Export keyframes to PNG seems to have little value.

[Ascorbius]

Hi,

I've been using Spriter now for a couple of months, I've worked out a set of animations for a game I'm working on which I'm happy with and I wish to implement them into my game - however I've run into a little roadblock in my pipieline.

The problem is twofold:

A: I'm using MOAI and the plugin being developed at the moment (in the developers' own time and I appreciate that) doesn't support bones or mirroring (by my initial inspection) - So unless I want to reinvent the wheel (which I really don't) I will patiently wait before I use the skeletal animation possibilities (which drew me to spriter) - (I have written a skeletal animation system previously in another engine so I appreciate how much work goes into it. )

B: The export to png feature only exports the absolute keyframes and not interpolated frame renders over time as I initially thought.

Point A is something I am willing to devote a considerable amount of patience to, given that the person developing the Moai plugin is doing so of their own volition and thus far, unpaid by yours truly.

Point B befuddles me though.. Given that Spriter has the ability to create the most wonderfully smooth animations over a time line would anyone only wish to export only the key frames?

I tested this tonight, I created an animation of a single image rotating by 179 degrees over 1000ms, there were 2 keyframes - the initial and the final. Export to png yielded only 2 images. Why is this useful?

Surely I would want 24 images ( or more, based on some setting. )

This suggests that animators must either work with 24 exact keyframes for their walk/run cycles and move their bones to exactly where they need to be - only on those key frames - negating the usefulness of keyframes in the first place, or maybe the export serves some other purpose which I am not yet aware of.

I realize that this post seems to be quite negative for which I apologize, this is not my normal approach. I also appreciate that the project has been delayed by a serious injury in the team, I am not heartless in this matter.

I would also like to add that I am very impressed with the majority of Spriter - even in it's current Alpha state. I really look forward to being able to use it to make some seriously great animations. You achieved more than I managed with my own bone editor for my skeletal animation system. My bones were forced into a single rigid hierarchy and I couldn't change images per keyframe either.

However I am still in a pickle.

I have animations I would like to export for use within my game, but I have no way (without a lot of code on my part) to use them. My pipeline is blocked.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions to ease me on my way?

Is there a 3rd party tool which can take my Spriter project and render the animations - scaled to the correct size?

With great respect.

Jason Farmer aka Ascorbius

(note: there is no sarcasm in this post, just honest 'trying to get something done' frustration, which may mask the love I have for the software - for that I apologize. It is my desire that you are successful for I see the potential of this software.)

[flourpowder]

For the amount of frames that you want, all you have to do is simply place 22 more keyframes in between your animation where it would look the smoothest.Just click the key that is next to the animation length setting and hit that button all along the timeline.

[Ascorbius]

For the amount of frames that you want, all you have to do is simply place 22 more keyframes in between your animation where it would look the smoothest.Just click the key that is next to the animation length setting and hit that button all along the timeline.

Adding extra keyframes for the export is an option, however it suffers from a major drawback to efficiency. My simple example would be easy, but my animations are not simple.

First of all, the key frames would have to be placed exactly where needed once animation had been completed - pretty much baking the animation as making changes once these additional keyframes were added would be a nightmare - so the option is to delete them prior to modification and then add them again prior to export. Time consuming.

On top of that, files exported for the actual animation keyframes would have to be deleted and the rest of the exported files renamed to be sequential. This is not an option I'm afraid.

For a single character in my game, the animation set currently consists of 8 animations, there are still at least 3 more needed.

Each animation is around a second long. A considerable amount of time must be spent tweaking the frames before they can be put into texturepacker and scaled to the correct size.

I can work with what I have in the short term, but it's far from perfect and there must be a better way.

Again, these aren't complaints: These are use cases which I believe will apply to a great number of users.

[flourpowder]

So, if I understand correctly, you need one full second (possibly a bit longer) for your animations. What I would personally do, to same the amount of sprites needed for the sprite sheet would be get your animation to where you want it, and move the frames back so that one second is 24 frames, 30, or 60 depending on the amount of frames your game will be checking per second, and then add the keyframes in to each. I know what your saying that that is a pain, but at most thats 60 images for each sprite sheet, where you didn't have to adjust each object 60 times but just a few times. That's how I see it anyhow. I'm curious as to what other way you were hoping for this program to handle your animations. (not in a condescending tone, im serious)

Good luck!

[lucid]

We agree that Export to Png as it is in the current public build is not very useful.

The upcoming version has a much more flexible and powerful Export to Png feature I think you will be quite pleased with.

[Ascorbius]

Do we have any dates penned for the release?

It'd sure help me in my planning if I could know when the actual spriter app would be ready - as good as the Alpha is, it's not quite enough for serious work.

If it's going to be late in the year, let me know - knowing that is better than hoping for a release in the next month or so.

Thanks

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Hi Ascorbius,

Sorry we can't promise any exact dates, but there is a lot of information availible for the status on the current new build in the works. Please note the last post by Lucid (Edgar)

http://www.brashmonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9807&start=50

Obviously Edgar is working to get the new build out, stable, feature-rich and useful for large projects as quickly as possible, and as soon as this new build is out you'll be able to "kick it's tires" to help us make sure its ready to work with ASAP.

cheers,

Mike at BrashMonkey