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SpookyGhost r66 on Itch.io

spooky1.png

I have uploaded a new Itch.io release of SpookyGhost, my procedural animation tool for 2D sprites made with the nCine.

Some of the new features are:

  • sprite groups with color tags
  • custom spritesheet export layout
  • additional flexibility when dealing with textures
  • global animation speed multiplier
Simon Anciaux,

Although I don't have a use for it at the moment, I tried it quickly to see if I should keep it in my tools.

As I will most likely use it only a few times a year, it would help to have small tutorial (text or video) on how to get started.

One thing that was nice was to have a few image with the program to test things.

It wasn't clear to me that the tool doesn't allow you to draw sprites.

Some feedback:

It wasn't clear how to create sprites from the texture I loaded. When you know how, it makes sens, but it's not that easy to figure out.

I think part of the issue is the default tab configuration, because creating a sprite depends on the texture selected, which is not visible with the default tab configuration.

In a similar way, the Canvas and texRect being on the same "tab group", made it a bit harder than necessary at first to figure out how to isolate a sprite from a sprite cheat. Also I don't think texRect is a good name for that tab (but I don't know what would be better). Part of it is that tex is close to text, and at first I misread it and was expecting it to be a text tool.

When working on the canvas, there are no visual clue of which element is selected.

It's not easy to find out that I need to press Alt to be able to drag sprites.

When I start dragging a sprites, it centers around the mouse which is never what I expect/want. I want the sprite to move relative to where I clicked on it. The current behavior makes it really hard to move a big sprites (larger than the canvas) because it needs several drag movement and the centering prevents that.

When in the texRect panel, it would be nice to have handles to be able to move the sides of the selection. Combining with the previous points, it means I would expect to have a standard move/scale/rotate widget.

Angelo Theodorou,

First of all, sorry for the late reply.

Thank you for trying the program and for your thorough feedback, I will definitely consider your suggestions.

For a tutorial, have a look at this great video by Slime, a pixel artist very proficient with SpookyGhost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqrigZ-3JoM