Import images suggesetion (again)

Heyo, I'm posting this in a new thread cause I don't know if many people saw it and for some reason the search isn't working so i can't find my old thread lol

Anyways i think an AMAZING idea for the import images dialog that would reduce the time required to import sprites/animations from a file (or series) would be and option in the import image dialog that allows you to create a new angle of animation of X degrees every Y frames. This is mostly for those of us that like to render sprites, although i can see it also helping with the tileset animations too.

For example, i have a series of images, let's say, a 64 direction animation of 10 frames per angle

With the option i suggested, you could have like two text boxes like this:

Every '10' frames, create a new animation angle of '5.625' degrees

Then, the massive job of creating 64 angles then copying, pasting into new direction, deleting old frames in the currently clunky animation bar is reduced to a few seconds.

Any dev feedback on this idea? I think it would be invaluable and hopefully not too hard to code, you would just have to check that the angle size compared to the amount of frames being imported doesn't loop around beyond 360 or something.

I think the only person that replied to the last time i posted this idea was Quazi and he liked the idea so it MUST be good

Two problems.

The animator bar only allows for eight different angles right now.

Then the import it self would have to have some sort of naming formula, so the images that were to be imported would all have to be renamed beforehand.

The animator bar only allows for eight different angles right now.

I don't think it does, I have a game that already uses a 64 animation angle sprite

You may be thinking that because there are only icons for eight directions that it only supports eight, but it actually supports an almost limitless amount of angles (you can have animation angles of 50.6534 for example)

[quote:iyatvd2s]Then the import it self would have to have some sort of naming formula, so the images that were to be imported would all have to be renamed beforehand.

I think you're thinking i have each animation direction as a separate file/series. But that is not the case.

What i do when i render my animation, let's say the walk animation. In my render program i set up the walk cycle to repeat over and over, then every time one cycle is complete, i move the camera to the next angle, rinse and repeat till all directions are rendered. This one long series of animation directions is saved as a series of numbered images. This saves me making multiple renders for each direction, i just render all directions at once BECAUSE (at least in TGF/MMF days) the hotspot when importing animations is ALWAYS the centre of the FIRST image in the series (or at least the centre of all images in the series). Meaning, if i import all my animations in one go, the hotspot is in the correct place for ALL directions. Again, saving a buttload of time.

But the suggestion i made about creating a new animation angle of Y every X frames, would DRASTICALLY reduce the whole process into one easy procedure. Leaving more time for coding rather than fiddling around with animations and hotspots

I really don't know how it's coded but I personally don't see it as being much of a hurdle.

AND WOULD LOVE TO HAVE IT IMPLEMENTED

Yes you can have many angles, but the loader is not set up that way, and neither is the properties bar.

So they would both have to be changed.

As to the images I meant all at once as you suggested, but what I'm saying is how would the loader know what image is what? You would have to have a naming pattern that the loader would recognize, ie 45degreestep1 45degreestep2, 46degreestep1, 46degreestep2, etc.

I guess you could just name them numerically 1-100, etc, but that might make it harder to use within the editor.

I'm not sure what you mean about the properties bar, if you mean the animation editor, it's more than equiped to handle this if you ask me, i'm assuming when you say loader you mean the import image dialog, but you saying the loader isn't equiped to do it is my very point, i'm suggesting that this be added. It's really a very simple idea

There is no need for a naming system, if you look at my suggestion i mentioned the idea, 'every X frames, create a new animation to keep importing into at the angle increment of Y degrees'

That means, it imports X amount of frames, then creates a new angle of Y degrees, then imports the next X amount of frames into the new angle etc etc

No naming necessary if it's told how many frames to make the next angle in, easy peasy

X and Y are obviously variables that the user tells the import dialog

for example, if i wanted a 10 frame animation spanning 16 directions i would tell the import dialog this:

Every 10 frames, create a new animation angle of 22.5 degrees

The import screen thingy would then start importing through the series of images that i had selected, creating a new angle every 10 frames.

Viola, all the work would be done!

I would really like to hear what the devs think of this idea because I believe it would streamline a lot of time consuming processes. Am I making myself clear about what i mean?

Sounds logical, I was planning to do some additions to the Animator soon, such as these:

• copy/paste animations/angles
• add several angles at the same time
• import gif files
• create a new angle per 'x' frames when importing

I'll see if I can get them done this weekend.

[quote:jqka1dw1]I'm not sure what you mean about the properties bar

Over where you add behaviors, you can choose the number of angles.

It would need to be set to correlate to the number of angles you would have in the animator.

newt, you wouldnt need a strange naming convention.

youd just need 01,02,03 ect like youd normaly do for any animation

then you tell the importer to make a new animation angle every 10 frames and give that animation angle +10 degrees or wtv from the last.

starcraft hold its animations in this way, a marine walks for 3 frames, and then the angle changes and he walks for another 3 frames, etc. and that would be 6 frames

It would need to be set to correlate to the number of angles you would have in the animator.

It actually wouldn't need to correlate at all, if you had any animations in angles that aren't displayed due to the object's angle constrictions, they simply just wouldn't be displayed.

It's up to the designer to make sure the animation angles and object angles correlate

Rich: Yay thanks man that's awesome, you guys rock

There's no issue to having as many angles as you want in Construct (or shouldn't be, anyway, unless there's a bug). Hopefully we can get this implemented.