[UTILITY] Win32 Sprite Animator (1.2.2.4)

[lirmont]

Download here: Sprite Animator (installer).

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Usage: "see" any image in action (whether in the context of the program via the preview function or outside the context of the program via animated .gif images).

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Features by Program Category

General

• Colored title bars within the interface are content organizers and behave like buttons.


• Click the title bar button once to expand or close the section the title bar controls.


• Double-click the title bar button to show only the section the title bar controls.

Preview Area

• Support for loading .bmp/.png files


• Support for compositing a .bmp/.png into an available format for display (see "View" -> "Available Formats" window for how you should format your sprite's filename).


• Support for loading and playing .ogg files (Ogg-Vorbis audio files).


• Automatic file reloading (you save your changes from a different program, the program loads them up without you doing anything; also applies to format document changes)


• Export frames as a .GIF animation (a couple clicks and you have something to show off; supports 50-1000%; bases dispose time on target animation milliseconds option in the program; "File" -> "Export Active Frames as GIF" -> "100%")


• Frame number overlay support


• Ghosting overlay of previous frame, next frame, or both previous and next frames (see how surrounding frames stack up against current frame)


• Transparency support, including an image background to help with sizing (bitmap files use the first available pixel's color as the color to use for transparency)


• Magnified view (not terribly functional right now, but allows you to see things larger if your frames are smaller than the magnified view area)


• Constructed palette view (shows all non-transparent, non-partially transparent colors used in the image; does not mean your image actually has a palette)


• Preview area scaling based on application size/resizing (does not affect export as animation)


• LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN navigation of frames (you have to click the loaded picture area first, though)


• Right-click in right-hand preview area to edit active frame.


• Right-click in left-hand preview area to manipulate preview size and position.


• Animate by named set (composite frame sets) support.

Begin New Format/Edit Existing Format

• Interface support for writing out the various parts of a format document.


• Right-click in areas to add colors, guides, tweens, and frames.


• Tween editing allows you to click and drag a selected point.


• Tween editing allows you to double-click in the drawing area to add a new point before the line, on the line, or after the line.


• Frame editing allows you to click and drag a box over an image to define a frame.

Edit Selected Frame

• Support for selecting individual frames (use the mouse to Left-Click a frame).


• Support for selecting multiple frames ("B" key while in drawing area; Left-Click to end selection; must include whole bounding box).


• Support for adding and removing frames within the selected composite frame.


• Support for several color blending modes (linear dodge, color burn, etc).


• Support for moving selected frames (Left-Click drag your selection; just make sure your initial Left-Click lands in one of the selected item's bounding boxes).


• Support for rotation ("R" key while something is selected).


• Support for scaling ("S" key while something is selected).


• Support for saving (only applies to formatted sprites; Right-Click in drawing area -> "Update Frame").


• Hardware support (as opposed to how the main window manually makes bitmaps out of all the data, this mode only loads the original image file along with formatting information).

Available Formats

• Supports XML formatting documents.


• Support for viewing a reference image of the format showing frame identifiers.


• Support for compositing the original image with the reference image.


• Support for magnifying/de-magnifiying the reference image pop-up window.


• Support for moving the reference image pop-up window (Left-Click and drag the image).


• Formats are used to take original images, define individual areas of the original images, and composite them into a finished product.

Constructed Palette

• Support for two modes: compressed view and expanded view.


• Lists all colors used in the original image in a visual way, including hexadecimal and HSB values (HSB stands for "Hue, Saturation, Brightness").


• Supports rendering a color's name if available.

File Format

• Provides storage for program set-up variables.


• Provides storage for reference image color protection during composition with original image.


• Provides storage for frame information in the format of: s, t, width, height (all in pixels; "s" is the starting x-coordinate; "t" is the starting y-coordinate).


• Provides storage for color & motion tween information.


• Provides storage for sound file references.


• Provides storage for guide lines used in the "Edit Selected Frame" area.


• Provides storage for composited frames using the frame and tween information from earlier along with manual adjustments to offset, scale, and blending mode.

FFT-related information:

• Effect 001 ("Cure"; ) has a formatting document that is included with the program (acquire the original bitmap from http://ffhacktics.com/effects.php; name it something like cure.fft-E001.bmp; load it with the program)


• Effect 024 ("Ice"; ) has a formatting document that is included with the program (acquire the original bitmap from http://ffhacktics.com/effects.php; name it something like ice.fft-E024.bmp; load it with the program)


• Effect 030 ("Death"; ) has a formatting document that is included with the program (acquire the original bitmap from http://ffhacktics.com/effects.php?page=1&effectsperpage=30; name it something like death.fft-E030.bmp; load it with the program; for sound, you need to acquire "0x001E" and "0x0020" from here: http://ffhacktics.com/instructions.php?id=21; convert them to .ogg via an audio program; place them into the fft-030 folder as "fft-001E-beta-magic-charging.ogg" and "fft-0020-scream.ogg")


• Effect 172 ("Dark Blade"; ) has a formatting document that is included with the program (acquire the original bitmap from http://ffhacktics.com/effects.php?page=5&effectsperpage=30; name it something like dark-blade.fft-E172.bmp; load it with the program)


• Effect 173 ("Night Sword"; ) has a formatting document that is included with the program (acquire the original bitmap from http://ffhacktics.com/effects.php?page=5&effectsperpage=30; name it something like night-sword.fft-E173.bmp; load it with the program)


• Monsters () have a formatting document that is included with the program (acquire the original SPR's from http://ffhacktics.com/sprites.php?spritesperpage=20&show=all; load and convert them to .bmp in Shishi's Sprite Editor; name it something like my-monster.fft-mon.bmp OR my-monster.fft-mon-raw.bmp; load it with the program)


• Type-1 sprites () have a formatting document that is included with the program (acquire the original SPR's from http://ffhacktics.com/spr.php; load and convert them to .bmp in Shishi's Sprite Editor; name it something like my-character.fft-type1.bmp; load it with the program)


• Type-2 sprites () have a formatting document that is included with the program (acquire the original SPR's from http://ffhacktics.com/spr.php; load and convert them to .bmp in Shishi's Sprite Editor; name it something like my-character.fft-type2.bmp; load it with the program)


• Cyoko sprites () have a formatting document that is included with the program (acquire the original SPR's from http://ffhacktics.com/spr.php; load and convert them to .bmp in Shishi's Sprite Editor; name it something like my-character.fft-cyoko.bmp; load it with the program)


• Arute sprites () have a formatting document that is included with the program (acquire the original SPR's from http://ffhacktics.com/spr.php; load and convert them to .bmp in Shishi's Sprite Editor; name it something like my-character.fft-arute.bmp; load it with the program)


• Kanzen sprites () have a formatting document that is included with the program (acquire the original SPR's from http://ffhacktics.com/spr.php; load and convert them to .bmp in Shishi's Sprite Editor; name it something like my-character.fft-kanzen.bmp; load it with the program)

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Windows GDI+ library is used to read and manipulate the images. ImageMagick is used to generate the animated .gif files. Uses OpenGL 3.0 (latest is 4.5+) era commands to speed up compositing. Has methods capable of falling back to OpenGL 1.1 (the version supported by Windows' fallback driver, opengl32.dll). This program is mostly stable.

[Lijj]

I can't believe this! This is so awesome Lirmont thank you very much for making this.
I can't get it to open though I tried downloading different dlls from the site but they wouldn't install; it really is too bad cause I'm anxious to try it out. I'm at a crucial point where this would be completely helpful. I'll keep trying.

[lirmont]

Re-download it, and see if it will run for you now.

[Lijj]

Yes ! it opened..
I managed to get up to the walking front frames but still need to clean up one or two frames so thanks a whole bunch for this:

spoiler

This will make perfecting the animation so much faster and easier.
Lirmont how do you do it?
Other spriters can potentially use this to make monster sprites now as well.

[Kivutar]

This tool looks great!

[Lijj]

Sadly when i opened my sprite  in it the window starts flashing,  random bits of yellow boxes around and. in the preview window sometimes I can see like half of one frame..
It kind of looks like this except the yellow box is flashing really fast:

[Lijj]

This tool looks great!

I know I hope it ends up working well because it's so cool.

[lirmont]

Well, I'm on XP so it's difficult to troubleshoot. I uploaded changes (so go download it again please) that link the target ms for both screens, thinking maybe it wasn't responding correctly to how fast I was asking it to redraw the raw image side. That was all I could really think to do about the issue besides some minor other changes that are in there to organization. As for how I did it to begin with, Visual Studio is as poweful a tool as it's ever been.

[Lijj]

Hey it seems to be working I just opened it. I finished the first 6 frames already and I'll post a gif soon. I just wanted to let you know it works now.

Edit here it is- the hifi  fighter sprite:

Update:

Animated the hair more and cleaned some other things up:

[lirmont]

Well, I think that looks superior to what FFT confined itself to. That's all I was saying in the other thread: less restrictions = bigger size = bigger perceived space = more colors perceived. The result, I think, speaks for itself.

[Kivutar]

I can't wait to include this 2x resolution sprite in game.
Very nice team work!!

[RandMuadDib]

Very nice

[Cheetah]

This is pretty freaking cool looking. When you are increasing the resolution, I would recommend changing the proportions a bit too. FFT was really limited due to the small size of the sprites. If you are making things larger you might want to make the characters a bit taller.

[lirmont]

Calling this project done for a while:

[Lijj]

I did make it a little taller but not by much.. i gave her a neck cause it really looks odd with extra detail yet no neck. I only changed the proportions slightly otherwise mostly the head.. just varied enough from the fft style I'm used to so it's very workable for me. Since I need to finish this and at least three more to start, I need it to be something I can repeat in style easily.
I considered an edit that Twinees did that looked a little less round and deviated from the fft style a bit more but Kivutar and I chose to stick with this take for the standard. (It still takes about two hours or more per frame so far for me O:)
Also it doesn't really remind me of any other game really other than the obvious.. So I like that about it.
Lirmont: Did you update the image scroller again ?

[GeneralStrife]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lijj]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Certainly!
This tool is very helpful for any pixel art animating project.. of any palette. It's just amazing!
And something I've wanted for a long time. it definitely is making the attacking frames less of a task.
I mean there are always ways one can figure out to check frames but this makes that convenient. And speeds the process up for me when changing a head's angle of something; it makes constraining proportions etc. just faster.
I'm almost 50% done with the first sprite btw.

[lirmont]

I lied. I had more ideas:



006

007 (replaced stock resource images)

[Lijj]

what is this? I have to go for a few hours before I can check it out.. but is this  interesting and I'd like to know exactly what's going on.. is this making long pixels?

also: The back views turning out nice almost got the capes done on that higher res sprite as of yet

[lirmont]

More stuff: Colors Used, Export Animation

I tried really hard to make the program depend only on Windows' ability to deal with bitmaps (to avoid needing to have other dependencies), but it was not to be. A static build of ImageMagick's convert.exe program is packaged with this release. Get the release by following the link in the first post. I apologize in advance if it doesn't work for you.

Examples of animations done via ImageMagick:


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