Question regarding "smooth" Flash character animations

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Looking at games like “Kingdom Rush” or “Where Is My Water” or “Plants vs. Zombies” I notice a lot of graphics done in Flash, because the characters are not using frame based sprites, but the “smooth” looking flash style… meaning the character animations in those games are not only using sprite frames but also are using some kind of smooth transitions and even scaled transitions of body parts.

Now I wonder how I can do this with Corona?

What workflow is needed from drawing Characters to finally see them animated with Corona code?

I know how to make sprites with Photoshop, but how can I create the “smooth” character animations like for example in the games I mentioned at top? Is this even possible in Corona? And if it is, how can those files be exported from Flash and be used in the code?

For example, how can I create a character walkcycle for different directions using the “smooth” Flash style?

Maybe some of you are already doing this kind of stuff and are willing to give me some tips here… :wink:

Thank you for your help!

Daniela

#2

I as well would like to know different solutions to this.  All I know at this point is that Corona supports sprite sheets.  So you could draw a fluid animation in Flash, but it still would have to be exported as png images that make up the animation.

One other option, which I purchased, but haven’t had time to use yet, is called “Spine”. 

http://esotericsoftware.com/

It has Corona support and basically animates your character using code instead of TONS of sprite images.  However, I imagine that nothing will ever look as fluid and good as just actually doing pure animation in something like flash.

#3

Hi Daniela,

@rxmarccall is correct. For truly “fluid” type of animation, you’d probably need to use something like Spine, where various elements of the character are moved independently.

You might also consider the following method (tutorial). It uses transitions + image sheets to animate pieces independently using transitions:

http://www.coronalabs.com/blog/2012/10/09/dynamically-optimized-sprite-sheets/

Hope this helps,

Brent

#4

Thx for the help!

I looked into Spine, but didn’t manage to get the sample running yet because of this strange error message…

The resource file (…/) could not be found at case-sensitive path (/Users/dani/Desktop/spine-runtimes-master/spine-corona/…/).
2013-07-12 01:24:15.070 Corona Simulator[5769:707] Runtime error
module ‘spine-lua.utils’ not found:resource (spine-lua.utils.lu) does not exist in archive
    no field package.preload[‘spine-lua.utils’]
    no file ‘/Users/dani/Library/Application Support/Corona/Simulator/Plugins/spine-lua/utils.lua’
    no file ‘/Users/dani/Desktop/spine-runtimes-master/spine-corona/spine-lua/utils.lua’
    no file ‘/Applications/CoronaSDK/Corona Simulator.app/Contents/Resources/spine-lua/utils.lua’

…

But it looks promising because with the scale animations it’s exactly what I was looking for. :slight_smile:

Daniela

#5

I haven’t set it up yet myself either, but seems like an important “.Lua” file for spine is missing?  Did you download the free trial?  Not sure if the free trial would let you use it with Corona or not.  I will try to take a few minutes and get it running as well.

#6

It’s working now. The following folder “spine-lua” (from above (outside) the spine-corona directory!) must be copied into the “spine-corona” folder and then it’s working.

Thx!

Daniela

#7

I as well would like to know different solutions to this.  All I know at this point is that Corona supports sprite sheets.  So you could draw a fluid animation in Flash, but it still would have to be exported as png images that make up the animation.

One other option, which I purchased, but haven’t had time to use yet, is called “Spine”. 

http://esotericsoftware.com/

It has Corona support and basically animates your character using code instead of TONS of sprite images.  However, I imagine that nothing will ever look as fluid and good as just actually doing pure animation in something like flash.

#8

Hi Daniela,

@rxmarccall is correct. For truly “fluid” type of animation, you’d probably need to use something like Spine, where various elements of the character are moved independently.

You might also consider the following method (tutorial). It uses transitions + image sheets to animate pieces independently using transitions:

http://www.coronalabs.com/blog/2012/10/09/dynamically-optimized-sprite-sheets/

Hope this helps,

Brent

#9

Thx for the help!

I looked into Spine, but didn’t manage to get the sample running yet because of this strange error message…

The resource file (…/) could not be found at case-sensitive path (/Users/dani/Desktop/spine-runtimes-master/spine-corona/…/).
2013-07-12 01:24:15.070 Corona Simulator[5769:707] Runtime error
module ‘spine-lua.utils’ not found:resource (spine-lua.utils.lu) does not exist in archive
    no field package.preload[‘spine-lua.utils’]
    no file ‘/Users/dani/Library/Application Support/Corona/Simulator/Plugins/spine-lua/utils.lua’
    no file ‘/Users/dani/Desktop/spine-runtimes-master/spine-corona/spine-lua/utils.lua’
    no file ‘/Applications/CoronaSDK/Corona Simulator.app/Contents/Resources/spine-lua/utils.lua’

…

But it looks promising because with the scale animations it’s exactly what I was looking for. :slight_smile:

Daniela

#10

I haven’t set it up yet myself either, but seems like an important “.Lua” file for spine is missing?  Did you download the free trial?  Not sure if the free trial would let you use it with Corona or not.  I will try to take a few minutes and get it running as well.

#11

It’s working now. The following folder “spine-lua” (from above (outside) the spine-corona directory!) must be copied into the “spine-corona” folder and then it’s working.

Thx!

Daniela