The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The good, I've made considerable progress over the weekend! The bad, I've been sick all weekend! ...And the ugly... well, that's probably me, while sick... or the hellacious storms that have rolled through and flooded Northwest Indiana... the Hurricane Ike remnants.

So last week I listed the completion %'s for my 4 tools. Here's an update:
2D Skeleton Creator - 85% done but functional.
SpriteSheet Creator - 99% done and functional.
Sprite Arrangement Tool - 99% done and functional.
Sprite Animation Tool - 60% (the hard part) done. Not yet functional.

So you see, I managed to finish off the 3rd Sprite Arrangement Tool.... unbelievably, I've got screenshots to prove it too. I know, it's totally against what I'm all about, but I had to get some cause the thing was cracking me up. :P

Ohh yeah, and you may have noticed that the 1st tool, the 2D Skeleton Creator, actually lost 5% of completion. When I went back to look at it, I realized that I was mid-enhancement that last go-around. I need to finish what I was working on with it, a Section definition capability, because the Sprite Animation section will rely heavily upon it. So... should be able to get that 1st tool to 99% shortly, then begin on the 4th... then... I... might actually... possibly... be... done?

And now...!

Sprite Assembly Tool - Sample

Sprite Assembly Tool - Rearranged

Sprite Assembly Tool - Showing Skeleton

Is Frighteningly A Word?

Well, it's been a crazy several weeks since my last post. Craziness is always going on in the background though. Surprisingly, between financial craziness, emotional distress after finding out my cat is sick, and failed attempts at build a new PC, I have been making some pretty decent progress with my AnimatedSpriteMaker toolset.

As stated in the previous post, my overall plan for the game I'd like to develop has scaled drastically down. However, the tools I plan to use to bring the game to fruition have not changed. I still need 2D sprites. I still need them versatile. I still need them animated. Fortunately, the tools I've developed are very dynamic. I believe I could create any type of game involving 2D sprites with this stuff... perhaps in the future I will do just that... or make it available for doing just that... we'll see.

Frighteningly... I think the hard parts are done! An update of the 4 pieces:
2D Skeleton Creator - 90% done but functional. In need of minor enhancement.
SpriteSheet Creator - 99% done and functional, thanks to enhancements put in this week.
Sprite Arrangement Tool - 75% done, mostly functional. Needs enhancement and minor fixes.
Sprite Animation Tool - 60% (the hard part) done. Not yet functional. Needs fixes and testing and then enhancement.

So of those four, all but the second were pretty major undertakings. The third one, which I'm currently focused on, was easily the most intimidating one for me. It seemed like a very challenging task developing the tools that would allow you to arrange images over the skeleton appropriately and realistically... but I've managed to do it. It works. I can maybe get this 3rd part over with this or next week and move on to the last part. It's going to be rough also, but the hard part is done. It'll just be a matter of putting together the pieces and trying it out.

This is AWESOME mostly because, when I started it... in fact, up until the last couple weeks here, this whole toolset has been entirely theoretical. In my head it seemed like the right way to go about accomplishing the goals, but there was no proof. Even during my research on 2D sprite animation, I never saw anything like what this does... which would normally be enough to turn me in another direction. But the ideas seemed feasible, and as it turns out... in all likelihood they will be successful. Only time will tell for sure. I'll keep you posted to let you know. In the mean time, I hope to get an image of my sample sprite up here when the 3rd part is done... soon.