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Geek Culture / New Animation Tool

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old_School
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Posted: 17th Sep 2011 01:07
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This is a new animation tool for 2d artist who need something to help test their creations. The tool will be apart of a "toolbox" collection of tools for project building for 2d builders. So far I have a map designer tool, animation tool and a few others. Not sure on a price yet for the entire tool box but i thinking around $30.00 U.S. total. We will likely include a special tool for "small" teams to allow them to setup, host and communicate with each other using a special webchat software were creating. Of course the toolbox version will be likely limited to a max of 10 or less connections but more than enough for a small indie team to communicate/hold meetings with out interruptions. Here is a screen shot of the animation tool. It still needs a few touch ups. The "backgrounds" listed our just generic backgrounds for your animations. They simply provide a genric "platoform" image for your animation.











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zenassem
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Posted: 17th Sep 2011 06:47 Edited at: 17th Sep 2011 06:53
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Looks nice, but what would this toolbox offer me that I can't get with Tile Studio, Tiled, and/or Mappy (All of which are free [mappy Pro version is $15], and Tile Studio has built-in DBpro code generation (with a fixed config file) beyond the built-in chat?

Tile Studio http://tilestudio.sourceforge.net/
TS Tile Editor

TS Map Editor


Tiled http://www.mapeditor.org/
Can handle Orthog/Iso maps

Mappy http://www.tilemap.co.uk/mappy.php
Can handle Iso maps as well


I'm not against paying for software either. In fact I own Promotion, due to it's ease of use, and it's light board and other features (color cylcing) that make the animated sprite creation process flow better.

Your signature has been erased by a mod please reduce it to 600 x 120.
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old_School
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Posted: 17th Sep 2011 17:52
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Never used it and that looks like a painting tool for making tiles. My tool is a animation tool for testing your animations easily. Ooo I see what your asking. No the Tile map builder Im making is for the concept artist. The tool box will be a collection of tools to help you plan your project and test things so you dont waste hours building a rig to test things. My biggest annoyance with 2D is building stupid rigs to test my stuff to find out its broke or needs adjusted. So Im making the toolbox not only for my self but to sell as well. I think its the one thing everyone overlooks engine wise. Granted planning a game can and could still be done the ole fashion way by paper pen. This way of planing gives you a detailed benchmark and real data to review before begaining the project. so it will prove to be a much better way to plan and build projects vs. paper pen. You also get a good look at your project before its even built. I'm highly considering calling it "Concept Artist Toolbox". However, it does so much more but its mainly geared toward planing stages which falls into "game concept". Still fairly early in devolpment stages. We expect to see a demo toolbox around X-mas or early next year.
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Oolite
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Posted: 18th Sep 2011 02:20 Edited at: 18th Sep 2011 02:21
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I don't mean to be a buzzkill but I wouldn't buy this concept artist toolkit or whatever you're calling it when it's finished.
If I want a map editor I'm going to use DAME or the Ogmo Editor.
If I need to do some 2d animation I've the Gimp animation Package or better yet, Pencil
If I need some painting software I've got GIMP or Paint.NET.
If I wanted to talk with my team I'm going to use any one of the messenger clients around today.
If I need to keep an online repository for code or share it across the internet with my team then there are a plethora of ways to do that.

I've now managed to supply my team with everything they would need, for free, rather than paying $30 per seat.

I'm all up for creating in house programs to help streamline the development process but these are usually heavily custom tailored to the current project and when it comes to selling, they are usually only applicable to a few.
Now i'm in no way saying stop, I think all in one packages are a good thing, but only if they are done right. If i'm going to shell out money for one of these I want it to include everything that the free equivalent has to offer and more. Lets say you include all of the features that the free equivalent has, but it comes in a one time purchase tasty single download, I'm still not going to get it. The time it takes to download all of those programs is quite small and I'm not going to miss the time, I'm sure going to miss $30 though.
I think if you are going to sell it then you need to go all out, put some real effort into the UI design, make it easy on the eyes and make sure that everything is where it needs to be (there are countless tutorials/papers/blog posts on this kind of stuff), make sure it's feature rich (so many features that you wouldn't even be able to fit it on the back of the package!) and price it reasonably. $30 sounds fair but I would be put off the moment I looked at a screenshot, it looks hastily put together, whether it works or not the aesthetics are going to be the first thing someone sees and it will be a make or break deal.

I think i'm done...

I look forward to seeing how this progresses.
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old_School
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Posted: 18th Sep 2011 05:37
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Well animation is .... well animation its somethign you need to see in a video form. Screen shots really do no justice for a animation software. If I get time to grab fraps or something, I'll record a real time demostration and post it. I agree as well Gimp and Paint net are great as well. I use them my self. But their a pain to setup well I think at least. Plus Im not like super good at animation so this tool allows me to click a button boom animation is done and ready to test. Anyway, no real point stringing out a debate here, a video i think will speak for its self how useful or unuseful people may find the software.
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Van B
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Posted: 19th Sep 2011 14:40
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Ideally animation would be supported in a sprite editor, because I find that making a rough version first is best. For example, I would make 8 sprites and rough out a running animation, but the problem isn't simply viewing this animation, it's more troubling to get the animation looking fluid. Even if you had very basic drawing functions it would be good - maybe do a sprite in solid colours, get the animation right, then tidy it up in an art package.

Personally I like using ProMotion for these things, then PSP for shading etc, as I really miss using layers when using ProMotion. For a program that just lets me see the animation loop, well I'd be more likely to just test that in the engine.

Also, 2D animation can be a lot more complex these days, and perhaps those complexities are where your program could become much more useful. For instance in my current project, I have a monkey who swings and celebrates on a vine, and some of the frames are different size and orientation. I think that if you added pivot point control, rotation, and scaling - well it would make gathering that data much easier. My monkey has about 90 frames of animation, each with scale, offset, and rotation data - I used keyboard commands to adjust these in the engine and saved the results, and that's not really the sort of thing I want to do every time my animations get complex.

Health, Ammo, and bacon and eggs!
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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 19th Sep 2011 19:37 Edited at: 19th Sep 2011 19:39
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It seems that you jumped in Geek Culture with some blank screens. There is a Work In Progress section, and a program announcements section where you see a lot more than this. If you think a program deserves Geek Culture viewing then I would suggest that it is something that nobody should miss, and show a lot more than blank screens.

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Grog Grueslayer
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Playing: Green Hell
Posted: 19th Sep 2011 20:49 Edited at: 19th Sep 2011 20:49
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@ Old_School:

That last screen shot is the reason why I keep asking you to focus on Darkbasic Pro instead of Visual Basic. Anytime you want to tell the user something its put into a small window with a button that has to be clicked to continue.

Window Opens:
I'm picking my nose...
[ Ok ]

Window Opens:
Done picking my nose.
[ Ok ]

Window Opens:
Now I'm blowing my nose.
[ Ok ]

Window Opens:
Nose blowing completed.
[ Ok ]

Augh!

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xplosys
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Posted: 19th Sep 2011 21:11
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Quote: "Anytime you want to tell the user something its put into a small window with a button that has to be clicked to continue."


Not really. That's just the way he handles it but there are better, more modern options. Visual Basc doesn't have to look so.... "old_School". You actually have to work at it to make it look old.

Brian.

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old_School
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Posted: 19th Sep 2011 23:48
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I'm going to have to agree with Brian here lol I really do work hard at making my stuff look old. Maybe its just me but I think the old 80's gfx style looks kinda cool on programs. that and my art skills sucks any way so yeah just kinda ll come together lol

@ Van
Yeah working on make it into a sprite on output. at this point the tool its self is completed but were researching different output methods we might be able to add to it. Its also not on the top of the list so thats why I stated this will be released next year most likely.

Anyway with VB is mostly for Tools and not games. So we hit alot of brick walls sometimes when we cross the line so to speak. But we also enjoy the chalenge of the brick walls. So it makes for alot of fun and interesting brainstorming.
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xplosys
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Posted: 20th Sep 2011 00:04
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If you don't mind I'd like to make a couple of suggestions that would make it easier to use and update for yourself and the end user.

-Instead of using a long list of colors to pick from, a "color picker" would give the user more options and unlimited custom colors.

-Use a "file picker" for the backgrounds and return only the extensions your program allows. The file picker automatically displays thumbnails of each background and if the end user wants to add backgrounds later, he need only to add them to the folder, not deal with the form.

-Use a toolbar instead of the old style buttons. When you need to add/change buttons, you won't need to change the form or position/size of the current buttons.

-Close up the controls and narrow the borders of the form to get rid of wasted space. If done properly, you won't need to consider the form background because there won't be enough of it visible to worry about.

Good luck with the project.

Brian.

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old_School
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Posted: 20th Sep 2011 00:30
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I think those were allready discussed and in the works for the final version when we go back to tweak it lol. I make my software weirdly. I make a fully working mockup version aka one above then I go back and start tweaking it. i guess its kinda a weird way to make software but I need something to physicaly see most of the time rather then just code. So its allways good for me to get the mockup software completed as you see above. Thanks for the thoughts though, it will liley be switched over to those methods.
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