Spriter - potentially very useful new sprite creation tool

[Wampus]

I came across this today: http://brashmonkey.com/spriter.htm

A kickstarter vid explaining what it is intended for is here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/539087245/spriter

Don't know about you but I've wanted something like this for a while now. It would make the creation of great looking animation so much easier. Shouldn't be too hard to support it in GLBasic either.

[edit]
GLBasic loader here:
http://www.glbasic.com/forum/index.php?topic=7887.msg67801#msg67801

[mentalthink]

Yes Wampus it´s a very Nice tool, I try it, But I don´t understand too much how export the .png, I think you have only a one .png, and the you can make something whit load Animation... I think all this can be done whot after Fx whitout too much troubles... but well I don´t look the price, but I think have to be too much cheaper than AfterFX...

Nice tool, thanks for sharing...

[Wampus]

Haven't used AfterFX. Hmm. Not sure what that refers to, to be honest. Can't find it online.

Spriter is useful for creating sprites from many individual parts. To animate you move, scale and rotate the parts. It means you can create a very large number of lovely smooth animations with relatively small amounts of space taken up in texture memory. The kind of animation seen in Plants Vs Zombies is an example. Developers usually have to create their own tools for handling sprites and animation using these techniques. Spriter would cut down a lot of the work needed.

Anyway, I'm contacting the developer to suggest I could create a GLBasic 'plugin' for Spriter. I will probably need it sooner or later and my art girl has mentioned wanting to use such tools as well.

[bigsofty]

I like the looks of this, it potentially could be a great util.

[Wampus]

Raaaaaa

OK, got word back from the devs. This is on. As soon as I get documentation for the current Spriter format I'll put together some prototype support.

[erico]

Looks pretty good, like moho (anime studio) but possibly working as an engine inside programming languages?
Looks really great! It seems they will get there.

[Wampus]

Looks pretty good, like moho (anime studio) but possibly working as an engine inside programming languages?

Yes, that's basically it. Create animations in Spriter and you should be able to use them directly in your apps too. Most of what it asks for would be fairly straightforward 2D manipulation and math: Tweening is something well covered here and elsewhere, collision detection can be taken care of by a scalable rotatable version of boxcoll, etc.

One later planned feature that might be harder to implement is deforming parts by bending them. From the kickstarter page:-

First, we'd like to add the ability to bend and reshape each image into any amorphous curved shape, which can be used to create very organic, fluid characters.  These shape would also be tweenable, which could be used for anything from complex and detailed facial expressions to fluidly flowing clothing or clouds of dust.

I like the idea but its more of a challenge to code.

[erico]

I like the extra features too if they get over their intended price.
They actually seem like a must to me.

Reminds me of games like GLADIATOR back on the arcade days.

Yep the morphing seems hard to pull, maybe polyvector can help it somehow?

[Wampus]

Oh, the morphing will have to be done in POLYVECTOR for sure. A morphing object will have to be split into triangles - how many might depend on a performance vs appearance scalar, then the deformation math applied to the co-ordinates.

[mentalthink]

@Wampus, After Effects, it´s like a Photoshop but for video, I´m sure can be done the same like this program... but well the price I´m sure it´s too much better this software and usefull than After FX... in After FX you have to put a lot of key and this things... not it´s nothing recomendable...

But looking this soft... I don´t look too much complicated for make a similar soft whit the same GLBasic... in fact this software basicaly, rotate , move and scales , a Big Sprite, splitted in parts... I´m sure can be done whit GLbasic...

But of Course... it´s a great , great tool, the price, I don´t look it, but very interesant... thanks for the advice...

[Wampus]

@mentalthink ah yeah, I get you. After Effects. I don't use it but now I know.

Yes you are right about it not being too complicated for GLBasic. Rotate, move, scale and alpha blending are a 'piece of piss' in GLBasic. I'm going to aim to get proof of concept support in GLBasic within two days of them releasing the alpha dev file format, even if it means late night coding or throwing a sicky to get it done.

Spriter reached its minimum funding goal at Kickstarter with 22 days still to go. I knew they'd succeed. It was just too good an idea to fail. I can see it becoming as useful to me as my vital tools like Photoshop, CoolEdit and Notepad++.

[FutureCow]

I just came across Spriter and the first thing I thought of was writing a GLBasic interface - looks like you've beaten me to it! Not much point in reinventing the wheel if you're already working on it, though I might end up giving it a go at some point anyway for the fun of it.
Good luck!

[Wampus]

Well, maybe my interface won't be very good. Never know.

I'm hoping to put in some good time on it tomorrow, so we'll see what results. The file format is still very much in its infancy. I'll be supporting the latest file format but it will change A LOT.

[Wampus]

Ok, basic Spriter in GLBasic demo is up:-

You can download the demo here: http://www.mediafire.com/?qp9r589r89sgc82

Move the characters around with the arrow keys and joypad. Don't have a joypad? You'll be one character short then. 

This is a long way from complete support. For the first release of Spriter I will have a lot of coding to do. What I want when the time comes is code that can:-

• Load native Spriter format
• Export a GLB specfic format for faster loading and performance
• Be as easy to use as possible, mirroring GLB's sprite commands

[FutureCow]

Are you going to be publishing source/a library anytime soon?