Animating characters and AGS image editor

[Shrew]

Yeah, 8-bit...Idk about it. I made a few bitmap sprites and, within the confines of my own expectations, there is no way I could go less than 32 color depth.

So everything is swimmingly, bc of you guys and Youtube vids, (thank you for caring to reply!) save that my sprites are not animating due to my not being able to use the Image Editor.

Yes, I have taken time before posting this to find this issue's forum post: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=47094.0

Obviously, I do not know how exactly the Image Editor should look, but it should open after buffering once I double-click on a sprite, and all its doing is the buffer message, paraphrase: 'Opening Image Editor'



Its pretty puzzling. Screwed with some stuff within AGS file, nothing has made a difference.

[Cassiebsg]

The "Sprite Editor" is just your external image editing program, you need to go to the settings and tell AGS what program to open when you double click the sprite.
I never use that, I just open my image program and make my sprites there, once they are finished, I save them and then import into AGS.

[Snarky]

Yeah, 8-bit...Idk about it. I made a few bitmap sprites and, within the confines of my own expectations, there is no way I could go less than 32 color depth.

Just making sure: You know the difference between 32-bit color and 32 colors, right? 8-bit supports up to 256 colors; while 32-bit covers every color the computer is capable of producing.

So everything is swimmingly, bc of you guys and Youtube vids, (thank you for caring to reply!) save that my sprites are not animating due to my not being able to use the Image Editor.

Yes, I have taken time before posting this to find this issue's forum post: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=47094.0

Obviously, I do not know how exactly the Image Editor should look, but it should open after buffering once I double-click on a sprite, and all its doing is the buffer message, paraphrase: 'Opening Image Editor'

Well, as mentioned previously and in the other thread, AGS doesn't have a built-in image editor. When you double-click, what happens is that AGS tries to figure out which application is set to open image files in Windows (or you can specify some other program), and launch that application. That might fail for various reasons, but the main point here is that YOU DON'T NEED TO DO THIS. There's no need to open the image editor from within AGS.

What is it you're trying to achieve, and why do you think you need the image editor?

As a quick general-purpose help attempt, here's how you would normally make an animated character in AGS:

-Draw sprites in some paint application outside of AGS
-Import the sprites into your AGS project, using the "Sprites" node in the project explorer
-Create a view with animation loops for the different directions ("View" node in the project explorer)
-Create a new character, set its NormalView property to the view you just created

Wait, what version of AGS is that? Looks like 2.7 or something? That's, like, ten years old. I'd strongly recommend using the latest version, 3.3. You'll have a hard time getting help for such an outdated version of the program.

[Shrew]

*Blushes*

Well. Now I know. Which is great for me not saying idiotic things in front of software developers, so Thank You. I'd rather feel humiliation via forums than in front of executives.

I was trying to find 'What it might look like' as a visual reference for people to know what I was speaking of. That's all that was. Thought it would help, had opposite effect; Apologies.

The Loops on my sprites will not populate the frames to create the walking animation. I hope I termed that correctly. So: First box: My sprite essentially stays the same image throughout all of the boxes, so when I animate the sprite, nothing happens.

Thanks Snarky! 😳

[Shrew]

And no, I do have the latest version of AGS.

Remember, my POV is Sales, so I think about 'let me see what this could possibly be or look like via Google so people in the forums know what I am talking about'

That's it.

[Mandle]

So: First box: My sprite essentially stays the same image throughout all of the boxes, so when I animate the sprite, nothing happens.

Double-click (or just click...I forget...) on the boxes to go back to the sprite list and choose a different sprite from there to replace it with.

[Shrew]

Hey Mandle,
I have tried using different sprites, same thing happens. Unfortunately.

I put the sprites in Folders too because I would attempt to populate from Frame 0 with one sprite, and if another sprite is in that former sprite's folder, it will go to Frame 1 with the latter sprite, from Frame 0 of the former sprite, which thus equates to two sprites in the same line of Frame, without any automated action per Frame that would percievably 'Animate' the sprite. But, if placed in separate Folders, it will only work with the sprite in that folder. It is odd.

So nothing will animate at all. So. I want the sprite to populate its Frames in a continuous motion so that it walks. Instead of being in perpetual paralyzed state within each Frame.

I hope I explained that alright. Tried my best.

Snarky I am importing my sprites already. I'm doing it from PIQ; bitmap. Done some on Paint too.

[Snarky]

I gotcha, bmg. Don't worry, I know it can be hard to communicate through text explanations, especially when you don't yet know all the special terms. Some misunderstandings are to be expected.

And I remember from when I started with AGS that the animation was one of the things I found most unintuitive.

OK, so to start off, a "sprite" is a frame (well, technically it is any graphic; the point is that it's not in itself a full animation). To make an animation, you need to import multiple, different sprites: one for each frame in the animation. As you say, you can put the ones that belong together in a sprite folder.

Then when you go to the "View" tab, you create or select a loop, and create or select frames in that loop. This lets you pick which sprite to use for that frame. (As you also say, when you create a new frame it picks the next sprite in sequence by default, so if your sprite folders are already sorted in the order of the animation, it should be very easy to assign frames.)

If you select different sprites for different frames, the loop will be an animation. To actually see it animate in the editor, you need to turn on the preview (I forget whether that's the actual name), and select the "animate" checkbox. Select the loop your animation is in. At this point, it definitely should play the animation. Now if you assign this view to the character (as the NormalView, which is the stand poses and walkcycle), it should also animate in-game.

[Grok]

There is a series of tutorials that I found very helpful when I started learning about how AGS works (still learning) Link

Tutorial 2 and 3 deals with sprites, views and characters

[Shrew]

Wanted to respond after sleep happened to me. Also, changed my username to correspond with old tag name. Plus I did it part time anyway, so. A rodent defines my identity much more thoroughly than the state of not having food.

Ok, so!

Snarky, Mandle, I think I understand this now. The issue is my misinterpretation of the Densming Youtube tutorial: The actions of the character were not populated per Frame, Densming created/imported sprites of the movement for the progression of character mobility per frame. The lack of awareness lies in that those Frames were imported and simply were placed numerically within the Frames, but had already been created.

So that's what I'm going to do at noon today. Make additional Frames.

I don't want to thank Snarky and everybody before being certain I have got it though, so I'll get back to yall.

[Shrew]

Made my first animation.

All of you are terrific, especially Snarky (!).

Really cool, I can't stop watching it.

Thank you!!!

[RickJ]

Congratulations!

.. Really cool, I can't stop watching it.

Hehe ... I think that was my reaction to my first animation way back when.