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Mike at BrashMonkey

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  1. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from KFII in Plugin for Unreal Engine 4   
    Absolutely, Gus, It's "on our radar".. but as you know we have to focus on finishing Spriter 1.0 first. Also, We'll need to find an experienced UE4 developer to hopefully collaborate with as well. This will all be much easier after the release of 1.0...and after Edgar has finished writing example implementation in C++ (which is the next priority after 1.0 is released)
    cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  2. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from LukeLanFaust in Luke Lan Faust's Thread   
    Great looking stuff LukeLanFaust!
     
    Skin mode as it currently stands is just place-holder proof of concept, with known bugs that wont be fixed, because it will be completely replaced with a better deforming feature, but that's still at least several months away.
     
    Cheers.
     
    -Mike at BrashMonkey
  3. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from XRumerTest in Welcome to the new Spriter forums.   
    Hi Everyone,
     
    As you might have noticed, we've upgraded to a totally new forums system.  The migration seems to have gone off without a hitch, but there's the possibility that if you posted during the 30 minute window in which we were migrating that your post ended up in the old forums and didn't make it over here. 
     
    For anyone with a missing post, for a limited time you can actually access the old forum by going here: http://www.brashmonkey.com/forumOLD and copy the text from your post so you can easily repost it into the new forum.  If this is required I apologize for the inconvenience.
     
     
    cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  4. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from TristanFat in Spriter R4 Bug Thread   
    Ah, there was the problem. I viewed the GIF in a browser that refused to play it.. I thought it was a single frame. I was not seeing the frame with the obvious IU popping up into it.
     
    Thanks,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  5. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from AlisaMesy in Welcome to Brash Monkey's Spriter forum   
    Hi everyone,
    Thanks for trying Spriter. I look forward to feature suggestions and bug reports.
  6. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from Arrgincey in Spriter for Unity 5.0   
    Amazing, Awesome, Stupendous stuff Dengar! You're a treasure to the Spriter community! :)
     
    Cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  7. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from Ddyrinsyk in Spriter R4 Bug Thread   
    Ah, there was the problem. I viewed the GIF in a browser that refused to play it.. I thought it was a single frame. I was not seeing the frame with the obvious IU popping up into it.
     
    Thanks,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  8. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from qshukla99 in scale animating a bone   
    This is because your arm image is not straight...its on an angle..so when it gets stretched to match the new length of the bone, it is stretched in a strange, angular way. Please watch this video to understand better:
     

     
    -Mike at BrashMonkey
  9. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from JohnnyType in Welcome to the new Spriter forums.   
    Hi Everyone,
     
    As you might have noticed, we've upgraded to a totally new forums system.  The migration seems to have gone off without a hitch, but there's the possibility that if you posted during the 30 minute window in which we were migrating that your post ended up in the old forums and didn't make it over here. 
     
    For anyone with a missing post, for a limited time you can actually access the old forum by going here: http://www.brashmonkey.com/forumOLD and copy the text from your post so you can easily repost it into the new forum.  If this is required I apologize for the inconvenience.
     
     
    cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  10. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from rainbox in Quick questions - Guides and Sounds   
    And here is the video I promised:
     

     
    cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey.
  11. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from TristanFat in Welcome to Brash Monkey's Spriter forum   
    Hi everyone,
    Thanks for trying Spriter. I look forward to feature suggestions and bug reports.
  12. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from 4yBa40K_Zitle in Welcome to the new Spriter forums.   
    Hi Everyone,
     
    As you might have noticed, we've upgraded to a totally new forums system.  The migration seems to have gone off without a hitch, but there's the possibility that if you posted during the 30 minute window in which we were migrating that your post ended up in the old forums and didn't make it over here. 
     
    For anyone with a missing post, for a limited time you can actually access the old forum by going here: http://www.brashmonkey.com/forumOLD and copy the text from your post so you can easily repost it into the new forum.  If this is required I apologize for the inconvenience.
     
     
    cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  13. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from SymboliC in Need help with level design methodolgy   
    Exactly right.. and you can always tweak and re-import each small part like the steps as you work on the level in Unity..to make sure it connects perfectly as you need with other art assets.
     
    Yeah, That Ferr2d is awesome. Definitely learn that too.
     
    Keep in mind, there's the actual solid/interactive parts, like floors and walls, and then stuff placed just to add visual variety etc...which typically are in the background or closer to the camera than the player's layer and therefore have no collision detection requirements.
     
    Use still like Ferr2d for the majority of the level designing, and use other image bits, rotated, flipped, scaled etc and placed wherever in order to add more variety and interesting details.
     
    cheers,
    Mike
  14. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from SymboliC in Need help with level design methodolgy   
    Illustrator is great for making the sections.. and you can perfect the sections and text them in illustrator to make sure they can be combined nicely in the ways you'd want.  Once you watch the video clip I linked to things will make a bit more sense.
     
    Definitely look into the Smart Sprites editor..a combination of that and hand placing sections directly in Unity might be the way to go...another possibility is you could actually create bigger groupings of the segments you make in Spriter itself and place them as though placing an animated character in a level...they would just be big, and one frame.
     
    I've never made a game in Unity that required side scrolling level creation and not for years, so all I can say is do research, experiment, and most of all, benchmark testing to make sure whatever solution you come up with will run smoothly once everything is in place.
     
    Cheers,
    Mike
  15. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from turosteel in Need help with level design methodolgy   
    Upon re-reading this post of mine, please keep in mind I'm not talking specifically about you or directly to you..as I've seen and tried to help several artists who fell into this trap early on.. and when this topic comes up I tend to cover all the points and flavors of every incident with each of the specific artists.  So please know I'm not trying to pin any psychological or philosophical position onto you... just trying to cover all the bases for any other artist as well who might stumble upon this forum thread when facing the same issue/decision.
     
    ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
     
     
    Hi again Symbolic.
     
    To use fantastically appropriate word-play, no matter how you cut it, creating the level as one giant illustration is just a bad idea.
     
    1) Super hard and time consuming to drastically edit a levels design after you've already created it, which is in the vast majority of games, especially side scrolling games, critical for ensuring fun gameplay!
     
    2) Super wasteful of the platform's texture space...no matter how small you cut up a giant painting, its still ALL THERE... Imagine you cut it into 4096x4096 textures...you're still going to have at least two of these taking up texture space at a time at all times...and even this size is far bigger than ideal for optimal
    performance.
     
    3) Super wasteful of the games file-size, download size.
     
    In short, using giant bitmaps for levels (even cut into pieces after the fact then reassembled in the game engine) is nothing but an inexperienced game maker trying to make something work within their current experience and tool-set comfort level.  This is an age old problem..people bending over backwards to try to rationalize and execute a very un-optimal solution to a situation using whatever limited knowledge base and tool set they currently have.  It typically leads to either disaster or a drastically inferior final product taking drastically longer to make, causing immense stress, frustration and exhaustion for the artist and delaying or dooming the entire project.
     
     
    Please consider that taking a few days to research a more optimal option will empower you for the rest of your life, (all future game projects) and will end up saving you a ton of time and energy over the remaining course of this project, and for every future game project for the rest of you life. It's THAT important.
     
    Important points I want to make:
     
    1) Please DO use illustrator, but NOT to create entire levels, only to design the segments you will use to create the entire level in a proper level editor.
     
    2) Please always do your research as thoroughly as possible when confronted with any new MAJOR task.  Creating many large levels for  a game is a HUGE undertaking, and it's critical you "power up" before you dive in blind and shoot yourself and the entire project in the foot with an "I'll wing it" approach.
     
    3) An unwillingness to learn and add new tools for the right job to your tool belt will lead to  drastically more depressing and unsuccessful life.
     
    did you click the link I provided to those resources for 2d level editing in Unity? The Smart-Sprite functionality is definitely one of the things you should learn and strongly consider using. Rayman Legends is an absolutely gorgeous game who's levels often look very much like giant hand painted masterpieces, but its all smart-sprites and re-used hand placed scaled and rotated segments.
     
    Here's a peak into what a truly great 2d level editor looks like: https://youtu.be/y-chi097uV4?t=7m7s
     
    As you can see, its a more advanced version to smart-sprites but extremely similar.
     
    I assume you wouldn't draw every blade of grass from scratch no matter what... so instead of making a group of grass blades and stamping them around in Illustrator, please make your group of grass and stamp it around in a level editor, so its actually a small image being reused in an optimized manner in the game.
     
    Lecture now over. Thanks for your patience. :)
     
    Cheers,
    Mike
  16. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from turosteel in Need help with level design methodolgy   
    Hi SymboliC,
     
    I say this with absolute respect and in an attempt to protect your time, energy, and sanity.  This is a common and terrible beginners mistake/misconception.  Levels should be bade out of small, reusable segments (which you can create with anything you'd like)...otherwise you'll cripple the games performance, take much longer to create each level or heaven forbid change a level,  and drastically increase the games overall file-size. Hint, if the graphics program is limiting a max size, its for a reason.
     
    I just recently had to talk a beginner game artist friend of mine (who was trying the same thing with Photoshop) down off of that same ledge. Photoshop was slowing to a crawl on his system, but he expected a game, with lots more additional art (animations), a ton of math, collision detection, game logic etc to not crawl while displaying the same image?  Yes, you can chop up the full level to more manageable chunks (for game performance), but level editing and reediting is still just as big an issue or bigger, because the chopping up and putting back together in game is now another step.
     
    Ironically, my friend, who was resistant to reusing art then showed me his finished giant hand painted level, and there was tons of reuse anyway.
     
    Please look into level editors and tile map editors that work well with Unity ASAP. A Game level can look 100 percent hand painted and still be made out of carefully crafted and reused (with scaling, flipping and rotation..and even color tinting) small segments.
     
    PS, Rayman Legends uses the same system of tiling art and reusing small chunks of earth, grass, platform, etc etc.
     
    I hope this comes across as helpful and not annoying or pushy.. I've just seen fellow artists exhaust themselves due to this very "idea", only to end up having to redo all the levels they made later, the right way...because not only did it prove to take far too long (especially because there will ALWAYS be constant needs to redesign levels) but because the games performance became absolutely terrible.
     
    So, my two cents as an over decade long professional game artist... measure twice, cut once.. do your research and force the programmer to do very realistic benchmarks to make sure you're not making a game in a manner that will destroy itself. I highly recommend you research all your level creation options for Unity.

    Again, my alarmist arm waving and hyperbole comes from a strong desire to protect a fellow artist from something that will cause much pain and exhaustion (and typically depression)....This very thing has destroyed countless game projects in their tracks.
     
    Sorry if this comes off as abrasive.
     
    cheers,
    Mike.... but speaking as a pro game artist, NOT as a representative of BrashMonkey in this case.
  17. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from SymboliC in Need help with level design methodolgy   
    Hi SymboliC,
     
    I say this with absolute respect and in an attempt to protect your time, energy, and sanity.  This is a common and terrible beginners mistake/misconception.  Levels should be bade out of small, reusable segments (which you can create with anything you'd like)...otherwise you'll cripple the games performance, take much longer to create each level or heaven forbid change a level,  and drastically increase the games overall file-size. Hint, if the graphics program is limiting a max size, its for a reason.
     
    I just recently had to talk a beginner game artist friend of mine (who was trying the same thing with Photoshop) down off of that same ledge. Photoshop was slowing to a crawl on his system, but he expected a game, with lots more additional art (animations), a ton of math, collision detection, game logic etc to not crawl while displaying the same image?  Yes, you can chop up the full level to more manageable chunks (for game performance), but level editing and reediting is still just as big an issue or bigger, because the chopping up and putting back together in game is now another step.
     
    Ironically, my friend, who was resistant to reusing art then showed me his finished giant hand painted level, and there was tons of reuse anyway.
     
    Please look into level editors and tile map editors that work well with Unity ASAP. A Game level can look 100 percent hand painted and still be made out of carefully crafted and reused (with scaling, flipping and rotation..and even color tinting) small segments.
     
    PS, Rayman Legends uses the same system of tiling art and reusing small chunks of earth, grass, platform, etc etc.
     
    I hope this comes across as helpful and not annoying or pushy.. I've just seen fellow artists exhaust themselves due to this very "idea", only to end up having to redo all the levels they made later, the right way...because not only did it prove to take far too long (especially because there will ALWAYS be constant needs to redesign levels) but because the games performance became absolutely terrible.
     
    So, my two cents as an over decade long professional game artist... measure twice, cut once.. do your research and force the programmer to do very realistic benchmarks to make sure you're not making a game in a manner that will destroy itself. I highly recommend you research all your level creation options for Unity.

    Again, my alarmist arm waving and hyperbole comes from a strong desire to protect a fellow artist from something that will cause much pain and exhaustion (and typically depression)....This very thing has destroyed countless game projects in their tracks.
     
    Sorry if this comes off as abrasive.
     
    cheers,
    Mike.... but speaking as a pro game artist, NOT as a representative of BrashMonkey in this case.
  18. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from SymboliC in Spriter R4 Bug Thread   
    This is as intended and not a bug. There's a difference between the current pivot point you set in a key frame on canvas, and the default pivot point you set in the file palette.
     
    cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
     
  19. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from SymboliC in Cloning Animations between Entities   
    Also, currently you can not yet drag or copy an animation from one entity to another but it is a planned feature for a future update.
     
    Cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  20. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from LukeLanFaust in Please post feature suggestions here.   
    Spriter Pro already offers lots of custom tween speed-curve options.
     

     
    Cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  21. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from SymboliC in Please post feature suggestions here.   
    Spriter Pro already offers lots of custom tween speed-curve options.
     

     
    Cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  22. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from JohnnyType in Welcome to Brash Monkey's Spriter forum   
    Hi everyone,
    Thanks for trying Spriter. I look forward to feature suggestions and bug reports.
  23. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from LukeLanFaust in Please post feature suggestions here.   
    Thanks for the great suggestions everyone.  Keep 'em coming.
     
    Cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  24. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from SymboliC in Please post feature suggestions here.   
    Thanks for the great suggestions everyone.  Keep 'em coming.
     
    Cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
  25. Like
    Mike at BrashMonkey got a reaction from SymboliC in Question regarding folder structure..   
    Editing the html in a text editor is indeed the only way to alter the folder structure after the fact.  Eventually we'll add the ability to rename and move images right within Spriter, and most likely a way to point Spriter toward the new location for folders etc.
     
     
    cheers,
    Mike at BrashMonkey
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