Animations editor new importing options

It is on my radar, unfortunately other things have gotten on the way and I don't know when I will be able to get back to this feature. I haven't forgotten about it it.

pandabear7413

The reason a folder is created for each animation is because the importer just tries to replicate what was dropped. So if you drop a folder with a bunch of images inside, that is exactly what the importer will create, a subfolder with an animation inside.

In your case, I think you will find using zip files useful.

The importer treats zip files just like a folder, with the key difference that it doesn't create a sub folder for it's contents.

Ej. 1: Create a folder, put two zip files inside of it with different images, now drop the folder into the animations pane. Doing this creates a sub folder with two animations inside of it.

Ej. 2: Drop two zip files with image content onto the animations pane. Doing this will create two different animations at the root level.

Just like a folder, a configuration file can be placed at the root of a zip file and it will affect the files down the file structure.

You can import all animations first, and then crop edges for all animations with a single click.

Thanks dop2000 for making me look twice! For some reason I remember there not being an 'apply to all animations' option. Maybe I was thinking of an 'apply to all animations IN FOLDER' option, which would have been helpful with my old workflow. But this new import feature makes that a thing of the past.

dop2000

If I recall correctly I didn't do it the first time around just to get something out.

In the mean time, it is now possible to copy and paste animations between object types. You can copy them using the context menu options of the animations panel or keyboard shortcuts (make sure focus is on the animations panel by clicking on it), close the Animations editor, open it again for a different object type and paste in the animations panel.

You can copy individual animations or sub folders.

Copy/Pasting animations and frames in the Editor and all the recent import improvements regarding the Animation Editor is 100% amazing, thank you so much for all those things !!

I have a feature request not exactly related to Import but concerning Export.

Export Current Animation or All Animations of the current Object as Spritesheets

Right now we only can save Images as invidual frames,

It would be totally awesome to be able to export each animation as an individual spritesheet.

By Default each animation would be named AnimationName_Fx1 (where F is the number of frames in the animation) and all frames would be aligned horizontally in a single-row spritesheet.

Why do we need export to spritesheets ?

- Because it would be very easy to color swap or add glow/outlines or effects to all frames of a character thanks to external software such as Photoshop.

(then we just have to drag and drop again each spritesheet in the corresponding animation in the Animation Editor, unless bulk import for Spritesheets is also implementing as in my previous suggestion).

- Right now it's very difficult to do such things as we have to do it manually for every single frame which is quite impossible to do.

- Also as always, spritesheets are better for file management, the whole animation is at just 1 location in our hard drive, it's easier to rename it, open the file in an external software in 1 click etc...

Optional Enhancement to Export as Spritesheets

1. Max Column Number option : When the current or all animations are exported as Spritesheet, it could first open a pop-up with a field asking the maximum number of columns the spritesheet should have.

- By default, there is no maximum of columns. Which means if I have a character with a 8 frames Walk Animation and a 12 frames Idle, it would export the spritesheet as Walk_8x1 and Idle_12x1.

- If i specify an other number of columns, let's say 3, it would export the spritesheets as Walk_3x3 (so it means the cell at X=3 and Y=3 would ne empty as there is only 8 frame in this animation) and Idle_4x3.

2. No Empty Column Boolean : If I specified 9 for example, the spritesheet Walk would be Walk_9x1 with the last frame empty. But there could be a "No Empty columns" boolean that would make this spritesheet exported as Walk_8x1 even if I specified as column number >= 9

3. Export Spritesheet with Data : In a second time, if bulk spritesheet import is implemented, there could also be a way to export Spritesheets with Points/Polygon Data so it can be imported later easily too.

EDIT : I forgot one important thing, as frames for an animation can have different pivot point and sizes, 1 cell of the spritesheet need to be able to have enough place so even if all frames are on top of each other in a single cell, nothing exceed the cell, and all their previous pivot point should be at the exact same position in the spritesheet.

Here is a visual example :

It doesn't work well, for Photoshop it's really slow and sometimes doesn't even work to open multiple files as layer and even if it worked it means you need to manually create your automated action each time which is pretty slow too. Also you still need to be able to export all those layer in individual frames and it's not ideal either.

I tried many many things and worklows, the best I found is that I created custom .bat scripts to automate the creation of Spritesheets from individual png directly from my Windows Explorer but even this method is not ideal and require extra steps each time.