Construct Animate feedback thread

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  • I work in a local dev group. About 200 developers, NONE of them use Construct. It's mostly Unity and some Unreal. When I posted the video about Animate, it got a lot of them excited - not for them personally but for their team members who are NOT devs. They had also never seen how well Construct works as a web app.

    This is the strength of Construct and should be pushed.

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  • I think we all assume there will be mesh deformation with bones using Timelines as the minimum for what would be considered full featured.

    Of course that's for both products.

  • How many features in the suggestion platform will now be put off indefinitely because they now choose to focus on timeline / animation improvements, which will no doubt now get priority, of which may not even make it into C3 because their not "game related"?

  • I think we all assume there will be mesh deformation with bones using Timelines as the minimum for what would be considered full featured.

    Of course that's for both products.

    I think aside from QOL improvements these would be the most sensible additions. As both Construct products would benefit from this greatly imho.

  • The amount of work required to make Animate a decent animation software is at least 20 times bigger than the amount of work required to make C3 the best engine to create commercial 2D games. (it’s already the best for prototyping, but there is a reason why there aren’t a lot of indie hits made with C3 on steam comparing to most other game engines so far)

    We know there must be some kind of organization behind the scenes where Ashley would focus on gamedev Construct, while Diego would focus on Animate Features and especially fixing (again and again) bugs and UX of Timelines. They were big investments in developing this feature, great progress were made and it looks smart to kill two birds with one stone and monetize this. Also “every new feature would benefit both Animate and Regular Construct users”, right ?

    Well, maybe not. It could mean the priority will go towards features that benefit both products, so most likely Timeline enhancements or audio-visual related stuff, while the biggest priority should go toward game-specific features that are currently lacking in the Construct engine :

    For example right now games with a lot of Data are a nightmare to make.

    UI, Dialogue System, Reassignable inputs are incredibly difficult to implement while they are needed in almost any serious project.

    We don't have any Inheritance features which is quite unbelievable for a game engine. (most requested feature ever on old suggestion platform IIRC)

    A lot of built-in plugins aren't unusable in production yet (Drawing Canvas self-erasing as soon as the player rescale their game windows, just to name one)

    Here is a non-exhaustive list of important things that i think really need to be enhanced or added in Construct, trying to prioritize what seems to be the most important construct3-21h2.ideas.aha.io/ideas/C321H2-I-318

    Sure Timeline improvements are nice to have for gamedev but it feels like it's not the priority at all, it’s only “nice to have”. I can think of dozens of full-indie games that don't require a single use of Timeline. And even if we're only talking about audio-visual enhancements, i would prefer things such as better particle system, better audio features and better pixel art support, more 3D features : each of those would be useful for at the very least a quarter of all games made in Construct. Also Timeline right now is a pretty bad UX, but I'm not even sure I would use it a lot even if all nice suggestions from the dedicated forum thread would be implemented. Maybe just for polishing some menu intro/transition but that's it. It won't help me at all to develop the games I'm struggling to make right now.

    However those 3 years spent on developing Timeline aren't wasted : it also helped developing Hierarchies which is the best thing that happened since C3 started, it's already possible to achieve some useful stuff with Timeline if we really need it right now (sure with the pain of a bad ux) but why keep spending more devtime on this especially, instead of other high-potential and promising features that were pushed once and then dropped forever for example ? I would love it if such a talented dev as Diego, who is also responsible for those amazing Hierarchy features, QOL and animation editors improvement to name a few, could also work on high-priority and game-changer features as you’re such a “small team”.

    As other people, I agree there is no sense to split the features in 2 products. None of us would pay 2 subscriptions, so the best would be to include everything in main Construct and have the second Animate-only cheaper option for those potential new users you’re targeting. (+ you always advertised the subscription model as a way to be able to grow, and update our beloved engine. So it would makes sense if we - early subscribers - can use the things where the money went)

    But even then, I would be worried. It could be very confusing, maybe even repellent for new users who would try this new cheaper option first, and find out the showcased feature is actually bad UX and worse than any other Timeline they tried so far. And above all, there is just 2 dev working on the actual engine right now (Ashley and Diego), you’re always explaining us (with good reasons) why every single small-looking feature can actually be a huge amount of work, telling us you need to prioritize on most requested (and if possible easy-to-add features), that you’re a small team and so on…. It makes no sense.

    Most of the time, I defend Construct’s point of view when there is debate as to how Construct is evolving. I admire Scirra’s amazing delivery rate, most of the time I appreciate the explanations you’re providing to the community and I found last months really exciting in terms of updates and new features. You seemed to take care of some users' suggestions lately. But here I just wish you would limit the damage of this decision as soon as possible and focus on making your engine viable for commercial/bigger projects instead. There is so much game-changer, absolutely essential things to add/fix in this engine while fixing the Timeline is just “nice-to-have” at best (as Tweens are already nice to work with for most common cases), or even useless for a lot of projects. Almost nobody is using it. It’s harsh but it’s the truth.

    We all wish Construct could grow, multiplying its revenue and so on. But why not just spend 1-2 months to create a nice and fair Affiliate Program to let the network effect, content creators and community market Construct itself ? construct3-21h2.ideas.aha.io/ideas/C321H2-I-310 It would be a better match to the SAAS business model rather than splitting the product into 2 different solutions. It’s less risky and less expensive rather than committing to this and targeting a maybe non-existing customer base, trying to reach brand new users while the current community was built slowly during 10 years. The potential of gamedev Construct is still far from being reached and it looks like it's safer to build upon its strength.

    In any case, thanks to all the team for all the love and the work put into the engine for so many years, for all the updates those past months and I wish you good luck for the upcoming months whatever your roadmap will be ! Much love.

  • How many features in the suggestion platform will now be put off indefinitely because they now choose to focus on timeline / animation improvements, which will no doubt now get priority, of which may not even make it into C3 because their not "game related"?

    I really love C3 and the team behind it, but sadly I feel the same way, so far anyway. No matter how "manageable" the workload, the focus on C3 is still split. Even 10% of time away from C3 is tough to imagine, when there's enough ideas for C3 improvement to fill 300% of the time available.

    At best, it seems like compromise is inevitable: the features that affect both C3 and Animate will naturally become a way to make "both" sides happy, and show that there's no slowdown on C3 updates.

    One small thing about the forum update— it's a bit unfair to say "I am not aware of anyone who complained during that time that our usual rate of work had slowed down". I think most/all have assumed the team has been 100% focused on C3 the entire time, so of course there'd be no complaints. Had you asked last summer how users would feel if you spent even 10% of the dev time on a new animation product, you certainly would've heard those complaints.

    The list of mandatory features for Animate is already well outlined and a huge amount of effort or time. Adding my feature suggestion for Animate feels a bit moot considering the core work to be done.

    I suppose I'm still wondering — genuinely, not rhetorically — how does a small team for C3 not get smaller tackling this workload?

  • Another timeline QOL improvement, currently the scrub-bar is draggable, this leads to the user not being able to select keyframes that are under it. Because the scrub-bar jumps to the keyframe you click it is always above the keyframe you were trying to select unless it's the first click after clicking somewhere else in the timeline. This is very frustrating.

    I would suggest to remove the dragging of the scrub-bar so keyframes can be selected when the scrub-bar is over them.

    The scrub bar would still be draggable on top where the seconds markers are and I would suggest adding a little handle on top as well for better readability, the handle would also solve the problem I described in my first post about the scrub-bar being hidden behind the end and start bar.

    This change would also be in line with timeline conventions.(it would additionaly be worthy to consider if the scrub-bar should even jump to the selected keyframe at all)

    Edit: same problem with the end bar, keyframes cannot be selected if they are at the position of the end bar, adding a handle to the top of the bar and only make that part draggable would be my solution.

    This has been fixed, differently then my suggestion, but now keyframe can be selected even when under bars, as well as the playhead/scrub-bar doesn't jump to the selected keyframe any more.

    Thank you!

  • 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.

    You did not asked the opinions before.

    Scirra team has worked hard in past years and no one wants to be unsupportive here. The development has been slow, and there has been complaints about it and excuses of scirra being a small team were given as well. I personally thought it was scirra's best level of progress and made my peace with it. But if you had asked feedbacks, i am sure the popular opinion would be to speed up C3 improvements instead of developing new ventures.

    Again, it is not a complaint, but if you ask for feedback, this is it. If you are already set on this development timeline, then you may have wanted to ask for feature ideas and not just a feedback here. So there might had been a confusion. Anyways, good luck for the animate.

  • My point is nobody appears to have noticed a change in the rate of development in the work already done. You can't now turn around and say that's a problem when nobody ever said anything at the time. In fact we've had really positive feedback on the last few C3 releases.

    Throughout the life of Construct, people often describe features as mandatory and try to frame the product as unusable without it. We know many people are passionate about what they want to see in Construct. But not everyone needs everything. Even simple and limited products have success on the market. It's even the case that C3 has long lists of major features that other products lack - and yet those other products still have large userbases. Remember that if you personally really need something, it does not necessarily mean the majority of other people using the product will also need the same. There's space on the market for a variety of different tools with different capabilities.

    I think it's also worth bearing in mind that if you list 10 years worth of feature requests (which pretty much happened with the old feature request platform), it's not reasonable to expect quick action on that. Making quality software takes time. It's best to focus on a small number of things that are the highest priority, and then move on to the next highest priority things after those are done. Some feature requests are also literally never-ending. Things like "Make commercial-quality games in Construct" is both arguably already possible for certain types of games, and if expanded further probably amounts to "Make Construct as capable as Unity". That will be an ever-present request that can keep being repeated right up until Construct exceeds the capabilities of Unity, which as much as it's a nice dream will probably never happen. We all have to be realistic, and feature requests need to be framed in an achievable way otherwise there's no point even considering them.

    As ever feature requests are a balancing act of trying to use limited resources to best effect. In the case of Construct Animate I think there is a chance we could see a much more significant return on investment than with any other work we could have done in that time. It is a bit of an experiment too, but I think there is very little chance it will either ruin the company or significantly impact C3 in any way. I'm still keen to hear actionable feedback on Construct Animate, so if you have any more, let us know!

  • No one is expecting you to reach Unity features or deliver all suggestions from the dedicated platform. Even less in just a few months.

    There is almost no feature everybody needs, just some that are highly requested since forever (by faithful customers); while other aren't that useful for many of us and seem to be one of the main focus of Scirra for 3 years while nobody really ever asked for it.

    However there are facts : nobody is using Timelines so far and a lot of 6 to 12 years veteran construct users struggle to create full games with C3. Making games is hard and will always be whatever the features of a tool are of course, but we're just providing our feedback on what's the most important for us. Moreover, we're only providing feedbacks in the places where you ask for it. (this dedicated thread and the suggestion platform)

    People aren't just saying "Make C3 viable for commercial games", "Make C3 like Unity", they're spending weeks/months/years of work trying to work-around current limitations of the engine, and only then, they spend time thinking and writing their constructive feedback on the dedicated suggestion platform. With detailed explanations, implementation idea, trying to priorize what's important and so on.

    Yes you should focus on highest priority, yes it's good to use limited resources to best effect. The feedback of some of us is just that we disagree with what that priority and that best effect being to create a decent animation engine in a highly competitive market, with no fundings and no marketing budget, as you're such a tiny team working on a game engine.

    We all agree that your delivery rate is amazing and you guys rock, but if 2 devs are focusing on making the best game engine instead of 1 it would probably be even better. Also it's been years that we expect Construct dev team to grow, and while everybody understand why it's really difficult for a lot of reasons, it's not reassuring to see that it looks like there is still only Ashley working full time on the gamedev engine. We wonder if it will ever change even if Scirra's revenue grows more than tenfold.

    But anyway I won't recycle all the arguments of everyone any longer, both sides explained their points above, I just wish you good luck with your plans and hope Animate will be a success !

  • Some actionable CA feedback:

    The area used to display an HTML animation can often change in size when a browser window is resized, moved to a different monitor, a change in page zoom occurs, etc.

    the drawing canvas has a long standing bug where the content of it gets deleted in these events, it would be great if this could be fixed so it is usable in Construct Animate.

  • The problem is the same, looking backward or forward. Whatever time was spent, or will be spent, developing Animate could've been spent on C3.

    The expectation isn't that 10 years of features get quick action. We've all been told that Scirra's a small team, and that new features and improvements take time, and that's true. But now, any progress will take even more time—in exchange for an animation program.

    A chance for significant ROI is good for Scirra, and it's fun to experiment. But for people paying for C3 every month, excited and hoping for more C3, you have to understand why this will be problematic. We're getting less dev time on C3 and funding a gamble many won't use.

    But maybe we've got that wrong? If you can show people how this won't affect C3 in any way, as you said, I think it would go a long way.

  • As a game designer / animator this is a feature I actively thought about in the past. I seriously love the idea of creating procedural animation in Construct. After spending some time thinking about it I also fully understand the decision to turn it into its own product instead of adding lower priced sub tiers to C3. The one thing I hope for and that was already mentioned is a good discount for people already subscribed to C3. With that in mind I'll subcribe in a heartbeat.

    There's a lot of possible features that would benefit both C3 and CA. The top of my personal list would be general UX improvements for the timeline, expanding the actions of the drawing canvas (e.g. round capped lines, arcs or even bezier) and ultimately of course full-on vector support (comparable to Rive) but I acknowledge how much work that would be.

  • CA suggestions:

    add a drop down option to the Play button to Play to the next keyframe.

  • In my first post I suggested integrating the ease editor more closely into the Timeline ui, this would make adding and adjusting eases as well as visualizing ease presets much easier.

    Also from the CC discord I know that people tend to not even know custom eases exist, as it is fairly hidden in the Project bar. (not being aware of custom eases would still be a problem with the suggestion, if the user is only using tweens. So for tweens there might be another solution needed)

    Suggestion one: it is added to the Timeline as well as Keyframe properties. The ease editor would also preview the selected ease preset, but if you try to change a preset it would prompt you to (or automatically) create a custom ease.

    visualization:

    Suggestion two: same as above, but docked to the right of the timeline.

    visualization: this is an example from Rive, with their very clean timeline. (this would me my favorite implementation)

    Third option, Even though I am personally not a fan of it, I wanted to add it for completion as someone on Discord suggested it. This solution adds the eases into the Timeline itself, this might be great for eases flowing into each other, but leads to a very messy timeline that required alot of vertical space.

    this example is from blender I think:

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