflicting? I have another character that has the same commands and is told to do a quick animation and he does it.

[Ashen]

This mightn't have anything to do with the problem, but why are you using a negative value for the delay (-8)?

[ManicMatt]

Because those things never make any sense to me and I mess around with them till the speed works properly. Is that why it isn't working? And if so, please enlighten me as to why!

Oh hey, setting the delay to 0 made the animation play! Thanks!

Okay.. what the hell? I thought it was some master option of changing the speed just like in the animation views. They're both called delay, after all!

[Da_Elf]

you can have a negative value? does this play waay slower or play backwards?

[Ashen]

Like I said, I've no idea if that's why it's not working. It just, the delay parameter in SetIdleView is how many seconds to wait before playing the Idle anim; '-8' doesn't seem to make much sense here. It seems to work like a delay of 0 (continuous animation), but might well be messing up the view changes. Is 62 also the normal view for th character?

EDIT: OK, didn't see your edit, Matt, but I think that answers it anyway. It's just a little inconsistancy in the way AGS names things, which could've been resolved by READING THE MANUAL The Idle animation speed is controlled (I think) by the Character's Animation speed, and any delay on the individual frames int the Idle View

[ManicMatt]

I make negative values in the animation views, but it seems doing it in the quick animation command is useless. EDIT: Ah, I see Ashen, thanks.

*Adds Ashen to the planned thanks bit on the credits*

62 is purely his idle animation, not his normal view.

I think making it -8 delay had made the idleview not start from the first frame when I entered the room, and screwing the game up as well it seems.