Spriter Release Alpha 2 (8/17/12)

lucid · August 18, 2012

Hello again everyone,

Here's the second of our bi-weekly releases on our way to 1.0. As of now all reported crashes and bugs have been fixed, and we've added basic file saving and loading features to the new format. However, this new multi-platform Spriter is still in alpha, and things are still very early on, so bugs, including crashes should be expected. There is still basic functionality missing, such as copy and paste, and it does not yet track your changes and warn you before closing that you should save your file. We understand these things are essential for the program to be complete, but as promised in the Kickstarter, everyone is here with us on the ground floor, and things will gradually get more polished and complete as we approach our December estimated release date.

This version is not to be considered stable, and one should not begin major projects with it, as of yet. Any brave developers who plan to or already have begun major projects with Spriter, we've purposefully been prioritizing functionality over polish, so Spriter can be more useful in the short term. But please, please save very frequently, to separate filenames, so there is always a backup to come back to. We've tested saving and loading extensively in house, but that is 2 users versus thousands. Again, please save frequently, and to alternate filenames, in case something goes wrong with a file, you have something at least semi-recent to fall back on.

Now that the disclaimers are out of the way. The good news is in the changelog below, and also we have the basic groundwork layed for bones/heirarchy, so this feature should be coming soon in one of the next 2 updates. As stated in our last update, we plan to release a version roughly every 2 weeks, so the 1st and 15th of each month, give or take a few days.

Over the next few days I'll be writing up some slightly more detailed documentation for developers working with the file format. But most of the developers who already implemented the previous file format, and/or participated in the discussion that ended with the final format should have little trouble. Also linked at the bottom of this post is once again the full format outline, as well as a compact version which only shows the features of the format currently implemented in the editor.

Thanks again for testing everyone. Don't forget right now only the non-pro features are implemented, so encourage all your friends to come download the free version. We'll be replacing the official download page with this version in the next few days, but for now, the Kickstarter page, and our forum is the only place with these links.

Change Log:

Additions:

Fixes:

Mac specific fixes:

Miscellaneous:

[*:1excaqnd]Several optimizations to improve performance while manipulating images in the canvas.

Compact SCML Format Outline (only currently implemented editor features)

Full SCML Format Outline

inkBot · August 18, 2012

Downloading immediately to mess with it :)

MadameBerry · August 18, 2012

I think I would recommend keeping the original download link, and adding this as a version next to it, since this version is unstable.

That being said, I've run into two crashes so far. One is less consistent, and it occurs when I pull open the dropdown menu in the Sprites in Frame window and click one of the options. Sometimes it crashes.

The second one is kind of silly, but if I open the program and try to save without first opening or starting a project (so, on the blank welcome screen) it will save, but trying to open that save crashes the program. Disable saving unless you've actually got a project open.

lucid · August 18, 2012

hi inkbot!

hi madameberry,

Thanks for the crash reports. We'll get right on those. We're working on getting a nicer download page with version history.

On a side note, at some point I'll most likely change the dropdown properties on the Objects in Frame window, so the controls are always present, rather than clicking to make them appear, eliminating that extra click, and giving it that tiny extra bit of immediacy.

MadameBerry · August 18, 2012

Eh, to be honest, I like the toggle-ability of it. It's easier to see and select individual sprites if one sprite doesn't take up half the window. That's just me, though.

Maybe an "expand/collapse all" option would be helpful instead?

inkBot · August 18, 2012

Hey lucid :)

Well, as said I downloaded the new version and tried it out. Or at least I tried to. The program crashes for me when I try to scrub the timeline after making a keyframe. I've tried it on both my desktop and my laptop, same issue on both machines. (Desktop: Win 7 64 bit, Laptop: Win Vista 32 bit). I've tried with different compatibility modes, still crashes.

lucid · August 18, 2012

I'll investigate, inkbot. though on the surface, I can't reproduce the crash

madameberry, I don't mean to remove the ability to hide them. I mean, after it's expanded, right now you click the value for x, to bring up the spin box control, or opacity to bring up the opacity sliders. I just mean the spinbox control,opacity slider,etc would be there without you having to click that property first.

inkBot · August 18, 2012

I tried disabling Aero when Spriter is running and now it doesn't crash when I scrub the timeline. It has crashed once so far, but I'm not sure I can say that was for the same reason as before and would count it up to the release being, as stated, unstable, rather than the issue I was having. At least until it has happened several more times and I can reproduce it consistently, as before.

In any case, turning off Aero seemed to do the trick. So that's a possible guideline for figuring out what this problem is.

MadameBerry · August 18, 2012

Ah, I misunderstood. haha... ^^;;

lucid · August 18, 2012

I believe I found your crash madame berry.

this is related to one of the additions shortly before the release, but if you select an object, then try to click any of the properties, like x, angle, etc, while the object is selected, it will crash.

this will be fixed for the next version.

please let me know if it happens under other circumstances.

Mr.Ugly · August 18, 2012

well under osx, the recent version crashes when i try to open your monster files.

when i try to load old spriter files the viewport looks broken..

if create a new project it looks ok, but haven't done much work yet with it..

under win7 the monster files opens.. haven't tried the old spriter files.. will check on different computers soon.

what i find odd is that you can't load a different project when you have one open.. need to close it completly and reload the app to be able to open another project..

thats it so faar.. more feedback will follow

nascode · August 19, 2012

well under osx, the recent version crashes when i try to open your monster files.
when i try to load old spriter files the viewport looks broken..

I second this. Using Mountain Lion and tried to open monster file example. Instant Crash~

suncut · August 20, 2012

I just tried out the new alpha today, and while the features looked really cool I ran into plenty of problems.

Biggest bummer was that save files didn't seem to work, even though I tried multiple times I wasn't able to produce a working save file for my project. The save seemed to have specific trouble with one of my sprites, it disappeared from the image and was seen on the image list as .png in each save I tried to load (original name was head.png). Other items were somewhat in their places, some flying around, and one image seemed to have occasionally duplicated itself. If I tried to select the missing png instant crash followed.

Also, when I delete a frame the view gets lost, I thought it had crashed the first time, but managed to find my image again after some scrolling.

Run into a few more random crashes, but can't really remember what I was doing. One of my saves crashed straight at load. I'm pretty sure one crash was when I tried to play my animation as well.

I can't wait to get animating on spriter, I really love how easy and fast it is to use in general. I guess I'll need to wait for the next update to be able to save stuff?

robpearmain · August 21, 2012

Works fine for me on an iMac with Mountain Lion:

Mr.Ugly · August 21, 2012

Well to be more specific its a mac mini running with a NVIDIA GeForce 9400 256 MB under 10.7.4

nascode · August 22, 2012

i run it on macbook white unibody mid-2010

lucid · August 23, 2012

ok, sorry for the delayed reply on the mac front.

i run it on macbook white unibody mid-2010

Well to be more specific its a mac mini running with a NVIDIA GeForce 9400 256 MB under 10.7.4

If anyone else is having this problem, please give any relevant Mac info you have. I'm looking into the problem.

Biggest bummer was that save files didn't seem to work, even though I tried multiple times I wasn't able to produce a working save file for my project. The save seemed to have specific trouble with one of my sprites, it disappeared from the image and was seen on the image list as .png in each save I tried to load (original name was head.png). Other items were somewhat in their places, some flying around, and one image seemed to have occasionally duplicated itself. If I tried to select the missing png instant crash followed.

Please send me any relevant save files(lucid@brashmonkey.com), and I'll try to figure out why it's doing that.

bluepeak · August 23, 2012

Hi, just wanted to say - very impressive alpha. I'm pretty much content you guys can pull this off now :)

lucid · August 23, 2012

thank you!

Mr.Ugly · August 27, 2012

btw no problem on 2 additional windows 7 rigs

and works fine on early 2011 macbook pro 15 and late 2011 13" pro

it seems it has problems with onboard gfx and work with dedicated chips *shrug*

will test on 11" Air with an Intel onboard gfx by the end of the week

but there are 2 stationary minis with (same gfx card) and the same issue.. so what exactly do you need

to help you out fixing this bug?

lucid · August 28, 2012

Glad it works on your other rigs mr ugly. I haven't gotten back around to this problem yet. My first step will be to create new builds for 32 bit and PPC macs, and while I'm at it see what other compatibility options can be tweaked. It's a bit time consuming, and there is just a long list of bugs and features to get to these next 2 builds, and that's one of them. Please bear with me a little longer. If those new builds don't work, we'll figure it out from there.

Mr.Ugly · September 5, 2012

hi there

when should we expect the build? are you still in a twice a month cycle?

lucid · September 5, 2012

yes, was delayed a little this month. planned for later tonight if all goes well.

robpearmain · September 7, 2012

Any update on the next release :D

soho54 · September 7, 2012

A3 is out now.

You just have to look a little futher down on the main page.

Here is some linkage: http://www.brashmonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=862

Sign In

Spriter Release Alpha 2 (8/17/12)

Recommended Posts

lucid

inkBot

MadameBerry

lucid

MadameBerry

inkBot

lucid

inkBot

MadameBerry

lucid

Mr.Ugly

nascode

suncut

robpearmain

Mr.Ugly

nascode

lucid

bluepeak

lucid

Mr.Ugly

lucid

Mr.Ugly

lucid

robpearmain

soho54

Join the conversation

Recently Browsing 0 members

Browse

Marketplace

Activity