TOOL: 2D Character Creator/Animator

Started by skuttleman, Thu 14/03/2013 03:56:47

Previous topic - Next topic

skuttleman

2D Character Creator/Animator/Manager/Pending Title

Description:

I can't draw. Plain and simple. And more importantly, I don't like to draw. I keep hoping that if I close my eyes real tight and click my heels together three times, my game will draw itself. When I discovered SSH's Walkcycle Generator, I thought my problems were solved. But for too long I've been pushing the limits of that tool beyond what it is supposed to do, and I finally decided to build what you might call a "spiritual successor" to that program which lends itself to more powerful control over animation with an emphasis on multiple characters.

It looks a little something like this:


This is the character editor.


This is the animation editor.

Here are samples created with this tool (all of which are included in the download):


Features:

  - Create tens of thousands of animations for tens of thousands of characters.
  - Up to 30 body parts per character
  - Up to 50 frames per animation
  - 8-directional character prototypes for each character to be used in creating their animations
  - Any sprite in the sprite pool can be assigned to individual body parts for individual frames
  - It utilizes a bone structure to connect body parts (move or rotate a part, and all parts connected to it move!)
  - Bones that connect to the central bone (typically the torso) connect at a radius and angle relative to the center of the central bone (so if your characters lean over, connecting bones will move accordingly)
  - Watch your animation animate, to make sure it plays the way you want before you export it for easy importing into your game.

Status:
v0.9.1 is now available.

Download v0.9.1 here!

This is still in beta, so backup any characters or animations you made before trying to load them into the new editor.

Change list:
- Bones can be moved/deleted/added in the Character Editor without ruining the animations. (You must update any characters and animations made with v0.9 by loading them with v0.9.1 and then saving them)
- Click and drag body parts in Animation Editor will move the body part. Hold <CTRL> to rotate the body part. Hold <CTRL> and <SHIFT> to rotate the body part and all parts connected to it and all parts connected to that, etc... (Useful for rotating the entire leg, or rotate the entire graphic from the torso, or whatever bone you setup at index 0.) The body part you click on is selected based on the rectangle it's drawn in, and whichever one is drawn on top (highest Z-order) so you might accidentally click a body part different from the one you're aiming to click. I hope to fix that in future versions.
- Reload Sprite Pool from Animation Editor, so you can easily edit or create new graphics in you sprite folder and use them immediately. (This can already be done in Character Editor by selecting the box to change the sprite folder, and hitting enter)
- Characters and animations made with (or loaded and saved into) v0.9.1 can now have the same name without causing problems.
- Using cursor keys and pg/pg down to navigate through list boxes. Enter/Esc will respond appropriately to input boxes.
- Ability to set a "ghost" frame while editing an animation to more easily line up subsequent frames (hollow version of ghosted frame appears behind animating character)
- Added ability to identify any bone as an "origin" bone in the Character Editor. This effects whether bones connecting to that bone connect at the endpoint (based on what it connects to, it's length, and it's angle) or to connect to a relative angle and radius from the center of this bone (the way you must connect to bone 0) This allows you to connect multiple bones in multiple places to the same bone (for example both upper legs connect to different spots of the hip bone, or both upper arms connect to different spots of the shoulder bone)
- Ability to create templates from animations that can be used to make animations for new characters you create with ease!

If anyone has actually used this tool, I'd love to see some animations you've made. And please let me know if you find any bugs or errors.



If you're scared of change, you can still download v0.9 here.

Features planned for future versions:
- A comprehensive menu system and more tools for editing animations (instead of a single gui cluttered with buttons...)
- Make a character move while previewing an animation (useful for testing walking animations)
- "Undo" feature
- More accurate selection of body parts while moving or rotating them with the mouse
- Ability to create animations with multiple characters (if you want to animate them fighting, for example)

Khris

I have to say, I can feel my corneas peel off from looking at those screenshots :-D
Please replace them with PNGs.

Also, when I run the program, everything is listed twice; I'm seeing two identical entries for "Old Man" and for "Woman", and each view is also listed twice. Is this how it's supposed to be?

Other than that, this is outstanding work, something I have been wanting to do since forever but never got around to.

skuttleman

Quote from: Khris on Thu 14/03/2013 11:15:33
Also, when I run the program, everything is listed twice; I'm seeing two identical entries for "Old Man" and for "Woman", and each view is also listed twice. Is this how it's supposed to be?

Ha! That's what I get for doing a last minute change before uploading it. This has been fixed and the linked zip file contains the correct number of files (and notice the sexy new screen shots!) - quick fix instead of re-downloading, delete all the files in the main directory that have 5-digit numbers in the filename, and leave the ones that have 6-digit numbers.

Notice also, I've added a warning in the main topic entry for anyone using this tool.

Cheers!

MurrayL

Looks interesting. Can you make a sample animated gif of some example output?

skuttleman

Quote from: MurrayL on Thu 14/03/2013 13:31:57
Looks interesting. Can you make a sample animated gif of some example output?

Done!

SSH

Glad that someone picked up the baton where my laziness had dropped it!
12

skuttleman

Version 0.9.1 is available here!

See the list of changes in original post. This is still beta, so backup your character and animation files before loading and editing them in the new version.

If anyone is using this, I'd love to see any animations you've made!

Kasander

Hey, this looks cool. I'll try it out next time I'm animating my doodles:)

BTW, how's the progress on your spy game skuttleman?

jwalt

First, thanks SSH, Kweepa, and Skuttleman for making the effort to do this along the way. I've learned things from all three programs.
    For skuttleman, I brought your animated Woman sprite into a test game, and I had problems with the size of the sprite. I eliminated the unused area in the images, and things started working normally. I'm wondering if this was expected, or intentional? I need to play with your program some more, but did I do something wrong, or is the program able to reduce the usuused area around the sprite? Also, is there any way to change the colors used in the background screens? It's giving me a three D effect, and limiting the time I can spend with the program without getting a headache. Again, thanks for making the effort, and best wishes to making it happen!

Stupot

Thanks, Skuttleman. I'll definitely have a play around with this.  I looked at SSH's tool but it seems yours is more appropriate for my game's resolution. The nightmare of facing character art and  walkcycles is definitely one of the main reasons most of my projects grind to a halt. Maybe with this I can push a little bit further and maybe finish the damn thing :)

jwalt

Skuttleman, I believe I may have caused the issue I mentioned above. I made a gif file, and brought that into the game. Out of curiosity, I brought in the "raw" images and assigned them to one of the walk cycles. I'm getting a "jump" in the character when I move her in that direction, but that may be caused by my still using the gif file images in the other directions.
     I also made some minor modifications to your gal, adding a skirt. I was impressed with the way the program animated the skirt. If I can figure out how to do it, I'll try to post the skirt walking gif. Right now, I have no online image storage. Nor am I experienced with the tags to include it in my post. I know where to find that information. The desire to respond to this thread prompted me to give up my lurker status and take the required test to post on this forum.



skuttleman

Quote from: jwalt on Wed 03/04/2013 19:34:45
I eliminated the unused area in the images, and things started working normally. I'm wondering if this was expected, or intentional?
I suppose the best answer is it's intentional. The thought process being that someone could create larger animations if they wanted without the images being cut off, so I made the tool export a frame larger than I would ever likely need. In a future version, I'm planning to add the ability to define an "export rectangle" so it will pre-crop the images before you export them. For now, you'll just have to crop them manually.

Quote from: jwalt on Wed 03/04/2013 19:34:45
Also, is there any way to change the colors used in the background screens?
I'm redoing the interface anyway, so I'll see if I can't fix the color scheme.

Quote from: Stupot+ on Wed 03/04/2013 23:39:25
Maybe with this I can push a little bit further and maybe finish the damn thing :)
Every time I was faced with needing to create new animations for my game, I put it down for six months. It's nice to know people are using this tool!

jwalt

Let's see if I can do this correctly...

[ img ] http://i1341.photobucket.com/albums/o756/jwalt10705/skirtWalker_zps1bc762e7.gif  [ /img]

This is still largely Skuttleman's Woman. I changed the head and leg sections, and I recolored the torso and hips. Comement from a friend about her being a hula dancer.

Apologize in advance if this doesn't work.

Stupot

These are pretty good results Jwalt. I can't wait to have a play around with this.

skuttleman

Quote from: Stupot+ on Thu 04/04/2013 14:44:26
These are pretty good results Jwalt.
Agreed! I really like the skirt.

Quote from: jwalt on Thu 04/04/2013 14:33:58
I'm going to have to rethink the way I've been doing hands and feet, since they're used on both sides.
You don't HAVE to use the same image for left and right hands, that's just how I do it for my characters. You also could create separate "bones" for the hands if you wanted to animate them differently.

Monsieur OUXX

Can I suggest something? Could you make it possible to "export" the animation skelettons, so that AGSers can exchange them? We could have a small database of walka animations: "animation for a man's walk", "animation for a woman's walk", "animation for an old person's walk", "animation for a vixen", "animation for a gorilla", "animation for a nerd", etc. All those stereotypical characters that we find in most point n'click.
 

skuttleman

Quote from: Monsieur OUXX on Fri 05/04/2013 12:12:23
Could you make it possible to "export" the animation skelettons
That's easy enough. It'll be in the next release (probably a few weeks, free-time pending).

Anian

Quote from: Monsieur OUXX on Fri 05/04/2013 12:12:23
Can I suggest something? Could you make it possible to "export" the animation skelettons, so that AGSers can exchange them? We could have a small database of walka animations: "animation for a man's walk", "animation for a woman's walk", "animation for an old person's walk", "animation for a vixen", "animation for a gorilla", "animation for a nerd", etc. All those stereotypical characters that we find in most point n'click.
The basic problem with internet is that there is very little walking reference for realistic (non cartoon exaggerated) walk, in fact I only found one good youtube reference channel and for still frames it'd be Muybridge photos, because they both offer front and side views and a grid. Even in Animator's survival guide it's almost always cartoony walking (yes there are tips and principles that offer a good guide, but they too lack non-cartoony front walking for example). Even when there's a realistic female walk for example, then the problem comes with walk on heels (which is again different).
What I'm saying is that a database of stick figures might be good but it'll be a lot of work to cover everything.

Don't get me started with diagonal walk, that's practically impossible to find.
I don't want the world, I just want your half

SSH

So, when are you adding direct export to GIF? :)

Also, sounds like an auto-space-trim feature would help, but I haven't used it in anger myself yet.
12

Monsieur OUXX

Quote from: Anian on Fri 05/04/2013 13:14:01
a database of stick figures might be good but it'll be a lot of work to cover everything.

yeah but we could have a dedicated thread where artists could contribute over several years, a bit like modules.
 

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk