Export to AVI or another type of Video support?

[SymboliC]

Hi,

 

I'm wondering if there is a plugin or plans for further development to support exporting the animations to various or at least on type of Video file? Etc . Avi.

This is useful to share the current phase, look and feel of animations with others in our team while partnering for a project.

 

I know there is an export to animated GIF function but this does not cover it completely. I mean wouldn't it be nicer to have export to a video file support?

 

Please correct me if I'm missing something or point me to a plug-in.

 

Thanks a lot,

[RunnerPack]

With all due respect, I would personally prefer that the export options stay as they are, rather than bloating Spriter with features that only benefit a few users (not to mention taking development time away from more useful features).

 

The problem of converting between various animation and video formats has been solved many times over by existing, free tools, such as VirtualDub and ffmpeg. With only a little bit of work, you could even set up a script that would batch-convert an entire folder of GIFs to the video format of your choice.

[SymboliC]

Hi RunnerPack,

 

First of all thanks for the reply.

I've experienced with some PNGtoVID methods or similar things in the past. Especially within Flash. I know it is doable with the ways you've mentioned and being a "2D" animation software it can be a bit excess to demand addition of such a feature FOR NOW. But I would prefer to have it done by Spriter itself instead of installing 3rd party, external softwares, plugins and etc.

On the other hand even if I design in 2D and use spriter for our 2D game, I work with high quality textures other than simple fills and gradients and I doubt I'll have a nice result in GIF format. It can be because of my ignorance... :oops:  But then you would say "export all PNG's to a folder and use those source images to build your vid", but as I have said in the above paragraph I would prefer to have this "built in" feature. 
 

Yet, your developer point of view seems correct to me and I agree that before adding such a feature there have to be some other bugFixes and functionalities added to Spriter. I know the feature I requested doesn't have a priority. Just came to my mind.

Again, thanks for the reply and I'll do it the way you've mentioned.

 

Regards,

[RunnerPack]

Hi, SymboliC,

 

You brought up a good point that I hadn't thought of when I made my first reply: GIF's color limitations. Since it is commonly only used for a preview, the reduction of colors isn't usually a problem. Anyone using it for final output is likely aware of its limitations and can work around them. However, it would be nice to be able to output a full-color animation, with full alpha channel.

 

To this end, I believe animated PNG export support should be added to Spriter. Although APNG isn't officially supported by the original designers of PNG, and it almost definitely isn't supported by the version of libpng against which Spriter is linked, it has become a de facto standard, and is more widely used and supported than the official, and IMO overly complicated, "MNG" format. It is even supported by most browsers, either directly or through some type of extension. It would be fairly straightforward to add support, either by using a version of libpng that supports APNG, or with APNG-specific code patched into the GIF export functionality. For reference, here is the Mozilla APNG spec.