Construct Animate feedback thread

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  • The worst solution from Scirra. We want to develop beautiful games, not create animations for videos. I have been waiting for many years for you to support spine and export support to different consoles (you lost xbox), support for 3d models, and so far this has not happened, my game is still only in my head, all this time. Thanks for spitting into the soul.

    ps thanks to Mikal, for his plugins and that he understands better what is required for game development than the company itself

  • With the C2 business model it would have been normal, and necessary, to charge for each new product, but you chose to go with a Subscription model for C3.

    Fair enough, the thing is you're still the same team, doing the same amount of dev work (not double) but now you want people to subscribe twice.

  • Animator should be a part of Construct 3. It would be wrong to charge separately for something that could be a simple feature addition to C3 image editor. If you like to diversify your income, you should sell it as a different software with just the animation function, for animators.

    Also it is told as an excuse that scirra works with a small team. I think there should be more developers included into this, as C3 still needs a dedicated team. I just exported a game, it failed, and in the log, it just says "Error".

    Whenever i open a project after month, there is something or other to fix. it could be a plugin no longer supported, or new features affecting the old setup. A whole lot of developer's time gets wasted, guessing what went wrong? Sometimes it gets too overwhelming making simple changes.

    I think there is still much work needed on ease of using the product. In a construct video ashley said something like Construct having a deceptively simple interface. It is, but deception does not go away even to familiar developers. It still needs much more cleaning.

    I am not saying, scirra should not grow, but if you do, please make sure you have dedicated time for C3. I would recommend even more time than before, because now more than ever, game dreamers rely on C3.

  • As a company, who actually did increase its staff a few years ago, it is no surprise they look for growth in products they're able able to offer when an opportunity arises.

    From what I gather, this potential product sorta, kinda, fell in their lap with the activities of one of their relative new developers.

    I wouldn't be surprised, that a full subscription model to C3 will also include the animator, and for those merely looking to animate small videos, a lesser subscription model dedicated to the animator will see life soon.

    For those worried this will eat up scirra's development time, the core of the app is derived from CS3, the amount of "extra" time which will be consumed should be minimal.

    For those desiring other elements be build first .... make the suggestion more popular, and start moving people to vote/talk/discuss/request it. Scirra is not blind, they see and hear, and base their roadmap on a lot of that.

    As is in life, you can't please everybody.

  • I agree with lennaert, lot's of angry kneejerk reactions. Scirra is gonna do just fine, they are not just gonna drop Construct like a hot potato now. It also very much makes sense to separate it from Construct in terms of marketability, because if someone wants to do an animation they are unlikely to ponder if Construct is the right game engine for the job.

    At least give them the benefit of the doubt.

  • I hate to be THAT guy and again, i've been advocating for and defending Construct against criticism in the past but as someone who animates for a living this is just very close to heart...

    As a background, I produce animation for corporate training and educational purposes, lead a team of two people as a creative director for a fortune 500 company where we produce a lot of animation and freelance for more "fun" projects next to all that like i.e. a credited brief stint as an animator on an adult swim show.

    I've worked with After Effects, Flash (now Animate), Moho Pro and, my favorite, Toon Boom Harmony Premium.

    There is absolutely NO WAY that i would use Construct for animation over any of the above mentioned software packages, which have literally decades of development behind them and were very carefully catered for animators and suits all their needs.

    When it comes to producing HTML5 animation for the web, i'd either go with Animate CC, which i rarely use these days but it comes with our company wide CC subscription OR, would look into Rive.App, which was recommended to me by my colleagues and seems to be a really robust piece of software that is very similar to tools found in the above mentioned packages.

    I maybe used the Construct timeline once or twice in my projects since i found it to be extremely confusing and non-intuitive. If i have to think longer than 30 seconds about how a timeline works, there's really something wrong, sorry, but by now after using so many timelines, this is just something so standardized, that it should work in a more standardized way. Beside that, in my experience the timeline used to crash a lot. I don't know how it is these days, it might be better.

    In any case, the claim that Construct is the "BEST and EASIEST" animation tool to me is just either delusional or simply a very bold claim that can be debunked and backfire very easily.

    Construct's animation features are just very clearly developed with neither a clear understanding of animation workflows nor any sort of input from professional animators and it shows. The interactivity might be nice but it's probably already a total overkill for most animators, who definitely won't spend the time learning the ins and outs of the event sheets. As intuitive as they are, they still need time to learn. Compared to something like Rive or all your usual prototyping tools like Figma or Invision, which can export HTML 5 and offer easy(er) to use interactivity features as well, it's really not all that intuitive as you might think.

    Again, i don't mean to be nasty or criticising just for the sake of it but it seems to me, that Scirra tries to enter a market that they neither really understand the customer base nor the competition. They saw an opportunity to kill two flies with one blow with the timeline and went for it, which is commendable, but for Construct Animate to be in any way a consideration for animators it would need a HUGE and i mean HUGE, probably months to years, amount of research, programming, testing and marketing.

    I just hope they didn't bite off more than they can chew and hope they really go in and look at whats out there and what the people they want to sell this to actually need. Which also brings me to this: WHO is this for exactly? WHAT animators? Motion Graphics people who work for video? Definitely won't use it, and one video export option with a file format that is highly compressed won't change that either (usually you animate either directly in the compositing software or export image sequences and then go to compositing or some ProRes or other video format with less noticable compression).

    Character animators, game animators, UI designers, etc. etc. there is really no clear indication, who they want to develop this for...

    I've never been this critical of any of Scirra's decision and i've been with them since the early C2 days and was a day one adopter of C3. But this project, to me, doesn't seem to be under a good star, unless they are willing to put enormous resources into it and i can't see how that will NOT affect C3.

    But just my 2 cents, rant over :D

  • lot's of angry kneejerk reactions.

    Don't simply put off peoples concerns as kneejerk reaction.

    Most of these concerns are based on, how Scirra has handled things in the past, and on their own concessions.

    they are not just gonna drop Construct like a hot potato now.

    no one said that?! It's about them having less time for the main product, not about dropping it.

  • As soon as we get some workflow polish, this can be a great After Effects competitor (there is no decent one in the market atm, btw). I've been animating in AE for 10 years and the best thing it has is fluidity of use in the UI. If you ever need it, I'd love to test dev builds, do live testing and give feedback along the way.

    I could get very particular about this if you guys would find it useful, but I'll leave these simple but ESSENTIAL points; I believe no animator would take a keyframe-based program seriously without them:

    -The MOST important thing is you should be able to drag the cursor to make a selection area, this is vital for keyframe management.

    -Dragging a keyframe should select it and move with the cursor. Right now it makes a duplicate when you drop it with values that have no apparent correlation, and undoing does not erase them.

    -Shortcuts for adding properties when an object is selected (pressing A adds Angle property, T for Transparency as it's closer to the left hand than O for Opacity, S for both Scales [X and Y], W/H for Width and Height...)

    -Autokeyframing (toggleable) ON by default (when you drag an object and are in a moment in time that has no position data, add new keyframes and position data automatically. Same applies for angle and size)

    -Buttons for going to the first/last frame, keyframe skipping only is not enough.

    -"." and "," or left/right arrow keys should move frame by frame.

    -Ctrl+D for duplicating any currently selected keyframes one frame forward, overwriting the former if there is any. Essential for timing and pre-posing.

    Complex to implement but ESSENTIAL on the long run:

    -Scrubbing the cursor should update the view dynamically so you can instantly see how it's looking. If this is implemented, clicking on a keyframe should not bring the time cursor to that point, it should only select that keyframe and update the properties panel.

    -Double clicking on a keyframe should bring up a easing editor, same as editing it on the layout directly but on a linear timeline with precise scales/rules (see After Effect's implementation). I can't express how important this is for any animator.

    More like an Adobe Animate competitor - the ecosystem surrounding AE after 20+ years is robust, and it's an industry standard that's not going away, especially given its comparatively low cost in Adobe CC subscriptions. There isn't any real comparison with AE to be had.

    On a related note, I can't imagine the name of this new product is not going to receive a positive response from Adobe given the similarity with Adobe Animate... doesn't seem that was thought through at all.

  • I hate to be THAT guy and again, i've been advocating for and defending Construct against criticism in the past but as someone who animates for a living this is just very close to heart...

    As a background, I produce animation for corporate training and educational purposes, lead a team of two people as a creative director for a fortune 500 company where we produce a lot of animation and freelance for more "fun" projects next to all that like i.e. a credited brief stint as an animator on an adult swim show.

    I've worked with After Effects, Flash (now Animate), Moho Pro and, my favorite, Toon Boom Harmony Premium.

    There is absolutely NO WAY that i would use Construct for animation over any of the above mentioned software packages, which have literally decades of development behind them and were very carefully catered for animators and suits all their needs.

    When it comes to producing HTML5 animation for the web, i'd either go with Animate CC, which i rarely use these days but it comes with our company wide CC subscription OR, would look into Rive.App, which was recommended to me by my colleagues and seems to be a really robust piece of software that is very similar to tools found in the above mentioned packages.

    I maybe used the Construct timeline once or twice in my projects since i found it to be extremely confusing and non-intuitive. If i have to think longer than 30 seconds about how a timeline works, there's really something wrong, sorry, but by now after using so many timelines, this is just something so standardized, that it should work in a more standardized way. Beside that, in my experience the timeline used to crash a lot. I don't know how it is these days, it might be better.

    In any case, the claim that Construct is the "BEST and EASIEST" animation tool to me is just either delusional or simply a very bold claim that can be debunked and backfire very easily.

    Construct's animation features are just very clearly developed with neither a clear understanding of animation workflows nor any sort of input from professional animators and it shows. The interactivity might be nice but it's probably already a total overkill for most animators, who definitely won't spend the time learning the ins and outs of the event sheets. As intuitive as they are, they still need time to learn. Compared to something like Rive or all your usual prototyping tools like Figma or Invision, which can export HTML 5 and offer easy(er) to use interactivity features as well, it's really not all that intuitive as you might think.

    Again, i don't mean to be nasty or criticising just for the sake of it but it seems to me, that Scirra tries to enter a market that they neither really understand the customer base nor the competition. They saw an opportunity to kill two flies with one blow with the timeline and went for it, which is commendable, but for Construct Animate to be in any way a consideration for animators it would need a HUGE and i mean HUGE, probably months to years, amount of research, programming, testing and marketing.

    I just hope they didn't bite off more than they can chew and hope they really go in and look at whats out there and what the people they want to sell this to actually need. Which also brings me to this: WHO is this for exactly? WHAT animators? Motion Graphics people who work for video? Definitely won't use it, and one video export option with a file format that is highly compressed won't change that either (usually you animate either directly in the compositing software or export image sequences and then go to compositing or some ProRes or other video format with less noticable compression).

    Character animators, game animators, UI designers, etc. etc. there is really no clear indication, who they want to develop this for...

    I've never been this critical of any of Scirra's decision and i've been with them since the early C2 days and was a day one adopter of C3. But this project, to me, doesn't seem to be under a good star, unless they are willing to put enormous resources into it and i can't see how that will NOT affect C3.

    But just my 2 cents, rant over :D

    This. It doesn't seem anyone who animates for a living was actually spoken to, and the way timeline animation works here and in C3 is the very definition of counterintuitive compared to every other piece of animation software I can think of.

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  • The worst solution from Scirra. We want to develop beautiful games, not create animations for videos. I have been waiting for many years for you to support spine and export support to different consoles (you lost xbox), support for 3d models, and so far this has not happened, my game is still only in my head, all this time. Thanks for spitting into the soul.

    ps thanks to Mikal, for his plugins and that he understands better what is required for game development than the company itself

    This announcement reminds me of when Caligari, a small company that made 3D animation software (trueSpace) years back, announced a stripped-down version targeted at indie game developers specifically. In the end, it lasted around a year and drained the company of resources that should have been spent on its flagship product. Both products suffered, users were lost, updates delayed, and eventually it drove the company out of business after selling itself off to a larger corporate entity to stay afloat.

  • To have two subscription types, like the below would make sense:

    • Construct Pro (basically C3)
    • Construct Animate/ Construct Light (this new Animate tool, with a cheaper subscription fee)

    Then some (most) people take the full "pro" package, while some other people only take the smaller/cheaper package, if they only want to do some animations for web for instance.

    But if you develop some features that only will be in the Animate subscription, it feels a bit odd. Since then I will need both subscriptions only to get the small new feature (currently only "Save as video") in Animate. This I would never do.

  • Could we get timeline functionality on the 3D Camera? It'd be cool to basically set it on a track and just watch it go. Current workaround would be positioning it to a moving sprite with events, but "look at" and "up vector" info is still tricky.

  • Don't do it. Keep building C3.

  • I am, truly, sorry to say that this is the kind of thing that makes me hold back on getting a subscription for C3 and to just fully develop my game in C2.

  • Thanks all for the feedback - it's interesting to hear all this, especially ideas about how to make a better animation product, and we're reading it all carefully and making lots of notes.

    I can't respond to all the feedback right here and right now - there's a huge scope to the questions asked and we haven't made final decisions on much at all yet. Part of the purpose of the public beta is to hear everyone's thoughts and use them to adapt our approach, which is what is happening and why we made this thread. There's a few things I'd still point out though.

    First of all Construct Animate is a new product primarily aimed at new customers more interested in animation than game development. Regular C3 users may be wondering why they'd use it, but the point is we're hoping to attract more people who have never used Construct before. Perhaps some of those new Construct Animate users will be interested in moving across to C3 for game creation too, so there could be a side-benefit of boosting C3's audience as well. We're also not aiming at pro users - we know we're not about to steal users from After Effects. We're aiming at the end of the market with simpler use cases. For example we've met several teachers using C3 for lessons who were keen on the idea of using it for animation too. A good analogy for this is the fact lots of pros use Unity for game development does not mean nobody is using C3 for game development - Construct is its own thing with a unique combination of features that appeals to a particular crowd.

    Secondly we recognise some C3 users will still be interested in animation too and want to make use of features like 'Export to video'. We have not finalised the pricing model and I don't want to commit to anything specific at this early stage, but we hear your concerns about having to pay for both, and we will definitely be thinking about how to handle that.

    Thirdly for those of you concerned about a potential slowdown in development, we started technical research work last summer, and work has continued in the background right up until the beta announcement. I am not aware of anyone who complained during that time that our usual rate of work had slowed down, and I expect us to keep going as we have been. The real work has been the implementation of the Timelines feature, which has been worked on for some years now, and has been included in C3 from the start. It has its uses for game development, but it's also got its uses for animation purposes. That opened up the possibility of designing a dedicated animation tool with a feasible amount of work and with a potentially large upside. As I noted in the blog post, there are many features in common and so in the long run I expect almost all the work we do to benefit both products, which is also why I doubt there will be any meaningful slowdown in development of C3 in future either.

    Let us know if you have more feedback on Construct Animate, especially specific improvements we can make - for example there's some good feedback on usability here and we're planning to make improvements on that area soon. Our regular weekly beta updates will also update Construct Animate, so you can keep an eye on changes and let us know how things are developing over time too.

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