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Announcing a new product in beta: Construct Animate!

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Official Construct Post
Ashley's avatar
Ashley
  • 26 May, 2022
  • 1,095 words
  • ~4-7 mins
  • 8,220 visits
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Ever since Scirra officially started in 2011, we've been all about game creation. Now we're taking a big step and for the first time ever we're announcing a new product! From today we're launching a public beta of Construct Animate, a new animation tool. Try it out right now at animate.construct.net/beta.

What is Construct Animate?

Back in 2019 we introduced timeline animations. Since then we've steadily made lots of improvements such as audio tracks for timelines and adding complementary features like scene graph (much of it thanks to Diego's hard work). Now Construct has fully fledged animation features, and we've heard from individuals, businesses and educators that it works great for making animated content - but sometimes they need a way to export their animations as videos. So we built a new product for them, and designed a new Export to Video feature for it too!

In short Construct Animate is animation software with all the game-related features of Construct like the Platform behavior taken out so you can focus on your animation work, and with a new ability to export your project as a video file with faster-than-realtime encoding. Construct Animate still provides a wide range of interactivity features including mouse/keyboard/touch input, form controls, networking, using data formats like JSON, and loads more (see below), all with Construct's leading visual block-based system. We think it will be a great addition for educators who can now use it for animation lessons as well as for games, for businesses to develop training materials and videos, individuals for developing banner ads, animated website media, and creative work, and much more.

Features

We know there are other animation tools out there, but here are a few highlights of Construct Animate and some of the things that distinguish it from other tools.

  • Timeline animations for sequencing movements and changes over time, including with custom ease curves
  • The best visual block-based system for creating interactive logic in Construct's Event Sheets. It's ideal for animators without programming experience, and yet powerful enough to make impressive and sophisticated content.
  • Export to video to quickly get a video file of your animation with faster-than-realtime encoding and including audio.
  • Export to the web and for Playable Ads for content like banner ads and interactive media.
  • Effortless support for modern hi-dpi and high refresh rate displays, and automatic display scaling to any resolution.
  • Instantly loads in any browser. There's nothing to install! It'll run on everything from Windows to Chromebooks, and it works offline too.
  • A simple and easy-to-use interface.
  • A built-in image editor and animations editor for frame-by-frame Sprite animations.
  • Use hierarchies to connect objects so they move, scale and rotate together.
  • Use layers and sub-layers for managing complex content and advanced compositing effects.
  • Apply over 80 different effects to individual objects, layers or layouts, including PhotoShop-style blends like Screen and Overlay, hue rotation, color replacement, blurs, distorting, and masking - and even stack multiple effects.
  • Use Live Previews to adjust things like particle effects live in the editor.
  • Video playback with any browser-supported format
  • Use mouse, keyboard, touch and even gamepad input for interactivity.
  • Integrate web content like YouTube videos, iframes, and custom HTML and CSS content.
  • Use form controls like Text Input to collect details from viewers.
  • Audio playback for music and sound effects, including with audio effects like low-pass filters, delays and convolution.
  • Nearly 100 built-in example projects.
  • Easily view your content on mobile devices with Remote Preview.
  • Networking features like AJAX and WebSockets, along with using data formats like JSON.
  • Advanced text features like BBcode formatted text and SpriteFonts.
  • Mesh distortion allowing deforming various objects for new kinds of effects.
  • A debugger and profiler to inspect your animations and get a deeper insight to how they work in practice.
  • Flexible search tools including 'Find all references'.
  • Multi-monitor support
  • Advanced users can use JavaScript coding for enhanced interactivity with an industry-standard programming language. Or even use it to learn JavaScript!
  • A gaming-grade renderer with outstanding performance that can handle whatever content you throw at it (and with WebGPU support on the way too).
  • Unique support for rendering with OffscreenCanvas in a Web Worker, ensuring animations run perfectly smoothly and jank-free on the web, even with other intensive web content running simultaneously.

The public beta

We're launching Construct Animate as a public beta. This means it isn't quite ready. There's a fair bit more to do, including on branding, feature development, bug fixes, and listening to your feedback. We're inviting the wider world to get involved, try it out, and let us know what you think. Please note this means it is not necessarily representative of the final product.

At the end of the public beta, Construct Animate will be sold as a separate product. It'll provide a lower-cost way to get started with Construct. Since the two products are based on the same style editor, it will be easy for animators to switch over to game creation, and vice versa.

For the duration of the public beta only, we're allowing people with existing Construct 3 subscriptions to also use the full features of Construct Animate. However this will stop working at the end of the public beta. To make sure this is clear you'll see a prompt every time you log in using an existing Construct 3 subscription reminding you that it will no longer work with Construct Animate at the end of the public beta.

Video introduction

For a video introduction to Construct Animate, including what it can do, how to use it, and the new Export to Video feature, check out the video below.

Subscribe to Construct videos now

Are you giving up on games?

We're absolutely not giving up on game development! While this is a new experiment we're trying, we've spent over a decade working on game creation software, and we are definitely going to keep going with that too. At times like these some people like to predict the demise of our company, but we can reassure you we aren't about to abandon our existing product which is still producing virtually all our revenue. But we're also pretty excited about where our new product will go as well. It's also likely that almost all improvements for Construct Animate will improve Construct 3 too, as it also includes many of the same animation features like timelines.

Try it out now

That's enough from us! We're keen for you to try it out and start telling us what you think and if you run in to any problems. So give it a go: visit animate.construct.net/beta and get started!

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  • Nice! Actually, this is a good direction to go. It may be suitable for some non-gaming field user. For example, some companies' business marketing H5 promotion, making online invitations, e-albums, questionnaires, year-end review and other simple small pages.

    And I have seen teachers in many schools use C2 to create interactive courseware. But they don't use C3 because it's too expensive, and they're not the people who make games. And Animate solves this problem, and they can experience the benefits of C3 in a cheaper way. Therefore, hope that can the export .exe of Desktop.

    What I expect is that the content produced by animate can be fully imported into C3, which means that beginners can learn C3 in a cheaper way and convert to C3 users after they have some experience.

    This means that the future may also be a way of working with multiple people? Animators design animations in Animate, then developers import to C3

      • [-] [+]
      • 1
      • Ashley's avatar
      • Ashley
      • Construct Team Founder
      • 1 points
      • (4 children)

      Thanks for the thoughts - we weren't sure about including a desktop (.exe) export option for animation, can you tell us a bit more about why that would be preferable for animations over a web export or video?

      • (video)

        2. For commercial companies advertising videos, Public Service Announcement, Animated wallpaper, Personal Works Highlight Video, Presentation PowerPoint, also very interesting topic, the current Adobe After Effects or Spine solution is really better. But it is expensive and takes some time to learn. Construct Animate, on the other hand, may have an advantage in terms of price and ease of use. But If Animate just wants to do 2D animation, does have a long way to go.

      • 3. Teacher. Used to create learning materials to help students learn easily or to add interest to the classroom. I think they are the main users in the future. They may also include teaching programming, animation teachers, and teaching students to create and use. Students are also more likely to pay if it is relatively inexpensive. (Not all schools have conditions to use the educational version, they are still more C2 users)

        (about web export)

        4. vlogger. They can make some interactive videos to help attract fans. For example, a multiplayer online interactive comment bullet chat, an interactive video allows the audience to control the story development of the video, and adding interactive content makes the work more interesting.For example, tioktok, bilibili. (Yes, if you want to make money from this group of people, be sure to keep an eye on Asian markets, especially China and Japan.) But Construct Animate is very difficult to do this in a short time

      • (animations)

        1. An artist who wants to try to make some interactive animations, but is not a game maker. In the future, they can create animations, game levels in Construct Animate, and then export them to C3 developers to work together to make games. They can focus on designing animations without spending more money on C3.

      • I think they just use different scenarios. Still have to see what future users do with them. Since I don't have the need to use the other 2 export way, it's hard to imagine where it will be used (because C3 can already do it?)

        I'm guessing there are several categories.just personal opinion.

  • Okey... so why get a sub just for this when you can use C3? I really don't get it. People could make animations in C3 just as well, if they dont wanna touch some features that are intended mostly for gamedev then they shouldn't.

    I'd rather pay for modules in C3 (like video export, though I just record the screen) than have more products to fiddle with to get the job done.

    I agree with LetTheMiceFree "I would much prefer Animate to be an extension like you did with the JavaScript coding. Just don't make it free, make it a one time buy. Thanks."

    Ashley said it's marketed towards gamedev too much, uhm yeah so work on marketing instead? Market C3 as the army swissknife of digital content: game dev, animation, interactive ebooks, music animations (like the ones on youtube), and expand on that I suppose.

    • I even tried it out, it looks like C3 out of the box.

      • I will add, before learning Adobe After Effects (because I was required to in the current job I have now), I opted for animating stuff on construct. It was simple stuff and mostly for fun, but I can see how Construct is capable of being a tool for that if some of the animation aspects are refined.

        ̶A̶s̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶s̶a̶i̶d̶,̶ ̶I̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶r̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶C̶o̶n̶s̶t̶r̶u̶c̶t̶ ̶3̶ ̶g̶r̶o̶w̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶u̶l̶t̶i̶m̶e̶d̶i̶a̶ ̶c̶r̶e̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶S̶c̶i̶r̶r̶a̶ ̶b̶r̶a̶n̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶p̶o̶w̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶a̶i̶n̶t̶a̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶2̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶n̶d̶a̶l̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶d̶u̶c̶t̶s̶.̶

        Edit: How easily people are influenced by other's opinions. I changed my mind reading the whole thread from what I thought when I originally wrote this. Now Im less skeptical about Scirra being able to correctly manage this project while maintaining their scope on C3.

  • Mixed emotions from reading this. I think that you might be onto something with the 3D integration into construct. However, working with 3D within the limits of the current viewport, only allows for some weird 2.5D hybrid games.

    I loved when you made the push against buildbox, but I would hate to see you guys ending up in a similar overly charged subscription model to sustain the release of a good, but weird hack of features animation solution. I get it - diversification of products is smart, but I would hate to ever purchase a suite of products like i do with adobe, just to use a few of them.

    With that said, I would rather see you guys earning extra by concurring the 3D html5 territory. Or even better, make buy-ons for switch and other console porting (like gamemaker).

    But since you will do animation, make it just as efficient as spine, and you will be onto something.

    Still love you guys.

  • I would love to see vector shape tweening (morph).

  • I would much prefer Animate to be an extension like you did with the JavaScript coding. Just don't make it free, make it a one time buy. Thanks.

      • [-] [+]
      • -2
      • Ashley's avatar
      • Ashley
      • Construct Team Founder
      • -2 points
      • (2 children)

      Given all the marketing for Construct 3 is about game development, we felt it was less confusing to make a separate product that could be marketed independently as an animation tool.

      • Fair enough.

        A thought: To make Animate truly an interesting offer for me (currently, I'm not sure I would actually subscribe to it), have you considered developing a non-video "Save" format for these animations. Call it .c3anim and make that importable and usable into Construct 3. I don't know if it would be actually possible but it seems like it would be cool and allow compatibility between both software.

        If Animate had a few more animation-specific features on top of that, and I would really start to consider it. One area of improvement would be the image editor which is pretty basic in Construct 3. Perhaps the timeline UI could also be expanded further for Animate.

        Anyway, thanks for your hard work.

        Load more comments (1 replies)

  • Very cool! Exciting to see you continue to grow in unexpected ways.

    Also some of these knee-jerk reactions are sad. Some people don’t realize how exceptional your release cycle is, and the benefits that could come from your growth.

    Thanks for the awesome new stuff as always, you guys are fantastic!

  • I'm a bit confused at the feature difference here - what does Animate offer (aside from export to video) that Construct does not? Looking at the feature list, some of the inclusions are outright bizzare for an animation tool...! Websockets? JSON? HTML? The closest thing to animation equalwould be Flash/Adobe Animate, which Construct combats far more effectively

    Unsure how Animate is substantially different from Construct, at the moment it seems the animation editor can do all of this and more (by virtue of being tacked onto a game engine)

  • To be honest as a C3 subscriber its a bit annoying that i'm essentially paying for continued development of C3, only to have you spend your time working on a new product. Look at the suggestions platform, you always say you dont have the time or staff for most suggestions.

      • [-] [+]
      • 3
      • Ashley's avatar
      • Ashley
      • Construct Team Founder
      • 3 points
      • *
      • (9 children)

      As we mentioned almost all improvements for the animation product will improve Construct 3 too, as it includes many of the same features. To be able to do even more we need more staff, which means more customers, which a new product could help with!

  • So much negativity - congrats Ashley, this is exciting and I can't wait to try it out... thanks for the great work!

  • Completely unexpected, and yet, a shockingly good fit.

  • Load more comments (22 replies)