Spriter B6 pre-release ready for Windows testers

[lucid]

Hi everyone,

Spriter's b6 build has passed internal testing, with all known bugs fixed... now we need your help to test this new build and it's new features as thoroughly as only a whole community can, so we can confidently replace b5 with b6 as the official latest build as quickly as possible.

Before you download, remember, this is the pre-release version and is bound to have bugs we haven’t found yet, and especially with so many new features added, there's always a chance for data corrupting bugs, so please, only use this pre-release build for testing purposes.

Here's the link to the b6 pre-release version

Also, please watch this overview of the new features so you can better use and test the new features in b6. (obviously while everyone can test the build in general, only Pro owners will be able to use and test the new pro-only features).

[giuseppe]

awesome ... thankyou lucid

[mediadi]

Hi lucid,

Thanks for the release :) I am proud to be an early adopter.

Could you also provide the construct 2 plugin by this time to test or we should wait for the B6 to be released.

Regards,

[bwwd]

Just bought it :D Thanks !

[mediadi]

First Bug :S .

When you register for spriter pro it will give you a thank you message that it is activated but when you open any file on spriter it goes to the free version so i cannot use the pro features (Windows 7 64bit) .

pro-only features could not be tested.

MM and where can i warp the sprites like the spriter b6 teaser video at the end.

[tombmonkey]

Holy sheet no wonder it took so long, that's a lot of new stuff; far more than what I thought would be added.

Besides the resize function what is missing towards 1.0?

[Trixt0r]

Hey Edgar!

Very nice stuff, you implemented in Spriter B6.

How do you calculate the bending curves for skins when they get applied to bones? Looks like this also based on Beziér curves?

Would be nice if you could post some pseudo code for the API guys. Then I could try to implement that feature in the Generic Java API.

Keep up the good work!

-Trixt0r

[jayderyu]

Nice update. The math on that must have taken some time. You guys are certainly forging your own path on the tools.

Though i didn't hear any mention of sound triggers? :( But I did hear about collision boxes and hot spots for weapons. And tools. yummy

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Sound triggers are more than half-implimented. But we didnit want to make the community wait longer, and postpone community wide testing any longer. Sound will certianly appear in the official release of b6 or following quick update worst case scenario.

cheers,

Mike at BrashMonkey

[josempans]

great!

[Misj']

I haven't had much time to play with version B5.9999991 (using a project from B5 that uses not new features), but two things I noticed with the onion-skinning:

a) the overall performance of onion-skinning is much slower than in B5. In B5 when moving from one key to the next (using the '2'-key) the onion-skins (encompassing 3-4 keys) are drawn almost instantly (there's a small flicker). In B5.999991 they are slowly building up. Sometimes moving to the next of previous frame (using '1' or '2') is a bit unresponsive/lagging response while the onion-skins are build up;

b) with the onion-skinning on, when I select an element, or rotate and element, or move an element, the onion-skinning often disappears. If it does stay visible, it disappears when I either click the canvas or press ctrl-Z to undo.

[Valerien]

Big release there, that's nice.

I haven't encountered any big bug yet, there are only one note I have : the animation curve is reset upon changing its mode.

Although I think the experimental skin and all the new functions are really promising and will certainly provide great power in the future, I'd like to ask if basic functionality like changing the Z order on all frames, box selecting a range of global keyframes (when you have a full character the dopesheet list ends up being too big) and offsetting translation, rotation or scale on a whole animation are planned before 1.0 ?

After a couple of months working with spriter and a fair amount of dozens of animations up my sleeve, I think the overall animation workflow still lacks a bit of flexibility. I'm pretty confident in spriter's future and think you're doing a good job with this tool though.

Regards,

Nathan

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Hi Valerien,

I would think the curve data would need to be reset when changing the mode, as the math is completely different per curve type...Spriter could be made to temporarily store what the curve was set to per curve type in case you want to switch back...but such specialized featres additions would definatlely have to wait intil all more important features are perfected...so, this isn't a bug as much as a feature request.

You are quite right and we agree with you completely about core workflow... By necessity we need to get all major features implimented first, and then, go back and improve workflow once all features are in...This is so people can use and create Spriter support as early as possible... but that said, don't worry, we are very excited and eager to be able to drastically improve general workflow and add the numerous small features which will make a massive difference to how quickly and easily you can make, perfect, and tweak animations in general.

Thanks for the great feadback and the kind words.

cheers,

Mike at BrashMonkey

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Hi Misj',

Thanks for reporting this. Is onion-skinning performance slower across the board, even when not using the new feartures like the "skin" objects ("bendy sprites" ;) )?

cheers,

Mike at BrashMonkey

I haven't had much time to play with version B5.9999991 (using a project from B5 that uses not new features), but two things I noticed with the onion-skinning:

a) the overall performance of onion-skinning is much slower than in B5. In B5 when moving from one key to the next (using the '2'-key) the onion-skins (encompassing 3-4 keys) are drawn almost instantly (there's a small flicker). In B5.999991 they are slowly building up. Sometimes moving to the next of previous frame (using '1' or '2') is a bit unresponsive/lagging response while the onion-skins are build up;

b) with the onion-skinning on, when I select an element, or rotate and element, or move an element, the onion-skinning often disappears. If it does stay visible, it disappears when I either click the canvas or press ctrl-Z to undo.

[Misj']

Hi,

Thanks for reporting this. Is onion-skinning performance slower across the board, even when not using the new feartures like the "skin" objects ("bendy sprites" ;) )?

I've tested it both with some of my own files as well as with tombmonkey's Mantis-girl and Plant-girl (to make sure it wasn't something in my workflow that caused it). I've re-downloaded his project-files to make sure everything was exactly as it originally was, and have only loaded in the projects (from a freshly started Spriter); the only action I did in spriter was setting the onion-skinning distance (to make sure that it would contain a couple of frames).

Below I've added the timeline from the Mantis-girl 'stand' animation, and indicated the length of my onion-skinning distance (i've copied the red line and brightened it a bit to make it a little clearer).

The decrease in performance is across the board as far as I can tell; although it is of course more obvious when more frames are drawn and when these frames are more complex.

I've emailed you two short avi-movies to show the difference in performance on my system.

[lucid]

Hey Edgar!

Very nice stuff, you implemented in Spriter B6.

How do you calculate the bending curves for skins when they get applied to bones? Looks like this also based on Beziér curves?

Would be nice if you could post some pseudo code for the API guys. Then I could try to implement that feature in the Generic Java API.

Keep up the good work!

-Trixt0r

Hey Trixt0r. This feature is very early on, and there's still alot I want to add, in addition to whatever ideas or changes come about through community feedback. So, I'll make sure each version will load the previous version's skin, but possibly save to a new and evolved format. The implementation would probably need to be updated or changed if you still wanted it to stay fully compatible skins as they got further along. That being said, if you still want to do it for fun, or to test what's there so far, please email me at lucid@brashmonkey.com, and I'll get you some pseudo-code.

[mediadi]

:s No one reads the comment that i couldn't activate the pro version since the program returns to free version when i open any file and when all the files are closed it says Pro version :cry:

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Hi mediadi,

No one else seems to be having this issue...It sounds to me like you have Spriter installed in multple places, and not all your installed Spriters are activated.

Try loading this new Spriter build directly, and THEN load the .scml files from Spriter itself.

When you double click on an .scml file it loads the first Spriter you installed, not the latest (if they are installed spearately from each other).

does this make sense?

cheers,

Mike at BrashMonkey

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Thanks so much for the concise report of the issue, isj'.

Edgar will look into improving and optimizing onion-skinning in the relative near future, after some much needed and long awaited feature additions to improve work-flow in general.

cheers,

Mike at BrashMonkey

Hi,

Thanks for reporting this. Is onion-skinning performance slower across the board, even when not using the new feartures like the "skin" objects ("bendy sprites" ;) )?

I've tested it both with some of my own files as well as with tombmonkey's Mantis-girl and Plant-girl (to make sure it wasn't something in my workflow that caused it). I've re-downloaded his project-files to make sure everything was exactly as it originally was, and have only loaded in the projects (from a freshly started Spriter); the only action I did in spriter was setting the onion-skinning distance (to make sure that it would contain a couple of frames).

Below I've added the timeline from the Mantis-girl 'stand' animation, and indicated the length of my onion-skinning distance (i've copied the red line and brightened it a bit to make it a little clearer).

The decrease in performance is across the board as far as I can tell; although it is of course more obvious when more frames are drawn and when these frames are more complex.

I've emailed you two short avi-movies to show the difference in performance on my system.

[inkBot]

I've poked a bit at the newest release, and have a few thoughts and questions.

1. Boxes and points. You can create boxes and points now, but you can't really do anything with them. I see no properties for them, and I saw no box/point specific conditions/actions for the SCML C2 object. So I'm guessing the feature isn't fully ready, or have I missed something?

In any case, hoping to see the ability to add properties to them and change the colors of them so that you can easily distinguish between boxes for different purposes, both in actual use and in the Spriter environment.

2. The Skin feature. This is an interesting (and powerful) feature, but as it stands it's somewhat convoluted and, as expected, a bit buggy.

- For me, dunno if other people experience this, sometimes when I select a vertex the image shifts and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the vertex follows but the image is unaffected, and when you let go nothing happens and the vertex returns to it's original position.

- The skin mode is confusing to me. It seems the only real difference between regular and skin mode is that skin mode allows you to select more than one vertex, and this seems completely backwards to me. For something called skin mode I would expect the image to be unaffected by the changes I make to the vertices so that I can line them up the way I want and then manipulate them in regular mode to create animations with the feature. In the video explaining this moving the vertices around without affecting the image seems to work, but for me it seems almost random what's going to happen when I change the vertices.

Creating more sections for more control is good but absurdly limited, which I'm aware could be a result of the feature being in its early stages, but will comment on it still.

- Only being able to create sections from one side seems odd, something I expect will change (especially considering you can't add sections vertically).

- Adding a section is done by dragging it out, but what if you want/need more precision and want it to be exactly in the middle of the texture?

- Removing a section deselects everything for no reason.

[bwwd]

In skin mode i have this problem with red circle icon popping up when i want to create the points using arrow and moving mouse to drag new points into the middle of skin, then this icon pops uip and i know that something bad happened - verts were cloned or disconnected, basically no way to undo and work furhter cause its worse and worse later when you adjust it.

If that would be fixed and skin wouldnt have any problems with this red circle(similar to the one on remove animation button) and Z order switcvhing then it would be fantastic.

With z order if i import skin body parts like this : bicep,elbow,fingers then its ok and z order is correct but if i import it like this: elbow,bicep,fingers and i will move body parts in z order to have them displayed correctly( like bicep,elbow,fingers) then they arent and go through each other for no reason.

[tombmonkey]

I'm getting very low frame rates with b5.9.

I used fraps to get this measurements, on b5 I get an average of 15 fps on the port, on b5.9 I get an average of 7 fps.

This is very strange since it seems to be locked at that speed instead of being a hardware issue, since I can disable showing bones and sprites and it will stay set at 7 fps.

I'm measuring using the rat file I sent to mail@brashmonkey.com due to a different situation.

Also, do I have to keep the "missing image" images that get created on the new version? I got a bunch of these from a few files I moved, but the old location is not being used on any animation.

[lucid]

I've poked a bit at the newest release, and have a few thoughts and questions.

1. Boxes and points. You can create boxes and points now, but you can't really do anything with them. I see no properties for them, and I saw no box/point specific conditions/actions for the SCML C2 object. So I'm guessing the feature isn't fully ready, or have I missed something?

Those are not implemented in the plugin yet

In any case, hoping to see the ability to add properties to them and change the colors of them so that you can easily distinguish between boxes for different purposes, both in actual use and in the Spriter environment.

We will most likely have something like this eventually

2. The Skin feature. This is an interesting (and powerful) feature, but as it stands it's somewhat....

Yes, this is an experimental feature. It's not finished, and it has a long way to go before it's finished. Now is the time to give feedback, but yes, at the moment it is very bare bones, and I will look into the bugs you mentioned.

In skin mode i have this problem with red circle icon popping up when i want to create the points using arrow and moving mouse to drag new points into the middle of skin, then this icon pops uip and i know that something bad happened - verts were cloned or disconnected, basically no way to undo and work furhter cause its worse and worse later when you adjust it.

If that would be fixed and skin wouldnt have any problems with this red circle(similar to the one on remove animation button) and Z order switcvhing then it would be fantastic.

This red circle lets you remove the last segment you added, but if people are accidentally clicking it, I should probably move it.

With z order if i import skin body parts like this : bicep,elbow,fingers then its ok and z order is correct but if i import it like this: elbow,bicep,fingers and i will move body parts in z order to have them displayed correctly( like bicep,elbow,fingers) then they arent and go through each other for no reason.

I've noticed some bugs when dragging in the zorder with skins, but each segment is supposed to be z-orderable. This can be useful in some instances like a snake going around an arm, or a character that has a staff or other weapon that goes in front of and behind either the forearm, but behind the bicep (on a one image arm), etc. That's the exception to the rule though. Eventually I want it so the entire skin is one entry in the zorder, and you can press a button to expand and move each segment individually.

I'm getting very low frame rates with b5.9.

I used fraps to get this measurements, on b5 I get an average of 15 fps on the port, on b5.9 I get an average of 7 fps.

This is very strange since it seems to be locked at that speed instead of being a hardware issue, since I can disable showing bones and sprites and it will stay set at 7 fps.

I'm measuring using the rat file I sent to mail@brashmonkey.com due to a different situation.

I'll look into this.

Also, do I have to keep the "missing image" images that get created on the new version? I got a bunch of these from a few files I moved, but the old location is not being used on any animation.

The missing image should only appear if the image is in use. There must be a bug where it creates the missing image file before it checks whether it's in use in some circumstance. I'll look into it. I believe you can fix your file in the meantime if you delete the missing image file while Spriter is open, and save your file from there.

Thanks for the feedback and bug reports everyone.

[mediadi]

Hi Mike ,

Thanks for the reply i did a fresh installation for spriter and it work but what about the construct2 new plugin and does it have better performance than the png sequence animation with cocoonjs on mobiles ?.

Regards,

Bob Jradi

[KFII]

Hey everyone!

First I'd like to say thank you to Brashmonkey (Mike, Edgar and anyone else involved) for continuing to amaze us with great new features in Spriter : )

Bugs I encountred:

Same problem as Mediadi; using Windows 7 64 Bit version: activation of the Pro is not saved.

It wasn't definitive right from the start: yesterday: sometimes it was saved, & sometimes it wasn't. I had to reactivate whenever I opened a file (former Scml file updated in B 5.999991) or simply Spriter itself. I have one single version of Spriter istalled on the computer.

Today (which is technically after having restarted the PC) I can no longer activate Spriter when I open a Scml or Scon file: when Spriter is opened the activation status looks ok "Pro activated," and as soon as I open a file, I find that I need to activate Spriter again, only this time it doesn't save, not even within the same instance session of Spriter, (as I said yesterday I could sometimes keep the activation ok.) Win 7 administrator rights are in the way maybe? otherwise how to fix it temporarily? Thanks in advance : )