[Program]2D Skeletal Animation Editor

[TheShyGuy]

The 2D Skeletal Animation Editor
-by TheShyGuy.

Editor:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33569482/2D%20SA...ShyGuy.zip

Requires Xna client profilefree)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/...x?id=24872

Coded in Xna/C#
-Next version will be coded in SharpDx/C#, a thin DirectX wrapper.

Well tbh, this editor was never meant for anyone but me. That explains the not-really-user-friendliness. I made it a while ago, maybe a few months, to be used for animation on a game. Well i never actually used, or finished, this editor because i never got to making a game that required it. TristanLuigi was looking for a "build-it-yourself" program, and i offered to make him a program just for that. While making it, i remembered that i made this. So i fixed it up a little bit and im releasing it for you guys too. The last minute saving i made was to save the animation as a sprite sheet, i never added support for saving it to xml. Anyways, I'm making a better version of the editor, a complete revamp. Its main extra feature will support UV texture coord binding to bones. There will be more than that though, but that would probably be the biggest, or one the biggest added features.


Features:
-Skeletal animation...=p
-creating animations....=p
-bone tree hierarchy...again =p
-key framing
--position
--rotation
--scale
--sprite/bone texture
-insert/delete frame support
-copy/cut/paste/delete pose or bone support
-inverse kinematics
-save animations as a sprite sheet. *Max texture size is 2048 for width and height!

-I wouldve made a video, but its not really needed....and my computer can't handle it -.-
Tutorial/Info:

Spoiler

2D Skeletal animation editor tutorial...err not a tutorial... more like information

Notes:
-The white boxes around the blue screen are right clickable.(bottom, top left, top right)
--bottom box : textures
--top left : skeleton and bone tree
--bottomleft : properties for selected skeleton or bone. skeleton properties include draw order, where you can change it.
--top right: animations
-skeleton and bone properties are editable within the property control(bottom left)
-bone transformation values are local to the bone
-when a bone transformation value is changed, it becomes a key value.
-Key values are indicated by yellow number boxes
-When you edit frame 0, your editing the "default" position of the skeleton.
-Draw order can be changed by going clicking on the skeleton node and editing the draw order property

found
-IMPORTANT: when saving, saved textures have a limited size of 2048
Buttons:
d : delete key frame value:
click inside a bone transformation number box,
type in "d" and the key value with be removed for that value

Right mouse button drag:
-offset origin of the sprite attached to the bone

left mouse button:
-change bone value for position,rotation, or scale.


GUI:

Transformations:
Translate : change position of bone.
Rotate: Rotate the bone around the Z axis
Scale : scale the bone

Play Button:
plays the animation

FPS number box:
speed at which to play the animation

Frame number box:
indicates current frame
Frame number box(2) :
indicates total frames within animation

check box loop:
whether or not to loop the animation

Textures box:
set as texture:
set texture of the current bone
add textures:
load in sprites

Properties control:
shows properties of currently selected object(bone or skeleton)

File:
Save:
A window will pop up asking for the width and height.
These values correspond to the number of frames per column and row(in that order)
after clicking OK:
use middle mouse button drag to create the "view" of the animation. This will be used for saving

the animation.
About:
Click it =)
Frames:

Insert Button:
insert a non key frame...frame before the current frame. Useful for controlling the

speed of animations from frame to frame.

Delete button:
delete the current frame

Skeleton Transformations:
Copy/Cut/Paste/Delete the entire skeleton transforms. Useful for key framing the entire pose.
Bone transformations:
similar to the skeleton transformations buttons, but only for the current bone.

A little bit more progress than shown by this video has been done. This is me showing the editing of a 2d "sprite" or texture by vertices.



If theres anything wrong, or something that needs to be added to the editor for convenience, don't be afraid to ask. If you have ideas for the future editor, comment on what you think should be added.

On mfgg:

http://forums.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?f=8...49#p352549

[Kitsu]

Do you think you could provide some screenshots of your program (more specifically the editor)?

[TheShyGuy]

sure no problem, 1 sec


A few images:
The first 3 are some of the saved animations that i made as a test.

Spoiler

Swipe

pick up

idle

[Rosencrantz]

Looking at the screenshots and the video, this looks pretty nifty! I'll give it a try at some point later on~

[SKELTON S. SKELETON]

hello
if you need a skeleton model ive got my speedos ready
flexes with a blush

[TheShyGuy]

Whoa whoa....whoa. Slow down there....Keep your clothes on -.-


Anyways...
Should i add support for allowing you to animate and transform into the Z axis? I mean being able to position,rotate, and scale(3d plane...) into the Z axis. Also adding perspective,depth, or orthographic, no depth, camera modes(to show depth)? Also allowing you to move the camera view around to allow animating into the Z axis. Im going to make markers(?)(dont remember the name)...that showup on the selected bone. You can use it to clamp movement,rotation, or scale for a single axis. This should allow for more accuracy when animating.


A few reasons for even wanting to animate into the Z axis are for things that rotate. Imagine propellers, coins, helicopter propellers....I dunno, these are from the top of my head. Ofc those can easily be animated by hand, but im sure there would be other uses.

A feature that im also adding is animated textures,sprites, skins(however you want to call it). They can, ofc, be keyframed so its not limited to one animated texture per animation. Imagine uhhh....spinning blades, wheels(wow bad examples...=p), gfx effects(if your savvy enough).

If anyone has any ideas, or anything, go ahead and post.

[TheShyGuy]

I got bones binded to vertices. As well as animated skins(textures), key frammabled skins. Transforming into the Z axis, except for scale, also has been done. Atm, i'm working on vertex weighting for bones so i can avoid a "lego" effect. It should make animating look more smooth and natural. O yea, skins no longer "belong" to a specific bone, they belong to the whole skeleton. You can move vertices around to get the shape you want before attaching to bones. With skins not belonging to a specific bone, it allows me to have multiple bones affect a single texture or vertex.

After i get vertex weighting good and ready, the rest will be "extra" features. Ima try to avoid feature creep though. Some things im thinking of adding are bones that are affected by the animation movement like physics. I may also improve the IK by allowing fixed bones. Atm, it uses CCD, but i might try to find other algorithms to see how they feel.

After that, i should be able to get to the editor part as i've only been creating the core functions of the skeletal animation engine.

[TheShyGuy]

Woooooooooooooooooo

I got vertex weighting done! Wasn't an easy task. I moved most of the calculations to the gpu, on the shader. It was tough because im not that great at hlsl, but wooo i got it done. Now i can get to the editor =)

...seems like not many people are interested in this, so i probably won't make frequent update posts.

[Previous]

This is, I just don't know what to say so baffled am I.

I suppose most people here just can't really relate to this kind of animation, as TSRians are mostly dealing with pixel art. While I think it is a great programm, I just don't have any use for it at the time.

[TheShyGuy]

Understandable. I haven't used flash, but for those of you that have, It should be "somewhat" like how you would animate using bones in there. Now that i have weighted vertices, it should allow for smoother animating and some neat effects like squishing or something like the vids above.

err i mean like the vids in this topic:
http://www.spriters-resource.com/communi...?tid=20794

[TheShyGuy]

Not much progress on the editor in the past few days, actually no progress on the editor itself. I've been thinking of using slimdx for programs/tools instead of xna. I might also move from using xna to slimdx when making games. The only platform im aiming for is the pc, and if i ever want to go for the xbox or w/e i can easily move back to xna. To keep this post short, for those of you who have used slimDx, or directX, what are your thoughts and opinions when it comes to making games or graphical tools?

Im about leaning towards using slimdx over xna for programs, but unsure about using it for games.

Nvm, this isn't really a question thats appropriate for this kind of forum. Just going to continue searching the internets for answers and opinions.