Is there a way to use a base animation as a reference?

[rintoulj]

Hey guys, new to Spriter and I'm already in love with it, it's exactly what I've been looking for for a long time. However, I'm running into a bit of a snag.

What I'm attempting to do is to use a pencil test animation that I've done in another program, like photoshop or whatever, as a reference for where I should put the images I do create to animate the character with. What I've been doing so far is to import a .png sequence of the frames as objects in the main window, using the keyframes to separate them. However, since I've already created key-frames, I have to go in to each key-frame and add the fully rendered object over the pencil test in every frame, eliminating the time I would be saving by clicking and dragging the rendered object. Is there a way to propagate that one object across the already selected frames?

Also, I'm animating at 12 fps, are there any tricks I can use to make sure my keyframes line up along the same intervals, maintaining my timing in the animation, or is that something I just have to do manually?

Thanks for your help!

-J

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Hi rintoulj,

Thanks for the kind words and welcome to Spriter!

All the features you're asking about (using precreated animations as guides for key frames and a way to auto space key frames to specified FPS) will end up in Spriter some time in the relative near future.

For now, you can of course put a temporary sprite in all key frames and set it to display your reference frames. (I'm doing that myself atm)..but obvioulsy once theres an automated way to set up actual guide images for frames it will rock!

For the timeline think...right now t he only way to space it out is manually, but this too will change within the next few months.

Most of the really complicated features for Spriter 1.0 are nearly finished, so cool features like these which will greatly improve workflow will soon be our focus.

cheers,

Mike at BrashMonkey

[rintoulj]

Awesome, that's great!

I gotta say, I wasn't kidding when I was talking about how Spriter was exactly what I needed, I'm primarily an illustrator and character artist who can do everything under the sun for a game character EXCEPT the implementation into the game. I have a pretty high detailed painting style that would look beautiful if only I could animate it, and now I can. What would have taken me a week in studio with frame by frame will now take me 20 minutes, and I know that my vision will translate over to the game engine exactly like I intended.

Again, thank you so much for this program, for me anyway, it is truly groundbreaking.

-J