[SUGGESTION] Frame Editor

[Lt. Smash]

SUGGESTION

Frame Editor



Description:

Double click on a frame in a view(3.0.0) opens the Frame Editor. You can select the sprites you want to use for that frame. You can drag'n'drop them into a zoomed version(you can change the zoom level) of your current frame and combine as many as you want.
And you can set the Z-Axis of that frame. So if the frames aren't the same height the animation isn't jumping.
[not necessarly necessary] And theres a button, if you click on it, you will be able to set the transparent pixels.

It's useful:

- When you have many gesture views.
For example:
You have a character who points to something while he is speaking or not.
So you would have to draw him pointing and pointing while speaking. But with this implemented you could draw him normal pointing(without speaking) and combine him with his speaking head frames. It's the way LucasArts did. (f.e. Indy FoA)
When you create another gesture you would only have to draw it normal and combine it with his head.

- If you have many characters (f.e. background chars) and you don't want to draw them all ,you just create one and change his head or give him something in his hands or (warriors) change his weapon.


This SUGGESTION would save you a lot of drawing work.
I hope that others think too that this is a good addition and it will be implemented.

[Khris]

You can do a similar thing as workaround already:

Code: ags

// player character is cBody
cHead.FollowCharacter(cBody, FOLLOW_EXACTLY, 0);

Animate cBody for the gestures and let cHead do the talking.
This should be handier, too, because it has two advantages:
-way less sprites
-two completely independent AGS-characters for gestures and talking, so managing them is much easier

edit: spelling

[Pumaman]

While KhrisMUC has suggested a good workaround, I do like the idea of being able to combine sprites in a frame. It won't happen for 2.8, but it's certainly something I'll have a think about.

[Lt. Smash]

While KhrisMUC has suggested a good workaround, I do like the idea of being able to combine sprites in a frame. It won't happen for 2.8, but it's certainly something I'll have a think about.

I'm glad you like the idea. Hopefully you will decide to implement it. Maybe for 3.0.1