Hi kobusvdwalt. The term 'cutout animation' is used frequently, but implies that each body part stays the same throughout the animation, making the character look like a marionette puppet. 'Modular animation' seems to be the established term for a character made from several separate sprites that move around separately. There are a few programs that do similar things, such as Toon Boom(as Julmust mentioned), Adobe Flash, and Anime Studio, but none that I know of that specialize in modular animation. Because they were more built for shape morphing or page-flipping animation, you'll have varying degrees of comfort depending on your workflow preferences. Also, there is and will always be a free version of Spriter that allows you to animate and export to PNG. If you're considering using Spriter but haven't gotten started yet, though, I'd wait for the upcoming version later this month, which has tons of stability and ui improvements.

Hahah, it's not like I don't occasionally post here (okay, maybe not as much as I used to, but whatever). Also shoutouts to Lucid for making the tool that's going to let me even work in unity in 2d to begin with.

thanks kayin.

shoutouts to you for the level design advice. I haven't had the pleasure of designing many levels myself yet, but while I normally see poorly designed levels and think an amorphous 'eh, you can tell this guy didn't know what he was doing', I think most of what you mentioned are the specific things that were missing.

but seriously, had no idea that was construct classic

Edit: Oh wow, in the second video, the game crashes and the "tech" executes it again by double clicking a construct classic icon (around 28:30) <img src="smileys/smiley3.gif" border="0" align="middle">

interesting, followed it up:

http://indiegames.com/2012/07/kayin_interview_i_wanna_be_the.html

he mentions construct in the last paragraph

I think the big difference between this and just 'being able to' do the same thing with a tablet is the same as all consoles and their horrible specs, but somehow decent looking games. Developers will know the exact specs of the target machine. They will know that every user has this exact controller. This will allow you to squeeze every last inch of power out of the system without worrying about people with less powerful tablets and phones. Tablets of that caliber are in the $400 range. And obviously without something like the OUYA, making an android game at this time under the assumption that your userbase will be using a controller is silly.

The graphics of the tegra 3 are easily beyond the current wii:

[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfNxbbJgSMQ&feature=related[/tube]

The extremely low price combined with just 1 or 2 killer apps could just be enough to make this a viable platform worthy of both developers' and gamers' time. I definitely think they should beef up the specs, just to make it that much more appealing. Hopefully the insane amount that they'll end up exceeding their goal will help them to work out some type of deal with a hardware distributor or manufacturer to keep the price in that range with something a little more exciting hardware-wise, not to mention some much needed advertising.

In any case. I've been completely bored and frustrated by the state of current consoles. I think the outpouring of support is indicative that I'm not alone - and maybe the industry is ripe for a new contender.

Thanks everyone,

we will definitely have tuts —

and kiyoshi, we're using Qt framework. It's fantastic, btw.

there will always be a free version as well

Hello Scirrans, and thank you so much everyone for your patience in my extended leave of absence. I know I'm a bit behind schedule with the plugins for Construct/C2. We decided to do a number of things that will improve Spriter for everyone in the long run at the price of a little delay early on. I'll give an updated ETA for the plugs as soon as I have one.

As for the software itself, the next beta release will have a vastly improved GUI, and will come in native PC, Linux, and Mac flavors. Part of the reason for the construct plugin delays is improvements to the file format to future proof it so you can continue to see new features far into the future. The next beta release for Spriter is the end of July. Improved GUI, improved performance, improved stability, cross-platform, and more....

Still a bit to do, but things are moving along very quickly. The next beta will be in your hands soon. Just bear with me a little longer.

As promised, here are some screens of the current build on each platform:

osx:

<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/Spriter%20Releases/wordpress/latest%20screens/mac1.png" border="0" />

ubuntu:

<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/Spriter%20Releases/wordpress/latest%20screens/linux1.png" border="0" />

windows:

<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/Spriter%20Releases/wordpress/latest%20screens/pc1.png" border="0" />[

I have not tried it. I've read people saying what you said, but almost invariably in the comments or responses, please say like 5 simple configuration changes to make it boot to and behave exactly like a normal desktop with the option to switch to metro.

Also that it's runs much faster, boot much faster, uses less resources, and has a nicer desktop

I have heard a few things regarding bugs, or annoying design decisions, but I think people don't give MS enough credit. If there's anything broken about it now, either in the form of a bug or a usability issue, I'm more than confident it will be fixed. I'm also confident that the finished product will be be better than windows 7, which is an awesome OS in my opinion. Also, I think the idea that the same applications will work on tablets and phones sounds amazing.

Does anyone know if windows 8 preview will be upgradeable to the full version when it releases? I have a failing HD, and if it can upgrade from preview to full I'd rather just install 8 preview when I get a new HD instead of reinstalling 7. I ask because Windows 7 Release Candidate required a full reinstall when the real Windows 7 came out(they did make you aware of this when you downloaded)

I can't find any info on this either way.   Please link if you found the answer or read this somewhere, as I'd like to feel confident about it before going this route.

Thanks!

EDIT: found the answer:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-windows_install/will-windows-8-consumer-preview-stop-working-when/3f09b261-2c06-4365-9c18-ef9c246454e2

Thanks everyone!

> Getting payed to do what you enjoy doing is like getting payed to have fun :)

what he said...

Indeed!

Time to make something totally awesome.

All of the above Bob. Especially twitter and reddit. Just start using them all the time casually so you get a feel for them. Facebook is a little more obvious, but reddit and twitter aren't like the others. Also twitter is great in the sense that everyone is on it. It's the quickest way I can think of to get noticed by anyone you wouldn't normally be able to catch the attention of.

renderer->

that's where most/all of the drawing stuff is

also check drawing.cpp in other plugins on the svn to see how they did it.