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Sprite XML tool

Posted: 24 Jul 2010, 17:02
by jeffm2501
After poking around a little with the xml format for players, I was asked in an IRC channel if I wanted to make a tool for editing/creating XML files for sprites.

Here's where it is now
Image

currently it only allows for editing of the offsets of existing items, but shortly it should allow the editing of the animation sequences as well.

Is this of use to anyone?

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 24 Jul 2010, 17:36
by natsuki3
where to download it ?

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 24 Jul 2010, 17:43
by jeffm2501
I can not say it is anywhere ready for "prime time" and is not feature complete, but a version can be found here. Note that it has had very little testing.

http://www.awesomelaser.com/msst/ManaSo ... teTool.zip

It should run nativity on windows, and on linux and OSX with Mono (untested)

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 25 Jul 2010, 02:35
by jeffm2501
an updated version is available that allows the creation and editing of animations and imagesets, as well as a shell script to help non windows users start the program.
http://www.awesomelaser.com/msst/ManaSo ... _0_0_2.zip

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 25 Jul 2010, 19:14
by jeffm2501
V0.0.0.3 has the ability to make new sprites and assign image-sets and animations to them. This makes it mostly feature complete. I've made a page for the app on my blog, http://www.awesomelaser.com/?page_id=122

This will be the last update until I get some feedback, and if the tool is useful.

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 25 Jul 2010, 20:55
by Kage
Think you can release the source code? Since that is required per the GPL.

EDIT: nvm, found it on your blog.

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 25 Jul 2010, 21:01
by Kage
jeffm2501, how well do you know C++ / Qt? C# is nice but no other person on this project uses it thus far.

While you are free to write whatever code you want in what ever language you wish. It would be a benefit to everyone if others could aid you with it. Furthermore, ManaSource is starting a project called Mana Mobile which is C++ with Qt, so we could reuse code in both places.

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 25 Jul 2010, 21:18
by jeffm2501
I am quite familiar with C++.
I have no desire to work on parts of your project mainline. This is a standalone tool so I don't see how it can be used in anything else for the game. I'm not even sure what else the tool needs so I can't see what others can do to it, other then fix any bugs found.

I just wrote it since it was mentioned to me that a tool was needed, and I may use it with one of my own projects that may initially use some of the mana world sprites.

It would take far too long to rewrite the tool in C++ and QT.

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 26 Jul 2010, 01:29
by Kage
jeffm2501 wrote:I am quite familiar with C++.
I have no desire to work on parts of your project mainline. This is a standalone tool so I don't see how it can be used in anything else for the game. I'm not even sure what else the tool needs so I can't see what others can do to it, other then fix any bugs found.

I just wrote it since it was mentioned to me that a tool was needed, and I may use it with one of my own projects that may initially use some of the mana world sprites.

It would take far too long to rewrite the tool in C++ and QT.
I understand.

As far as other tools, we could use a particle creation tool

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 26 Jul 2010, 04:20
by jeffm2501
a particle tool would be harder to make as it would need the in game particle system in order to show feedback, and I believe that is tied rather tightly to your existing system. I don't see any portable code for it in the QT project ether.

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 26 Jul 2010, 05:55
by Bertram
Hi Jeff,

There is an early project trying to handle the particle edition, here:

http://gitorious.org/fairy-glow/fairy-glow

It's QT based, and not working yet, but will be one day ;)

Also, for those who want to get a (even simple) particle editor, there is the one from Igneus, here:
http://gitorious.org/fairy-glow/particled-igneus

Best regards.

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 26 Jul 2010, 05:58
by bcs86
It's not much harder to determine offsets in gimp. I would need to figure out what pixel of a frame represents the x&y coordinates of the whole selection (might be the first pixel, upper left), then count how many steps it is moved. X increments going right, Y increments going down. Sort of like columns and lines in a text editor.

Anything other than using C#

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 26 Jul 2010, 06:20
by jeffm2501
no worries, it only took a few hours to write, so no great loss if nobody uses it.

oh and the tool is released under the LGPL, not the GPL, as it uses none of your project code and does not ship with any of your resources. not that it makes much difference ;) I just tend do use LGPL since managed assemblies can be imported as libs dynamically quite easily.

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 26 Jul 2010, 12:53
by Kage
jeffm2501 wrote:oh and the tool is released under the LGPL, not the GPL, as it uses none of your project code and does not ship with any of your resources. not that it makes much difference ;) I just tend do use LGPL since managed assemblies can be imported as libs dynamically quite easily.
I am sure it will be useful to someone. I am glad to see others see the need to write outside tools.

jeffm, what I was talking about in my other post is that we are trying move our particle and sprite system to a separate "Manalib" project which can be included into other projects like yours for convince.

Again, no offense intended.

Re: Sprite XML tool

Posted: 26 Jul 2010, 13:08
by Wombat
You have a link to that, Kage?