arranging the sprite order in animation

Hello!

I'm kinda new to this and I'm making my first construct game.

I'm setting the standing animation, for example, and I find it very weird that the program doesn't have a simple way to list the sprites you want in the order you want.

For example, in the M.U.G.E.N. engine (an old engine created to make fighting games) you import your sprites and then work in the animation editor, where you code things like this:

;----------------------------------

; Standing Animation

2,0, 0,0, 15

2,1, 0,0, 3

2,2, 0,0, 15

2,1, 0,0, 5

2,0, 0,0, 15

2,1, 0,0, 3

2,2, 0,0, 15

2,1, 0,0, 5

;--------------------

The first line read like this:

-2,0 (number of the sprite)

-0,0 (doesn't alter the position of the sprite in X or Y)

-15 (duration of the sprite in ticks)

The soft reads all the lines form up to down and creates the animation this way. once it gets to the bottom it loops.

This is a great way to map the sprites inside the animation and put the sprites in the order you want, with the duration you want and repeat them as you want.

So, I can't find this in construct. It looks like I'm forced to import the frames in the correct order, can't repeat a frame in the middle put at the end, or any other stuff.

Is there an easy way like this to map the sprites in the animation?

Yes, by setting animation speed to 0 and do the frame changes with events.

hmmm sounds a lot more painintheassy that I expected.

this really should improve in the future I think.

what if 2 animations use the same sprite? Do you have to load it 2 times and occupy the double of the space? it's kinda dumb.

Please read the manual first. You'll see then, that you are confusing sprite objects, instances and frames.

You can do whatever you like with each instance of a sprite. The instances share the same frame sources, but the presentation of frames (e.g. their order, how long they are shown, etc.) is totally independant from other instances.

If you double click on a sprite (or right click, "Edit animations") you open the image editor.

With in the image editor there is an Animation frames window.

Right click on the Animation frames window and choose "Import frames"

(delete the first frame since you probably won't need it)

After the frames are imported you can move them (by dragging them around), duplicate them (right click, "Duplicate") and set the duration for each individual frame from the Properties panel/Frame properties/Frame speed. The default speed is 1 which means that if the whole animation speed is 12 (in the Animations window, default animation), construct will play 12 frames in a second. If you set the frame duration (speed) to 2 on all frames, construct will play 6 frames in 1 second. You can mix and match the frame speeds to your liking, duplicate them and move them around and play back the animations looped and/or ping-pong looped...

Read the manual for more information.

Oh, i see.

So, what I was failing to understand is that the loaded frames don't take space in the game since they are being taken from the disk. then I guess once you compile the final game each one is loaded only once.

since I was making one of the begginners tutorials I somehow didn't think about the manual.

I got how the order of frames work now, too.

thanks for the advice!