Export only part of a sprite?

[Nailez]

I was wondering if it is possible to export only part of a sprite that is animated?

As an example imagine a square and a circle above it. the animation has the circle fall to the ground and as it falls it covers the square. Then we export to png and we get only the visible part of the square in the animation without the circle.

It's hard to explain what I mean but imagine trying to animate a sword on a characters back. You draw the entire sword but during the animation only a little part of the sword is visible. Since the player is customizable I don't want to export the sword sprite with the player. And I couldn't simply put the sword behind the player in game because the sword has a strap which is in front of the player.

Any thoughts on how I would go about doing this?

Thanks

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

You could create a Character map (if you're using Spriter Pro) to hide specific sprites, or swap them with other sprites, and that would be reflected in your export of PNG's.

You can also choose to designate custom cropping coordinates while exporting as seen in this screen-grab.

You can then type in numbers for the top left and bottom right pixel coordinates for the cropping to occur.

cheers,

Mike at BrashMonkey

[Nailez]

The custom cropping coordinates method is very good for sprites which are cut off straight and clean but not for sprites which are cut off by a circle.

I have attached a spriter project file with everything you need to see what I want to do.

In the project file there is a square and a circle that drops in front of it. I would like to export the animation as a png without the circle. But retain the circles animation data against the square so parts of the square would not be visible.

Here is a picture of what I get:

Here is a picture of what I want:

The second picture without the circle I had to modify each frame in photoshop. This method takes up a lot of time. If it was possible to do that in Spriter is basically what I am asking.

Also I am using Spriter Pro B8_1.

Thanks

SpriterTest.zip

[RunnerPack]

You could use a dummy image in place of the "circle" which has the same alpha channel, but all one, solid, unique color (i.e. one which appears nowhere else in the animation; "magic pink" – #FF00FF – is a popular choice) and then use a (semi)automated process to erase it from the exported animation; i.e. a "color replacer" tool in PS (I don't use it, so I don't know if it has one or what it's called) or ImageMagick. Essentially, you'd be using a form of chroma-keying.

[Nailez]

That's exactly what I tried before posting but when you do something like that you can see pink pixels where the circles outline would be semi transparent in the square's sprite.

[Nailez]

Bump

[bwwd]

dont use pink, use gray dark colour, so it will blend more naturally with other colours.