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Best way to organize many chars, animations & directions


loudo

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Hi everyone,

I'm wondering what is the best way to organize many chararacters, animations and directions in Spriter.

I have 10 characters. Each character has 10 animations (same for all characters). And each animation has 4 directions (left, right, top, bottom).

Do I have to create a file for each character and organize each file like this :


  • [*:1cch5rn2]left (entity)

    • [*:1cch5rn2]idle (animation)
      [*:1cch5rn2]walk (animation)

[*:1cch5rn2]right(entity)


  • [*:1cch5rn2]idle (animation)
    [*:1cch5rn2]walk (animation)

Or maybe create one file with every character as an entity :


  • [*:1cch5rn2]knight (entity)

    • [*:1cch5rn2]left_idle (animation)
      [*:1cch5rn2]right_idle (animation)

Or create one file with every direction as an entity and every animation as an animation. To change the character I can use the charMap feature :


  • [*:1cch5rn2]left(entity)

    • [*:1cch5rn2]idle (animation)
      [*:1cch5rn2]walk (animation)

What are your thoughts?

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Hi loudo,

This might all depend on the target platform for your game. For web, load time of each level might go much quicker if there are many scml files, each only with the animations needed for that specific level.

For example, if each level only uses 2 types of enemy, then having a separate scml for each enemy type (if they are unique and not just character map varients of course) and only having those required scml files in their respective levels would most likely be best..

however, for consoles, computers, and possibly even mobile it might make just as much sense to have fewer, bigger scml files.

I would tend to work with multiple small scml files, (especially because I have Spriter Pro), because I can always merge scml files into one big one later, if that proves better for your needs.

cheers,

Mike at BrashMonkey

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Hey loudo, as far as animation naming is concerned, I personally append a suffix to animation names (_L, _R, etc.) and set the animation playing to animName & characterDirection.

I tend to avoid using entities as well, but mostly as I haven't had the opportunity to make a good use of those. Multiple entities seem to be useful mainly to have different rigs in a single spriter file (but I may miss something here). Anyway, changing entities on the fly requires an added step in your code, every time you want to change animation. Just for code clarity and simplicity's sake, I'd avoid it.

Anyway, once there is a way to sort the animations within spriter and move them around, this shouldn't be too much of a concern.

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Thanks guys for your answers.

I'm targeting computer. I think I will use multiple scml but I'll will probably merge the files later since all animations are the same for all characters and use character map I guess.

I have 15 or 20 animations per character, so I can't add a suffix as Valerien suggest, because it will be unreadable (up to 80 animations in the file without the ability to unfold the tree :/). So for now, I have this :

devlog_spriter_arbo.png

Code-side I don't have any problem, I have a strong api. I just have to do this :


//playAnimFromEntity(entity:String, anim:String);
playAnimFromEntity("left", "walk");

.

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