Fix my corrupted file?

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

So far I'm having lots of issues testing the files you linked to:

• There were many images Spriter considered missing. (I think you discovered that missing images n Spriter files cause crashes or trouble in C2)
• Upon trying to re-import the scml and scon into your capx, there were many image texture warnings, which went away after a batch process to re-export them from Photoshop (What program are you using to create your PNG images?)
• Your sound files are all in some variation of the WAV format that C2 doesn't recognize and could not successfully convert on import,
• Even after resolving these issues, I was able to import with no warnings, BUT the Spriter animation would still not show up upon playing the frame.

Some things that stand out to me as potential problems : (I'll confirm with Edgar (Spriter's creator) once he's available. )

• You are using atypical and potentially problematic characters in your file names, like parenthesis, comas, apostrophes, etc.
• You have fairly deep sub-folders in this project.
• You have some JPG files  in the folders, I didn't look closely, are you actually using them in the Spriter file? Only PNG files should be used in Spriter files.

cheers,

-Mike at BrashMonkey

 

[adamcreator]

Thanks for the quickness!

Hmm, I didn't have the missing-images problem with the test-scml I included in the zip file I sent, I didn't think/know that was one of the issues, unless it means something, but on my end it didn't show missing images in that particular file that I set up for you.

I'm fuzzy on what texture issues means. I use Photoshop to create the PNGs, but I know there are 4 options every time you save a PNG in Photoshop. I wonder if there are there any rules with those. The images included in the test zip were also 50% reduced through Spriter's feature to do that, in case Spriter has any hand in changing the nature of the PNGs or JPGs when it outputs/saves them at 50% size.

Hmm, just like the missing-images issue you received on your end, I also actually have no issue importing my wav files in C2. For me, they end up converting to both formats. I save them using Adobe Audition using the rules C2 gave me. I don't suppose there were any issues with the files being compressed in that zipx format I used when preparing the file to be sent your way, as opposed to simply becoming completely uncompressed again upon unzipping them?

Yes, using JPG images even in Spriter is actually something I do, in an attempt to save space whenever there's no alpha, such as in flat rectangle backgrounds in my cut-scenes that I animate in Spriter. But I definitely won't use them anymore since you said JPGs shouldn't be used in Spriter. I'm curious why that is, but I'll stick with PNGs from now on in Spriter, even when they're just backgrounds with no alpha.

 

Yes, I'd love if Edgar could take a crack at it sometime. I'll definitely work on improving in the areas you mentioned that could be potential problems, since for all we know one or more of them could actually be bad enough to actually be causing the ultimate issue of C2 not playing the animation. I hope that Edgar is able to pinpoint the exact cause(s), which will certainly prove to be a valuable learning experience for me going forward, and hopefully can also help you to teach others what to avoid that I failed to, since, as it stands, there's certainly something we don't know of yet that certainly keeps an animation from being played in C2.

I appreciate all the help!

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Did you maybe have the dialogue for missing images turned off? There's a checkbox that can be unchecked... something like "show this missing error message every time the project is opened".

We'll report back here once Edgar has had a chance to take a look. Thanks for your patience.

[adamcreator]

I don't think I have it turned off, as I still get the message sometimes, like today when I think it ran out of graphics power again, at which point it will cause any given background image(s)--which were JPGs in my case--to turn into the red 'missing image' box, but only until I restart the program, maybe to make the RAM/processing power come back. I'm also able to see the images themselves, even upon a fresh restart of the program and opening of the scml.

Thanks!

[adamcreator]

Even though I've collected dozens of suggestions and errors in a document over the past several months of my having worked with Spriter fulltime, one that I'd especially like to recommend now is a feature Adobe After Effects has, which is an option to view the images in the work frame at a lower resolution, in which the images appear fuzzier and more pixelated, such as 25%, so that it's much faster and doesn't freeze and force you to end the process and use a very tight autosave (I'm down to having it autosave every 5min) in order to minimize loss of work. This way, the end result of the scene can still be HD res, without actually having had worked on it in full res. I wouldn't mind working with fuzzier versions of what I know are actually the full-HD images.

(My only other idea, but something I haven't given enough thought to yet, is whether or not there's a stable trick for working, for example, at 0.25 or 0.50 resized images thru Spriter, but then, whether or not there's a way to then, afterwards, resize those images by 2.0, and then replace the images that are used by the original full-res images, since they're now the same size. Problem is, I think that would simply end up blowing up every object x2 around its own orbit, as opposed to the entire project simply being scaled uniformly x2.)

Anyway, just a suggestion.

EDIT: Another idea is to come up with a way, in a future update of Spriter and/or of the actual C2 plugin, for it to actually recognize when the same exact image file is being used in more than Spriter object in the C2 project. Instead of having a different copy of the PNG per different scml. This would be awesome because it would allow us to split complicated scenes up into as many scml files as we want to, without resulting in a nuts download size.

(I also notice that when Spriter is freezing--always after I hit the 4 key, 'play'--it causes my CPU in Task Manager to hit 100%, even though my computer is decent--Intel Core i5-3450 CPU, 3.10GHz, 16GB DDR3 RAM, 1333MHz, 166GB free of 1TB HDD--and runs high-end programs smoothly, including 3dsmax and After Effects.)

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Your idea of creating a working copy at 0.5 or 0.25 percent with scaled images, then up-scaling the project back up when finished and replacing the now blurry images with the original large ones is exactly what I was going to recommend you try.

I'll definitely mention the option to work with smaller textures to Edgar for Spriter 2.

 

cheers.

[adamcreator]

But what would the work process be like for that? For example, begin by putting all HD images I plan to use for a scene into the scene, then resize out at 0.5, then animate the 0.5 scml version of that scene, then when the scene is fully animated, resize them back out again at 2.0, and then overwrite those resized 2.0 image files with the original HD images? I could test that, but I was guessing that would just cause the images to be blown up over the bones they're attached to, as opposed to perfectly scaling up the entire animation? I'll test it now, though.

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Assuming you own Spriter Pro, there is a feature under "File/other file actions" which lets you created a scaled clone of your entire project (plus images).  This is how you would scale the entire project, including bones and images... so, create your scaled clone down to .25, then animate with that, then, once finished, create a scaled clone of that to 400 percent (back to the original size...) Then just copy the original high res images over the now blurry and pixelated images from the new up-scaled clone.

Of course, make sure you back up your originals frequently, I recommend something with version control so you can always roll back to older versions of need be.

[adamcreator]

Wow it works! Haha!

Yes this is how I'll work from now on. Yes I'll be careful and organized so as to not overwrite anything with anything I don't mean to, and I have all my Spriter folders in my Dropbox folder for that version control. Awesome!

[adamcreator]

My only issue so far, which I noticed with previous scml resizes, is that the sounds don't play in the resized scml in Spriter--despite that the sounds do in fact exist in the appropriate subfolders of the resized version of the project folder. If you know of this issue, what might the fix be?

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

This sounds like a bug no-one's noticed or reported before. Is the data for the sounds still in the timeline? (keyframes telling Spriter when the sounds should start etc)?

thanks.

[adamcreator]

Yes, they're there. Sometimes audio files will just be displayed as a gray key frame located at the point that the wav begins, but the audio isn't playing whether it's the key version or the normal version that displays the full wavelength--which is there too--and even though I noticed this issue in every resized version before, I also know that the sounds do, however, successfully play with the scene in C2, even from the resized scml. I just now need to figure out how to make the sounds work in Spriter, however, since I'll now be working in the downsized version. It sounds like that will be hard though, since this is not in fact a known bug.

[adamcreator]

I even just now got done testing if it works if I overwrite the resized version's sounds with the original sound files, and restarted Spriter, but unfortunately it doesn't make a difference. So that's a stumper. Also tried the reload button, but doesn't make sounds audible.

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

OK. I'll report this to Edgar today.

[adamcreator]

Thanks!

[adamcreator]

Oh, another fact that may help: Even left-clicking on audio files in the upper-right Project Folder view, which normally plays the audio file upon clicking, doesn't play in the downsized version of the scml. So it's not just the audio's used in the timeline.

[adamcreator]

Another issue that could potentially make that downsized tactic a last-resort strategy instead of first--but something that could also probably be improved in a future update or version of Spriter, is that it isn't just an image resize: It's a bone resize. So, unfortunately, due to the size-decrease, the bones become needle-thin. Even with just a 0.5 downsize instead of 0.25. So there's difficulty in attempting to move or rotate bones, even when very zoomed in.

EDIT: Oh, nevermind, that bone thing's not an issue: I just have to resize the animation I'm working on to a bigger size, then shrink it back down to normal again after I'm done animating it. Silly me.

[adamcreator]

Update: I'm going to work with the original HD images version of the scml until the sound bug is figured out, due to the importance of sound in my work. (And the original HD project folder is the only one that allows sound to play.) Instead I'm going to split my scenes up into hopefully only a maximum of two halves from now on, into two different scml's, as soon as it begins to show signs of freezing.

It would be great if a future update would allow us to simply merge in animations between different scml's that actually exist in the same project folder. (Construct2 makes a whole duplicate of even the same exact image file when the file is used in a different Entity, even within the same scml, so it's vital that if this idea is ever done in a future update, that it allows us to simply transfer animations, at least after the fact, between scml's in the same project folder--not only different--with no issues.)

As of now I'm simply going to go completely down the path of doing whatever it takes to allow myself to continue doing my work, which means allowing the final download size to take a hit. Besides, future updates, or Spriter2, may include great needed features that allow me to decrease the download size again later on. And smaller-screen devices can simply have a 25% or 50% res version with barely any quality loss, while larger-screen devices can probably afford to take a big download size.

The only other issue I remember that I could report now is that when a scene has a camera truck-in/zoom-in that utilizes the Easing Curve Editor, such as for a nice smooth slow start as well as slow end, all images simply disappear in C2 until the next keyframe. (In fact maybe this is even the cause of my main issue of that one scene not showing up in Spriter? Use of the Easing Curve Editor is hiding all the images, making it appear as though the Spriter object itself simply isn't playing at all? However by my experience this only happens between keys that use the curve editor, and I only use it sometimes when I want to add an extra flair or for camera truck-ins or outs. I also want to repeat that I do in fact have the latest version of the Spriter C2 plug-in installed, as long as the link that I used was updated correctly after r5.)

As for the original issue of that one scene not playing in C2, I look forward to Edgar hopefully finding the cause eventually, as the scene is already fully animated. However, there's no rush.

Thanks!

[lucid]

Hi @adamcreator,
I sent you a link to your fixed file through the support system, but I'll detail the issues I found here, in case someone ever has similar issues.
First, there were some png images that weren't importing to C2 correctly.  This is usually caused by software that saves or converts pngs in a nonstandard way.  I did a batch action in photoshop that just resaved the pngs.

The jpgs were coming up as missing images in Spriter, this could cause issues with the save, which would make it not import correctly into c2.  Your jpgs weren't loading correctly in Photoshop, so I saved blank pngs of the same size with the same names (just paste your jpgs into these pngs and save the png).

Then you had certain objects with an exclamation point in the name, which was preventing c2 from generating the same name for the sprites.  This may not have caused issues, since the associate action specifies the filename, but to be safe I renamed every object in the project by replacing the  !'s with _'s.  There were also files with '!' in the filename, which would eventually cause issues with on piece of software or another, so I changed those as well.

Lastly,  I'm not sure how it happened but there was an object listed in your file that no longer existed in the project.  Because of the way it was being stored in the scml file, the scml plugin couldn't finish loading the file, so I removed that as well.

On a side note, when I was attempting import, C2 was having issues with your wav files, and couldn't import them.

In general, I'd advise not using special characters in filenames and object names, and if you're using any obscure software to save or convert images or sounds, that seems to be the root of a lot of issues, as Photoshop, C2, and Spriter all had trouble with some of your files.

-cheers

 

[adamcreator]

That is awesome, thank you SO much! I'm going to get to everything at the start of my next work day. It may take me time to find out why my PNGs and JPGs are saved in an unusual way, as all my image work and saving is simply done through "Adobe Photoshop CC (64 Bit)", but I'm just so glad to finally know what the cause(s) are. Thanks so much!