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)
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)
