Progress Report - Week 1

I've made a lot of progress on the editor! I've got a basic UI working — it leaves a lot to be desired, but it's working! Here's everything that's working:

• Images can be imported as assets
• Images can be opened in the editor
• The editor supports dragging, zoom, and having multiple files open at once — nothing else yet, though

Check out what I've got done so far!

Where is it going?

I'm feeling really good about it! The next things I want to get added:

• Area selection tool - I want to be able to select a section of the image for use with various other tools
• Spritesheet tool - I want to be able to select frames from a spritesheet and name them
• Animation tool - I want to be able to assign multiple spritesheet frames to an animation, then drag and drop to rearrange them
• Export tool - I want to be able to export a sprite atlas from all of this work that I can import directly to Pixi.js

Now, you may look at this list and wonder, "Trezy, why in the world would you build all of this from scratch? You can easily accomplish all of these things with Aseprite + Texture Packer, or any number of other tools you already use!" The answer, my observant friend, is that this is just the basis for so many other bits of functionality that I don't get from those other tool chains. For example, defining hit/hurt boxes in Aseprite is a giant pain-in-the-butt. Here are some of the things that I can't currently do with the other toolchains I've used that IO want to make easier for myself:

• Defining hit/hurt boxes for individual sprites, and adjusting them across an animation
• Defining how different animations can be chained together, e.g. the walk -> run transition has its own animation, and the hit animation should only kick in after the 3rd frame of the attack animation
• Exporting this data in a way that my engine can use easily, such as a sprite atlas for Pixi.js and collision data for Lance.gg

That's just a tiny amount of the stuff that I want to be able to do, but I've gotta start by creating the foundation for those other tools. Then, the sky is the limit! Who knows? Maybe it'll eventually become a full on visual game editor one day. 😁

Bonus Bloopers

I just realized this morning that I made a little booboo with the infinite background... it doesn't exactly support zooming out. 🤦🏻‍♂️