Candescence

Alright, a few updates: - Demonstrations on various platforms - A couple of upcoming features described, including "containers", and bone animation (which would basically include bone rotation, which allows automatic 'part change' based on rotation, such as, say, a character's torso facing in various directions.) - A couple of professional game artists discussing Spriter, including an entire video by Dan Fessler describing the various advantages of the software. Dan Fessler in particular makes some great points, mainly that Spriter can be used to not only animate characters, but also background aspects, effects, and UI components, tiles, cutscenes, etc. It's a great example on how versatile a tool like this is.

Pretty much. It's kinda depressing how not that many people use it, it's a fantastic program. However, since we're on the subject, I might as well throw out some interesting news. I posted a topic on the Scirra forums outlining some improvements to make to the Platform Behavior, and while I was there, I also devoted a couple of paragraphs and bullet points to the idea of an "Advanced Platform Behavior" that has rotational functionality like Sonic and some other platformers, and a lot of options to allow it to be as versatile as possible. Now, I didn't directly say "it should be based off Sonic physics", I tried to go the subtle route with that one, but it seems Ashley picked it up right off the bat. He said the Platform Behaviour does need improvements, and he then noted that (I'm paraphrasing here) "replicating Sonic movements could be a tall order, it's a clever movement style that I might not be able to figure out", heavily implying that he'd totally do it if he knew how. So I immediately tossed out links to the Sonic Physics Guide as well as both the Classic and C2 versions of the Construct Sonic engine. He hasn't replied since his initial reply, which a friend in the Scirra IRC noted isn't unusual of him, but considering he did say he was going to improve the platform behaviour anyway, I have a feeling he might play around with the "Advanced" behaviour idea. Or not. We don't really know, so let's not get our hopes up. MMF2's and Game Maker's are just as bad, if not worse, from my experience.

Update! - The angle problem has been partially fixed. The engine has been re-worked a bit so that there's now an 'angle sensor' to replace the 'pvAngle' variable, which prevented me from using an action would allow me to easily replace RotateAngle() properly. Angles now don't spazz out randomly, meaning stuff like Sonic flying all over the place isn't gonna happen. That being said, for some reason, there are issues, meaning it's still not working properly, but the angles are at least consistent. I suspect collision issues. - I fixed Sonic not being able to roll while moving. The spin-dash still works oddly, though. All I need to do now is to fix the remaining problems, and we're golden.

The Mobius Engine is a start. Sure, it's not an actual fangame, but if you build the right tools for users, then that's a stepping stone for an actual game project.

Yeah, I hear you. Besides, some games use multiple parts for characters which are blended together rather convincingly to limit the amount of required frames for a character - the more recent Castlevania games do this, for starters. Dracula in Order of Ecclesia has a ludicrous amount of separate parts. It's much more obvious when he forgoes his usual teleporting tactic and starts stomping towards you in the second stage of the fight.

Good God, someone over at the SSMB made freaking Magnamon in the character creator. So much nostalgia for Digimon fans.

Well, if you're getting into HD levels of image quality, and depending on how many high-quality frames of an animation you have, it might be a problem for some systems. Depends, really. But funny you should mention budget, since this would logically reduce budget on animations since it's easier than drawing entire individual frames, obviously, so it's still a plus.

Well, of course. Spriter allows you to swap parts mid-animation, so you can have, say, multiple images for the character's head at different angles, expressions, etc. Rayman Origins provides a good example. Nope. There is software out there that can do what you're describing, but packing images into a sprite sheet isn't what Spriter does, and I doubt it will anytime soon, if at all.

From what I've heard, Demina is actually rather limited compared to Spriter, and the video on the page is rather telling when it comes to those limitations. In any case, Spriter has hit its funding target, and has reached 113% of its target, and rising. Awesome. Really, one of the main draws of this software for me, personally, is the Character Map feature, which allows for many different things, such as new characters based off an existing set of animations (which can be modified to suit the new character), character skins, and customizable characters. I like traditional animation and all, but that's something you can't do traditionally. Plus, creating smooth animation is a time-consuming process that also requires more VRAM with each additional frame. Rotoscoping helps, I suppose, and one could use the Ghost Trick method - render 3D models as 2D animations (which makes for some fantastic animations in numerous quantities if you do it right), but it still has some of the same limitations as traditional methods.

Yeah, I do see what you mean by that. It is kinda misleading in that way, since it's not an art program... But at the same time, as Serephim points out, spriting is mostly animating - 'spriting' a single image is technically pixel art. This software creates 'sprites' by assembling multiple image parts and making them move in a proper animation, which you can actually render as singular images if you desire as such, so it technically can be used as a 'spriting' tool.

It's animation software, not spriting. I swear I made that perfectly clear, it's even in the topic title! And it does a bit more than simply tweening, obviously, otherwise it would kinda be redundant considering Flash exists.

Well, I never said it was a replacement - traditional animation is still a choice for those who prefer to do it, but this style of animation has its various uses regardless. Um... Isn't that more or less what I described? I'm not exactly sure what you were expecting. :/

I'd like to spread the word about this tool, which is currently on Kickstarter and has reached 65% of its $25,000 funding goal with 26 days to go as of this time of writing, and it sorely deserves attention, because there is simply no other game development tool of its kind, and it could be a valuable tool for 2D game developers, fangame developers included. Anyone who has played Vanillaware games like Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade would remember the smooth, detailed animation present in those games. Or, say, the 2D Rayman games, especially Origins. Rather than using singular images for each frame of animation, such games use multiple parts for each character, each with multiple re-usable images that can be blended together in an animation, resulting in animations that are very smooth while at the same time allowing artists to increase character detail without needing to take more time with both. It also has performance benefits as well, as this animation style heavily reduces the required amount of VRAM needed, as only the images for the parts used in animations are stored in VRAM, which is much less than if an entire animation with the same amount of frames done in singular images, allowing for much more animations and frames without increasing VRAM use. Problem is, there isn't a dedicated piece of software specifically designed for these kinds of animations that has been released to the public - well, until now. Spriter, developed by Brashmonkey, a two-man team - one animator, Mike Parent, who has worked with companies like Gameloft, Wayforward, and GluMobile, and one programmer, Edgar Muniz, also known as "Lucid", someone I know personally on the Scirra forums, who has developed Construct plugins, and is a very awesome guy. They were originally working on two separate pieces of software with different intentions - Mike was working on Spriter, and Lucid was working on his own stuff, heavily inspired by Ubisoft's own UbiArt software, which was used to create Rayman Origins, but then they came together to work on the brand new and improved Spriter. Not only are these guys developing an awesome piece of software to fill in an important niche in 2D game development, they're trying to make the best tool they can, and add features beyond what I described above - such as "character maps", being able to swap different kinds of parts, such as weapons, clothing/armor, and various other things, allowing for stuff like customizable characters in runtime, character skins, randomized NPCs, and so on, in ways that would be more or less infeasible with traditional 2D animation methods. And, beyond that, procedural animations, shapes and variables which can easily expand the possibilities for game animations. It will use an XML-based format that will allow it to be used in any game engine there is, and Lucid is currently working on a Construct Classic plugin for it, with Construct 2 coming right after, and third parties working on plugins for Torque2d, Unity, Gamemaker, DarkBasic, MultimediaFusion 2, as well as a general C++ API. And once it's released, the software would simply cost $25 bucks. No, really. Here's the Kickstarter page, where the beta is also linked for download. If you support more games having smoother, detailed animations and graphics, please support the Kickstarter fund!

Even the Street View is in 8-bit!

Okay, seriously, how the hell have I not noticed this before? This game looks goddamn amazing. Damn it, I want to play this so badly. And I goddamn envy your pixel art abilities, seriously.

Once again, .capx updated, and I have a status report. I think I've isolated the cause of the angle problem. In the "Calculate Player Angle" section, in the original .cap, there's this: In C2: Note the function at the bottom - it's using an "Else" under a function, and a function within a function is pretty much impossible in C2 because of the way the Function plugin works, so... I had to substitute a variable in there to replace both the function and the else, and use an action to reset the variable after the "function" is completed, which, logically, should function perfectly. However, turns out it doesn't. I tried the same work-around in the Classic .cap. The results were... Enlightening. It prevents Sonic from rolling while moving on slopes while moving in both engines, but it doesn't cause the angle to go haywire in Classic. I'm gonna try and get some help from the Scirra forums on this one.

To be fair, Not ALL of UDK's assets are shit. The stuff from UT3 certainly looks like shit, but some of the demos have some really colourful assets. The Epic Citadel especially has some fantastic, realistically-coloured stuff, though only some of the assets can really work outside of that specific level, unfortunately. Anyway, looks fantastic. I really wish there were more quality open-source 3D assets out there, it would certainly help for people trying to make 3D levels.

I'm gonna see if I can actually register. Also... It's amusing how they're developing a Vita version when the Vita is pretty much bombing in Japan, if not a complete failure there. I'm not sure how much the Vita has actually sold on the other side of the pacific, though, but it can't be a lot, I imagine.

Awesome. Alright, some pros and cons: Pros: - Oh, geez, the visuals are superb. - Some sections do give you that feeling of incredible speed. - Physics seem good enough. Cons: - Some questionable level design - the pit with the spikes on the lower path with a spring that often makes you hit the side of one of those tiny platforms, resulting in you falling to your doom. - The camera involving springs can result in a 'where the hell am I going' feeling. - When you lose rings, only three rings at most are dropped, and they disappear way too quickly. - Mercy invincibility after you get damaged is incredibly short.

Hey, could you upload it to another place other than FileFactory? Damn thing won't let me download the demo.

Yeah, me neither. I just can't figure it out.

Alright, update. The .capx has been updated, with: - Input fixed properly, thanks to DW. - Animations are fixed up and ready to go, though animation speeds do need tweaking, such as running. Currently, the main issues are stemming from moving on slopes (and possibly on edges). It may be a collision issue, I'm not sure. I sincerely doubt collision polygons are the reason.

Alright, it definitely works better. Hmm. I'll try and go through the events, see if maybe I should replace all the functions with variables, because the Function plugin might be stuffing things up. But if the Player variable doesn't work here... Hmm. Looks like I'm gonna have to figure something else out for multiplayer functionality. Edit: Nope, turns out replacing the functions only makes things worse. Capx updated.

Also, for the record, the free edition of Construct 2 has a couple of limitations, including a 100-event limit, so you can't really make anything substantial without the Standard edition, though that is pretty darn cheap compared to MMF2.

Alright, I've been working on a Construct 2 version of this engine, though I have run into a few hurdles. What works: - Angles - Movement (limited) - Actions (also to a limited degree) - Animations What doesn't work right now: - I honestly can't tell if the input system is working right or something is just plain off. When trying to get jumping to work, "Key_A" works with only a short hop, but "Key_A_Pressed" doesn't seem to make it work. Bizzare. - Sonic barely moves when moving left and right, and the Action variable seems to be constantly set on 0. Sonic also not doing his walking/running animations also has some worrying implications. Hopefully, fixing these problems will hopefully make it work right... Hopefully. Playable Demo! Construct 2 .capx, release 90, requires Standard license (also requires the