Spriter support or other skeletal animation software?

[hasen]

I was wondering about this because in some cases it makes more sense to use vector graphics animated by scripts rather than sprite sheets - like if you have a character with 42 different animation states and many frames per animation. Not to mention they would be smoother anyway. I did a few searches and found some things but the latest was three years back. Just wondering what the best implementation there is now or if there is much interest in this kind of thing recently?

Or maybe there's something else I'm not aware of. Or are Love2d developers primarily pixel art fans?

[hasen]

Ok I guess not then. Shame because most major game engines are supported with these kinds of software.

[zorg]

You're free to write one if you need one. It's not a necessity, and it's something that can be implemented in lua, and in too many ways to have one standard implementation no one would use, i guess.

[hasen]

Well done, you managed to give a response actually worse than no response.

[Zeliarden]

Spine have an official runtime for love

http://esotericsoftware.com/spine-runtimes

[hasen]

Spine have an official runtime for love

http://esotericsoftware.com/spine-runtimes

Ok that's true, pity Spine is rather more expensive than the others though. Spriter would be a better match with Love2d I think. There were a few libraries made for love2d with spriter several years back. Not sure why later on there was nothing and they weren't updated.

[zorg]

Well done, you managed to give a response actually worse than no response.

Let me up the ante again, then; feel free to interpret my responses however you please, i'm sure that'll wish libraries into existence. : )



Silly and unproductive hostilities aside, here's a list of features other 2D game engines have that the löve framework doesn't, for the sake of argument:

Support for exporting to more platforms: flash, Neko, blackberry, WebOS, ... (consoles even)
Replay recording and playback support
Pathfinding
Advanced debug features and interactive console
Asset management system
Auto-Tiling
Tweening system
Color Transformations, Perspective Projection
Regular Expressions (lua lacks this actually)
XML, JSON, YAML support
Animation System
Gamejolt/kongregate api integration
Advanced inbuilt shapes
Spine integration
Tiled and or Ogmo integration (level editors)
Transition system
Scene/Node system
inbuilt (G)UI
logging
i18n/l13n
Cameras and Viewports
Layers
Classes and Inheritance support
3D support (can be hacked in though)
an IDE
a Graphical Editor
In-App Purchases
Integration with external platforms



...by itself; libraries exist for most of them.

Most of these things are supported by big things like HaxeFlixel or Game Maker, because people don't want to waste time with yak shaving and want to just glue blocks together along with actual assets so they can push out a game... which, of course may be a great hit or just an average release lost in the ocean of mediocrity; it depends on many things.

Löve is very flexible, if you're willing to go the extra mile. Hell, i'm writing non-games with it, because i can. Also, the forums are kinda slow, and sometimes you may need to bump a thread if you don't get an answer in, say, a week or to; you can always visit the IRC room, or the Discord server though.

And yes, maybe people don't really care for skeletal animations. I myself are intrigued with what Emofuri and Live2D are capable of, turning 2D art into pseudo-3D using transformations, but i know i'm not smart enough to create a freeware alternative, so i'm patiently waiting. And yes, skeletal animations are pretty useful for many types of games, like fighting games, for example.

Instead i'm working on implementing old-school Amiga and dos tracker music formats in lua because i want to write a composing software that's marginally unique. Is it slower than if i did it in assembler or C? probably so, but Löve gives me the tools to optimize things, if need be, but more importantly, it eases the pain of implementing a GUI because it already has graphical functions, OpenGL accelerated no less.



Rambling aside, the important part i left for the end: Whether you find a lib, or someone to collaborate on writing one, or find an external software that exports sprite sheets/atlases containing pre-baked move-sets, it will always be your decision.

Oh, and both pixel and skeletal animations can be as smooth as one wants, the latter just exist on the other end of the memory-processing power spectrum.

Not sure why later on there was nothing and they weren't updated.

The person writing the lib may have gotten tired of it, or real life things got in the way. And no one else seemed to step up and continue it. Or, alternatively, it may work fine just as it is.

[hasen]

Well done, you managed to give a response actually worse than no response.

Let me up the ante again, then; feel free to interpret my responses however you please, i'm sure that'll wish libraries into existence. : )

I yield to thee, sir.

Silly and unproductive hostilities aside, here's a list of features other 2D game engines have that the löve framework doesn't, for the sake of argument:

Support for exporting to more platforms: flash, Neko, blackberry, WebOS, ... (consoles even)
Replay recording and playback support
Pathfinding
Advanced debug features and interactive console
Asset management system
Auto-Tiling
Tweening system
Color Transformations, Perspective Projection
Regular Expressions (lua lacks this actually)
XML, JSON, YAML support
Animation System
Gamejolt/kongregate api integration
Advanced inbuilt shapes
Spine integration
Tiled and or Ogmo integration (level editors)
Transition system
Scene/Node system
inbuilt (G)UI
logging
i18n/l13n
Cameras and Viewports
Layers
Classes and Inheritance support
3D support (can be hacked in though)
an IDE
a Graphical Editor
In-App Purchases
Integration with external platforms

...by itself; libraries exist for most of them.

Well yes I wasn't suggesting it was built into the engine, just whether there was 'support' or not.

Most of these things are supported by big things like HaxeFlixel or Game Maker, because people don't want to waste time with yak shaving and want to just glue blocks together along with actual assets so they can push out a game... which, of course may be a great hit or just an average release lost in the ocean of mediocrity; it depends on many things.

Yes, used Gamemaker, didn't like it at all.

Löve is very flexible, if you're willing to go the extra mile. Hell, i'm writing non-games with it, because i can. Also, the forums are kinda slow, and sometimes you may need to bump a thread if you don't get an answer in, say, a week or to; you can always visit the IRC room, or the Discord server though.

Normally responses are very quick here actually, that's why I assumed there can't be any interest in skeletal animations or that there's no support for it. Yes I like Löve, that's why I ask many questions about it.

And yes, maybe people don't really care for skeletal animations. I myself are intrigued with what Emofuri and Live2D are capable of, turning 2D art into pseudo-3D using transformations, but i know i'm not smart enough to create a freeware alternative, so i'm patiently waiting. And yes, skeletal animations are pretty useful for many types of games, like fighting games, for example.

Yes I wondered about that, there were several libraries for spriter with love2d a few years back and then later on no more.

Instead i'm working on implementing old-school Amiga and dos tracker music formats in lua because i want to write a composing software that's marginally unique. Is it slower than if i did it in assembler or C? probably so, but Löve gives me the tools to optimize things, if need be, but more importantly, it eases the pain of implementing a GUI because it already has graphical functions, OpenGL accelerated no less.

Did you used to write music in protracker?

Rambling aside, the important part i left for the end: Whether you find a lib, or someone to collaborate on writing one, or find an external software that exports sprite sheets/atlases containing pre-baked move-sets, it will always be your decision.

Finding a library is not really a decision. It's lucky though.

Not sure why later on there was nothing and they weren't updated.

The person writing the lib may have gotten tired of it, or real life things got in the way. And no one else seemed to step up and continue it. Or, alternatively, it may work fine just as it is.

Well yes..that's kind of what I wanted to know. I did try the current libraries and no they don't appear to work anymore unfortunately.

[zorg]

Well yes I wasn't suggesting it was built into the engine, just whether there was 'support' or not.

Then i may have misinterpreted the intent; apologies for that.

Normally responses are very quick here actually, that's why I assumed there can't be any interest in skeletal animations or that there's no support for it. Yes I like Löve, that's why I ask many questions about it.

I guess it depends on the topic.

Did you used to write music in protracker?

Kind of; too young to have had an Amiga, but i did use ModPlugTracker/OpenMPT to write module files before.

Finding a library is not really a decision. It's lucky though.

Right, but it is yours to decide whether you keep searching for one, or ask around, or give up and implement it yourself is what i meant. :V

Well yes..that's kind of what I wanted to know. I did try the current libraries and no they don't appear to work anymore unfortunately.

With luck, again, the changes needed would be small enough for someone to just update the lib's code, but then again, one needs to find someone willing to do that.

[drunken_munki]

Spriter -- popular and has a large showcase of successful integrations (Don't Stave, etc). Flat 59.99 $ price and you can do what you want. You can use the free version with less features, but can also do what you want with it.

As far as I know you need to build a Lua runtime if you can't use whatever they have or find.

N/M check these out -- some 3rd party LOVE support for Spriter:
https://github.com/capmar/spriter-love2d
https://github.com/karai17/love-spriter


Spine -- Has a pretty good UI, saves to json or a binary format (but this is not compatible with their own Lua runtime lib). License is expensive at 300 $ for all the features (Pro), and the 'enterprise' license is in my opinion a piss-take, +2200 $ every year plus extra per user if you are using the software or the binaries and sales were over 500k. On reflection the cost vs the requirement seems fair, however it is the terms of the license that rub me up the wrong way.

Has Lua/LOVE official support, easy to implement but runs very slow.

Checked it out yesterday, hasn't had official support or even a blog post in over 6 months.


DragonBones -- Free and probably worth a try, has a bunch of run-times but nothing official yet for general lua or LOVE:
http://www.dragonbones.com/en/download.html

Andross -- Lua library for 2D skeletal/bone animations, free and can import DragonBones data:
https://github.com/pfirsich/andross


Love Bone -- A work in progress integrated skeletal animator for LOVE:
https://github.com/seltzy/love-bone