Please post feature suggestions here.

[lucid]

So my first feature request is

Rotated collision rectangles can be put in the frame.

I was thinking about this, it probably will, though part of the reason for the lack of rotation is for optimization, and ease of implementation.

Next up is a productivity improvement

Allow a collision area to be attached to an image in an animation, e.g. a sword, then make that collision area appear in the same position relative to that image in every frame in the animation that the image appears in. This then means that as the sword image is moved frame by frame the collision area moves with it (shift, rotate and if image changes size, scale) saving a lot of work in putting the collision area over the sword in every frame.

We probably also need a frame level override where the collision area is made local instead and can be edited or even deleted.

yes, please stay tuned for my blog post about how the skeletal/hierarchy(2d rigging) will work. It's what you're saying, and more

Other collision shapes

Triangle (Useful for pointy things. These can be combined to make general polygons if the designer is keen)

Circle (If we feel bold with our collision algorithms)

less likely before 1.0 than the other things you mentioned, but I definitely see where it'd be useful. We'll come back to this after we get all the basics working.

I do wonder about the per frame data though. How will it be exposed to the user? Let's say I want to re-balance all the values in there, will there be a quick way to do this, like editing a text file or tweaking a dopesheet / spreadsheet?

Aside from the basic things you can do now, like expand the Sprite in the the Sprites in Frame panel and manually adjust values, and the xml format you can manually edit, we'll be adding conveniences in the editor as time goes on. I don't know if we'll go with the dopesheet or some other route, but the idea will be to maximize power, and ease of use. Dope sheets break things down nicely and absolutely, but if we (Brashmonke/Spriter dev/Spriter animator community) can come up with something more visual and easy to work with, all the better.

[wolli]

I am quite excited about the software. So thanks for that.

Some of these suggestions might be a lot to ask, but please give it a thought:

-Possibility to choose pivot point numerically similarly to other properties such as x, y and angle

-Copying and pasting of keyframes.

-Deleting keyframes

-Adjusting numerically position, rotation and other properties of multiple object at the same time

-Lock layers from editing

-Hide layers temporary

-Related to motion tweening: Motion along path. The path could be set up by drawing curves with bezier handles

-Export to video file. This could be useful for example for youtube. This would require setting of camera frame in the software though.

Then some bug reports:

-copying an image and pasting it to the same scene within the software works in an odd way. It seem that the pasted image stays only in the keyframe that it was pasted to.

-I cannot choose frame number 1 from the slider at the bottom, it snaps to frame number 0. Probably would be better to have also numerical way to change the frame number. In fact, I would prefer that almost everything could be changed numerically.

[lucid]

-Possibility to choose pivot point numerically similarly to other properties such as x, y and angle

yes, that will come at some point before 1.0

-Copying and pasting of keyframes.

-Deleting keyframes

this is in there, through rightclicking

-Adjusting numerically position, rotation and other properties of multiple object at the same time

when integrate containers/bones etc (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/Spriter ... ainers.pdf), this will be in there

-Lock layers from editing

-Hide layers temporary

no layers as of yet, but not the first time we've had a layer request, so we might add something like this, but locking containers and bones can offer similar functionality

-Related to motion tweening: Motion along path. The path could be set up by drawing curves with bezier handles

yes, tweening is still completely in it's infancy to the point we don't consider it a feature yet. Definitely a planned feature, but as of now, that's why you access it with an annoying shortcut. But tweening will be applied on a per object basis, and have alot of possible features eventually like speed curves and such. So while I can't give a concrete time frame for the tweening curve thing, you can count on tweening to be expanded/improved throughout development, always of course optional

-Export to video file. This could be useful for example for youtube. This would require setting of camera frame in the software though.

this is probably the lowest on the priority list, because we want to make the ultimate 2d game animation tool, which would eventually include procedural and deformation first. We've had some questions about making more traditional 2d animation features for non game purposes. In the very long term if we can add that without cluttering the editor, it's a possibility.

Then some bug reports:

-copying an image and pasting it to the same scene within the software works in an odd way. It seem that the pasted image stays only in the keyframe that it was pasted to.

This isn't a bug, though we will probably add features to choose whether you want to paste to all frames, etc, but we want animators to have absolute freedom to add, remove, or swap out images each frame. For instance, you might be turning your character head, and want 2 eyes in this frame, and only 1 eye in a later frame. You could of course hide it in the zorder, but that's just a simple example. If you're animating a character like XJ9, you wouldn't want to be forced to have every image exist on every keyframe:

-I cannot choose frame number 1 from the slider at the bottom, it snaps to frame number 0. Probably would be better to have also numerical way to change the frame number. In fact, I would prefer that almost everything could be changed numerically.

k, I'll look into the bug (not much progress will be made until after the kickstarter smoke clears, but then we'll be back full force). there are a few bugs/suggestions we've gotten about snapping. there will be alot of improvement in that area, and yes on the manual numerical adjustment

thanks for the suggestions!

[Johannes]

My apologies if this has been mentioned before:

When using Autodesk's Maya I really liked how you could effortlessly link any variable of one object to drive a variable of another object.

For example, Let's say I want to animate a car driving along. I could make a car with wheels, facing in the X direction. and I would then choose the car's X position and link it to linearly affect the Z rotation of the wheels.

The effective equation this created is:

Wheel.Current_Z_rot = Wheel.Original_Z_rot + (Car.Original_X_pos - Car.Current_X_pos) * rotation_Scalar ;

Where the 'Original_' values are the values that these variables had at the creation of the link, and 'rotation_Scalar' allows you to easily tweak how fast the wheels spin relatively to how fast the position changes.

Once that's set up I could just animate the car's X position, tween it as I want, and would never have to worry about the wheels looking believable - the link I established means that they always rotate correctly in relation to the position.

Something like this would be excellent to have in Spriter.

[lucid]

funny you should ask that now johannes

but the recently completed procedural animation feature description document discusses linking feature further in.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/539087245/spriter/

[blazah99]

I'm not an animator so this might be a bit confusing. I find that instead of 5 animation frames, or whatever number, over a certain time I sometimes need to add or remove a frame but still keep the same animation time. When that happens i have to move each frame in the timeline to make the animation look right.

I wanna suggest that their be a way to lock the frames with the animation time when adjusting the animation run time.

(Ex: 5 frames span the entire 500 milliseconds animation time sliderbar, I'm then able to change the time to 1000 milliseconds while the frames still finish in the 500 millisecond time period, giving me more space to the right insert more onto the time sliderbar.)

Also I'd like to suggest that their also be a way to more accurately move each of the animation frames instead of having to carefully move the slider to the spot you want/need it.

[lucid]

Both of those things are planned blazah. thanks for the suggestions

[Onno]

As mobile screens vary greatly in resolution and size, I'd like to use SVG for our 'sprites', so we can use 1 set of sprites to target a wide range of devices. I would pre-render them to the right target size for a specific device after loading the svg file and treat them as bitmaps after the initial render.

Animating the separate SVG parts is still very cumbersome for our designers though and it would help us greatly if Spriter could at very least get limited vector support: just load SVG files as if they were bitmap images.

Then we could scale up the svg images to the proper target resolution and scale the animation data from Spriter to match.

[lucid]

plate is pretty full for 1.0 onno, but I will look into adding at least basic SVG at some point since I do see how it might be useful

[p3nguinc4g3]

I would like to second svg support, as this is incredibly useful for cross platform development.

[vinull]

Long thread, so apologies if this has been suggested:

From the "sprites in frame" menu I would like to change the values with the mouse. Not a slider like opacity, but in the style of many Adobe dialogs if I click in the text area I can then drag the number up and down. I can still type in a number if I want. This would be very useful for animating parts not on the top level.

[vinull]

One more - from the "sprites in frame" window set the x/y of the rotation point. Handy when two parts need to share the same point

[puzzler]

Do you plan to change UI to the native OS?

[DrummerB]

I couldn't test the beta yet, because I don't have access to a PC right now, but I watched the videos and read the available info, so here are some ideas.

Will it be possible to have multiple independent animations for one character? Like one walking or running animation just for the legs and multiple separate walking animations for the upper body for different equipment (pistol, machine gun, rocket launcher). Or make the head always look at the mouse pointer independent of the rest of the animation and stuff like that.

This might be a tall order, but it would be cool to be able to blend between animations. For instance when a running character suddenly stops there shouldn't be a simple skip to the standing animation, but a smooth blending, similar to GTA 4 and others.

[mjh]

First blender now spriter - just wonderful!

Just pre-ordered 1.0 via paypal and am really looking forward to seeing it in action.

Feature wise it looks like you have an ever growing list from people who are already familiar with this kind of tool.

I would love to see a few decent example CSML files such as:

A human walk cycle.

A lego/battleheart style bouncy walk cycle. (that is much simpler with fewer bones)

A bird or dragon wing flap cycle.

Maybe you could have something similar to BlenderSwap so that people can share their work and help others learn the basics?

Good luck and enjoy every moment (don't let the todo list weight too heavy on the spirit!)

MJH

[lucid]

I would like to second svg support, as this is incredibly useful for cross platform development.

it's a definite possibility for the long term.

..."sprites in frame" menu I would like to change the values with the mouse. Not a slider like opacity, but in the style of many Adobe dialogs if I click in the text area I can then drag the number up and down. I can still type in a number if I want. This would be very useful for animating parts not on the top level.

good idea. It was already going to have the spinboxes, but that's a good idea. Also, the angle control will have a wheel you can rotate with your mouse.

The current beta does have a 'protected selection' feature. You can drag, drop, and rotate a selected object even if it's behind others. only if you click a sprite on an area that doesn't overlap the currently selected object(s) will it change the selection.

One more - from the "sprites in frame" window set the x/y of the rotation point. Handy when two parts need to share the same point

yes, that's in there

Do you plan to change UI to the native OS?

yes, the next release will be native UI on Windows, Mac, and, Linux

...Will it be possible to have multiple independent animations for one character? Like one walking or running animation just for the legs and multiple separate walking animations for the upper body for different equipment (pistol, machine gun, rocket launcher). Or make the head always look at the mouse pointer independent of the rest of the animation and stuff like that.

This might be a tall order, but it would be cool to be able to blend between animations. For instance when a running character suddenly stops there shouldn't be a simple skip to the standing animation, but a smooth blending, similar to GTA 4 and others.

yes, all of that is planned for the long term, and the groundwork is already layed for those features.

..Good luck and enjoy every moment (don't let the todo list weight too heavy on the spirit!)...Maybe you could have something similar to BlenderSwap so that people can share their work and help others learn the basics?

thanks for the kind words, and yes, we do want to work with the community to develop an ecosystem of some sort for both the animators and the developers.

the todolist is huge, but things are going very well on fronts.

working hard on the next version, and loving every minute of it.

[Surefoot]

Would it be possible to get a "Pixel Preview" so I can get an idea of how my sprite's going to look before exporting? Being able to manipulate the animation pieces while in this mode would be helpful to me.

For example, I would fiddle with small, important elements like the eyes until it looked proper. You can see that the eye on the right looks quite a bit different than the one on the left. Pixel Preview would allow me to ensure the frame looks as it should.

This would only be helpful if the preview is EXACTLY as the output would be. Not sure how difficult that is.

[DasBilligeAlien]

I am testing the free version of the software at moment as we like to use it in our new game. One of our Teammembers allradey bought the Full Version. If we decide spriter as our main animation tool i will buy it too, - or our company, it depends.

have not read every psot so maybe there is stuff already mentioned.

There are a few thingsa i really miss when I use spriter.

1. Double click renaming of groups and layers and stuff - like working in cunstruct2 or gimp... it drives me nuts

2. keyframe highlighting - wich keyframe is active shown with a colour highlighting. - needed for next wish :)

3. multiple keyframe selection and editing - copy, paste, transforming

4. faster zooming in the timeline.

5. buttons fo new animation and new group!!!

6. is ther a pissibility to kitbash two finished animaitons together? - if not i think i would like it...

but all this makes the software more complicated and i dont know.... may be it is best to stay simple.... regardless of what i said amazing piece of work!

best wishes

Alban

[lucid]

Would it be possible to get a "Pixel Preview" so I can get an idea of how my sprite's going to look before exporting? Being able to manipulate the animation pieces while in this mode would be helpful to me.

For example, I would fiddle with small, important elements like the eyes until it looked proper. You can see that the eye on the right looks quite a bit different than the one on the left. Pixel Preview would allow me to ensure the frame looks as it should.

This would only be helpful if the preview is EXACTLY as the output would be. Not sure how difficult that is.

Surefoot, the plan is for there to be a 'pixel art mode' at some point. This would allow you to edit(not just preview) with point sampling(pixellated, rather than smoothed when zoomed in). It will also save and edit with integer values for position and dimension. This means there is no such thing as (x,y)=(20.3,30.8), only exact integer values like 20, or 30 can be used, which will allow for the precision required when doing pixel art. Theoretically in this mode, you could also add visible 'point' objects, which would allow you to actually add a few pixels here and there to clean up or enhance the image created from the normal body part images. I'm not ready to give an ETA on ant of this just yet, as there is still alot of more basic functionality that needs to get done first.

I am testing the free version of the software at moment as we like to use it in our new game. One of our Teammembers allradey bought the Full Version. If we decide spriter as our main animation tool i will buy it too, - or our company, it depends.

have not read every psot so maybe there is stuff already mentioned.

There are a few thingsa i really miss when I use spriter.

1. Double click renaming of groups and layers and stuff - like working in cunstruct2 or gimp... it drives me nuts

2. keyframe highlighting - wich keyframe is active shown with a colour highlighting. - needed for next wish :)

3. multiple keyframe selection and editing - copy, paste, transforming

4. faster zooming in the timeline.

5. buttons fo new animation and new group!!!

6. is ther a pissibility to kitbash two finished animaitons together? - if not i think i would like it...

1.yes,soon

2.yes,soon

3.yes

4.yes,soon

5.yes,soon

6.yes

[Surefoot]

...save and edit with integer values for position and dimension... visible 'point' objects...

I'm floored!

It sounds like you've thought of everything. I didn't even know about "visible point objects" but now I want them!

I'm happy to have bought spriter so early. It sounds like it's going to be THE tool for sprite creation. I appreciate that some features must come before others, but I'm glad to see these ideas are already in your head.

[JohnnyFlash]

A feature idea:

The ability to load an image for the background. I'm sure there are many useful ideas people could utilize this for.

Such as:

Preview animation on a background

Gridlines for size and placement

On screen reference of other animation frames

-JohnnyFlash

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Hi JohnnyFlash,

Its a great suggestion and in fact a feature thats been on our list since Spriters inception. Now that the new version of Spriter is up and running it shouldn't be too long before nice work-flow helping features like that start to appear.

Also, there will eventually be ways to create guide lines and grids that appear in front of the canvas as well, so that the sprite images won't obscure the guides.

cheers,

Mike at BrashMonkey

[timpart]

Animations are done relative to an origin, and the character walks etc on the spot. Is there some way of specifying how far in space the character moves in each frame? So either the bacground moves by that vector if the character is centred on the screen, or how far it moves against a static backgound.

Platform games tend to have constant movement rates per kind of animation, but for realistic movement it isn't uniform through the whole cycle, and definitely not in transitions.

I would think MoveDeltaX and MoveDeltaY variables would do the trick, but they would need to have standardised names for game engine plugins to know what to do with them. (That also implies that (at least some) variables are only unique to a character rather than being in a global variable space.) It would be helpful if spriter made it easy to set them to appropriate values matching a uniform rate over an animation cycle without having to get the pocket calculator to work out how far something moves in 25ms.

What are your thoughts on this?

I did say deltas in each frame, rather than absolute values compared to start of cycle, but the latter might be easier to work out for non-linear tweening. Would need total move in whole cycle as well though.

Regards,

Tim

[lucid]

I've had some of the same ideas as well, and it'd be especially useful for more complex interactions like climbing a ledge. This is something that will come a little further down the line though, after we've got the basic stuff in, and we're moving onto procedural animation, since some of the same interface needs will come it it. Also, being able to tie the movement in with an existing body part or motion. For instance anchor the hand, so it, the characters relative movement say in, climbing a ladder, or jumping a fence would be determined by making sure the hand wouldn't move, but instead the rest of the character would move to accommodate that one part being stationary.

I think it should be similar to bones and objects, with the with the same tweening/nontweening options, and not needing movements to be keyed at each mainline keyframe. Again for a ledge climb, it'd be necessary to have direction changes for it to be truly useful.

[jmcmorris]

Hey guys, I read that you are planning to have a pixel art mode at some point but it is a ways off. Would it be possible to create an option or something that would make it so all images snap to integers and not use float? Every pixel counts for our animations and so we currently have to manually change the coordinates. We could love this feature. We don't mind if it is hacked in and we have to change some option file or something. It is understandable if you don't have the time though and we can of course work around it. Thanks for the consideration.

~Jasson (from Siege Games)