Things about Image editor.

This one goes to Ashley

Animations panel

• Select multiple animations (to set multiple properties with one click)
• Ctrl + Left/Right Arrow to cycle through frames when Animations panel is in focus
• Duplicating selected animation should preserve its name and add +1 number suffix (for example duplicating "walk" animation: walk -to-> walk1 -to> walk2...)
• Duplicated animation should be selected (currently it selects first one on top)
• Changing animations should keep selected frame visible (for example: if you have frame 5 selected and change animation to different one, frame 5 is still selected but frame 0 is shown)
• keyboard shortcut for "Add animation" and "Duplicate"
• Resizable preview for animations (or simply wider border around previewing frame - sometimes it's hard to see with small sprites)

Animation frames panel

• Select multiple frames (to copy, move and delete them together)
• Copy, cut, paste frames between animations
• Deleting all frames containing images should leave one empty frame
• Importing multiple sprite sheets as different animations.
• Would be nice to see an image preview for imported sprite strip while setting number of horizontal/vertical cells

Edit image window

• Button for preview (it's easy to forget about right click on animation and especially keyboard "P" shortcut)
• Pixel preview for Pencil tool (it shows nothing under mouse cursor which is misleading)
• Ctrl + Left/Right Arrow to cycle through frames when setting image points.
• Separate Undo/Redo buttons - I never know if pressing Ctrl+Z will undo things in image editor or layout/event sheet. And this has happened a lot in the past where some part of my code went missing because I was undoing stuff in image editor.
• While setting up collision mask there should be an option to set pixel rounding on/off. For pixel art, while zoom is greater then 100% its impossible to set point on coordinates like X=2, Y=4 - you will get something like X=1.97, Y= 4.21 - this is a no go if you need very specific collision mask.
• Ability to copy and paste Image points and collision mask to selected frames

Some things to consider

• Way to import Image points (For example importing images with single pixels, different pixel color could be different Image point. Black always sets Oring, other colors image points)

It's not a problem if you have only two animations with few frames. But if you need to set 3 image points for 50 frames, where each frame have different position for them it's not that fun.

We all know You are a small company, and mainly only You do all of the coding for C2 (which makes you very busy), but please don't forget Image editor is the most essential part of C2 and it gets least of all updates since first release. There's been only a couple of features that were added for past months (years?).

I'm not listing this feature (bugs in some cases?) because I need them for my ease of work with but for every single C2 user who need to manage complex animations. And complex I mean 10+ animations with 10+ frames each.

Thanks for reading and please show some love to image editor

Edit: 11.04.2014 - added

• Ability to copy and paste Image points and collision masks to selected frames

Don't mind me, Just bumping it up to the front

+1; additional option for frames ghosting would be nice - when 0 is a frame being edited, I would like to see -1 and +1 frame almost transparent to know where origin/image points are, compared to one being edited

Completely agree with this. Would be especially handy to be able to copy whole animations between sprites.

+1 agree! I think it's necessary...

[quote:2zidp7ib]Copy, cut, paste frames between animations

I've been wanting this for so long. Also between sprites.

I think many things have been said about Image Editor, just sharing my feedback about it : many bugs (the only bugs I met in Construct 2)

• when I copy / paste from web / photoshop. Many various glitches appears.
• Reducing big pictures will do a blank fail
• My computer makes a funny noise when Image Editor is open. Only software ever doing that on my strong machine Not a problem though, it may show that Image editor is handling memory in a strange way, I don't know ...
• I think all these littles bugs sometimes combined may cause software to crash. Very rare, but I did lost 1 hour work once or two (did not save often cause my project is big and take time to save). I am now used to use photoshop for the sprites, I don't hope Construct 2 to have such advanced tools, but a crash when resizing something is really problematic, moreover since Construct 2 doesn't save the last "Control+Z" state to recover after a crash. (would be another GREAT feature)

Hi, it's been month and month I'm using Construct and I pretty love it. Web dev by day, artist by night, I pretty enjoy the way ideas are getting in shape SO QUICK with Construct. You can try all this crazy ideas with a few work. And plus it's a reliable tool for big and long term projects. Pretty cool price. Without this little flaws in Image Editor, the software would be beyond perfect to me.

+1

I would also like to add:

-Set origin and image points with numpad behavior: When an animation has multiple frames, the quick assign with the numpad keys is dysfunctional. Instead of assigning the corresponding position for the image point, most of the times it changes the selected frame or, if that frame number doesn't exist, it prompts a notification sound. The only coherent and reliable way to use the numpad for assigning image points (after you select the Set Origin and Image Point tool), is to first select the desired frame with the mouse, then click within the image editor to place a random point and, finally, hit the numpad keys for quick assign. Repeat for each and every frame.

As it is mentioned, advancing frames should be done with other keys like ctrl + arrow keys and the numpad keys should be left to do the placing of the origin point at any time, even if an other tool (e.g. brush) is selected.

-Add an indicator in the color palette. Just like the horizontal level bar has an up looking arrow (which is very helpful), add something (like a cross) withing the color palette in order to visually know which hue/saturation is currently selected.

-Add option for lock proportions when rescaling images. If you have an irregular in dimensions image like 460x 234 and you want to half size or 3/4 size it, you need a calculator. Ideally, the Resize Image Canvas tool could have the functionality to do math in conjunction with the locked proportions. So, in the dimensions mentioned above, one could put 460/2 or 460*0.75 on the Width field and get the desired result on both dimensions.

The Image editor gets the least amount of attention and yet is so vital to the package in general , even an occasional update would be welcome .

I agree with you the image editor is pretty clunky. But I guess it is low prio because you are assumed to do your work elsewhere (there's a number of nice software) and there are so many things to fix/add to Construct 2, and there's only one person working with it.

helena

Exactly.

I use Corel X6 for everything so the image editor is of little use, except for creating prototype images such as boxes and circles.

I expect Ashley will develop it eventually, but he is only one man, after all, and there are SOOOOOOO many other more important things he should concentrate on... ****cough modularity ****

helena zenox98 Yeah. because you can set all your animation and all your frames in external software...

I'm not taking about things like drawing cirlces, write text or any of typical tools for editing/creating graphic assets.

I'm talking about animation and frames management.

Some time ago I was making some sprites for sale - simple isometric soldier, with 16 directions and about 18 separate animations = about 1000 images altogether (before you say I'm not interested in mobiles or web). Even Making it all to spritesheets (57 spritesheets) it took more time adding and setting this up in C2 then creating and animating this sprite.

"and there's only one person working with it."

ohh, I'm sorry didn't know that ~cruel sarcasm ~

"but he is only one man, after all, and there are SOOOOOOO many other more important things he should concentrate on"

Agree. But seriously, things should be fixed first - and there's a lot to fix and finish, before adding new ones.

The image editor could be better, no one is saying otherwise. I personally hate using it myself as it has many features lacking/implimented in a way I don't like. If there are bugs I do agree they should be fixed, but other than a basic image editor it's essentially a UI for importing content. Don't get me wrong, as I would love to see it improve, but the problem here is that it works and there's 100s of programs that do the same thing, but better. That means there's little reason to increase the features of the image editor itself. As long as there are ways to import outside assets quickly there really isn't a need for much immediate improvement; however, over time improvement would be nice.

I must be misunderstanding something because I'm not entirely sure what issue you had with importing your sprites other than standard organization and cleanup every studio has to go through when importing assets. Did you copy/paste each one manually instead of import sprite strip? Was your sprite strip organized by variable sprite sizes?

In my opinion, the importing function of the image editor is the most important thing, as they will never make the image editor better than specialised software.

Some good points about animations, but I think it's low priority stuff. I find that with a bit of work I'm able to get the game to do what I need it to.

i would advice everybody from the page 2 to actually READ the first post in this thread.

Because you obviously just read the thread title only and skip the rest. And then you keep on ignoring what the OP has to say and you just keep talking nonsense.

Which is pure ignorance. And the OP is an old and well respected member of this community from LONGER then any of you even THOUGHT about GameDeving. So your ignorance is unforgivenable.

If what OP wrote is beyond your capabilities of understanding - just ignore this thread and keep going.

OP is not asking anybody to turn the image editor into freaking Photoshop. But to give it more features regarding the engine. More control over frames. And in general make it much more user friendly and usefull.

And i am baffled that i had to write all this.