LÖVE

There is Synfig too as free software for 2d skeletal animation. It can export in SVG format, sadly, Löve2D doesn't support SVG currently.

http://www.synfig.org/

But anyway, I believe that with the nice handmade pixelart artwork of Laperen, this kind of technic's are really useless.

rosshadden wrote:Skeletal animation definitely seems like what you (and me) want. The only problem is that spine is the only one with a working (not to mention first-class, made by themselves) runtime for love2d. But it's incredibly expensive, has a restrictive license that is terrible for hobbiests and game jams, and just generally seems to be the evil Microsoft/Apple of this space.

There are other solutions, such as dragonbones. It's free (though not open source...) and actually has just about the same feature set as spine, including amazing mesh deformations. It does not have a Linux client, but there is a great tool called coa_tools (https://github.com/ndee85/coa_tools) that let's you use the illustrious Blender.

However there is currently no dragonbones runtime for love2d. So either we need to make one, or implement a runtime for the format used by coa_tools directly.

Evil? How is selling software evil? Also the basic level is 69 dollars. Also I would assume once you own the software anything you create is yours. I find it funny when people think software that cost money is immediately evil. The software costs money because it is worked on regularly. And if you need support more likely than they would make sure you get your support. That's like selling games is immediately evil.

bobbyjones wrote:Evil? How is selling software evil? Also the basic level is 69 dollars. Also I would assume once you own the software anything you create is yours. I find it funny when people think software that cost money is immediately evil. The software costs money because it is worked on regularly. And if you need support more likely than they would make sure you get your support. That's like selling games is immediately evil.

That's not what I read.

rosshadden wrote:Skeletal animation definitely seems like what you (and me) want. The only problem is that spine is the only one with a working (not to mention first-class, made by themselves) runtime for love2d. But it's incredibly expensive[1], has a restrictive license that is terrible for hobbiests and game jams[2], and just generally seems to be the evil Microsoft/Apple of this space[3].

[1] is a matter of opinion for a given piece of software. Note "incredibly". That doesn't mean he's not willing to pay for software.
[2] is a statement of objective fact. The license is restrictive.
[3] paints the authors as being involved in monopolistic practices, which may or may not be true.

That's not saying that "software that costs money is evil" as you're portraying it. From the above I read that he's willing to pay for software that has a fair price (which is relative), and that he's not happy with this particular piece of software because of its license, policy and high price. That's three reasons; the high price is clearly not the only decisive factor, and it's definitely not "because it's not free".

That said, almost always software that costs money is closed source, and closed source has the potential to be evil (I could mention some cases of privacy violations discovered in closed source programs, for example). Open source has the same potential, but it can be scrutinized, making it much less likely, because it'd be easily discovered (and it has). That's a serious drawback for the alternative that rosshadden offers: "[...] dragonbones. It's free (though not open source...)". That's just as potentially evil as closed-source paid software and I avoid it. In fact, I compile from source everything I install from anywhere other than the Debian repositories (and I know I can review and recompile any particular Debian package if I wish). Yes, that includes LÖVE.

LÖVE is uncommon in that games are usually accompanied by their source code due to its design, even in products for sale, so LÖVE games for sale are open source in a way. The only problem is that it's unfortunately possible to include closed source libraries, and you don't know if there are any until you acquire the particular piece of software.

Sorry for following this derail.

69 dolars in my country is the same thing I pay to go to a neighbour city in a bus, go to the cinema with pop-corn and drinks, eat in a restaurant, go back to my city in another bus, all this with a friend/girlfriend/family member and paying everything myself. So yeah depends on where you are that can be expensive... depends on your economical situation too, a student can't afford such prices most of the time.