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Feature Requests Sticky

A topic by MNKY created 34 days ago Views: 163 Replies: 20
Viewing posts 1 to 5
Developer

Lemme know your bright ideas, so I may steal implement them

Hi, very cool program - seems like it can be very powerful! Just wanted to see if it's possible to change the export area for the canvas from 256x256?

Developer

The export area can be controlled by changing the yellow bounding box in the output view on the right, right now the maximum is 512 x 512

I have a few suggestions, but they are mostly accessibility/QoL changes:

  1. Being able to click and drag .blastfx files from the file explorer into the window to open them instead of having to do "File > Open..." and then selecting them.
  2. The ability to double-click .blastfx files in the file explorer to open them in the program, and associate all blastfx files with BlastFX after installation.
  3. Ability to reorder dock and undock windows, like a "canvas" in drawing programs, and lock and unlock this so I can't move them around after I find a configuration I like. I tend to utilize different sized monitors and I like the ability to have all of my parameters on the right-hand side.
  4. In the Emitter Properties, all of the sections get very overwhelming to navigate when the text is mostly the same weight and hierarchy. This is compounded when one or more of the sections are expanded and I need to sift through the list collapse them again. Ability to change the theme or color of these so that they are more clearly divided would help a lot. (Sorry, if this doesn't sense, let me know.) 
  5. Being able to use the mouse to click and drag to reorder entries in the Effects Chain without having to click on the small-ish arrow boxes.
  6. Icons in the Emitters panel seem to be pretty small and it's difficult to tell when things are Locked or Unlocked, Hidden or Visible. 
  7. Ability to change the overall BlastFX theme and choose between light, dark, or use custom hex colors for the user to swap between?
  8. A brief explanation/tooltip when the user hovers over the Emitter properties and other categories. I know you can access online documentation via Help > Online Documentation, but maybe I need a brief refresher without having to open an external internet webpage.

Thanks for your consideration!

Developer(+1)

1. Should be doable

2. There isn't any installer currently, so you'd have to associate the files manually, but I should be able to make it compatible with that

3. I'll have a look into this, it should be possible, although I'll admit the program was originally intended to be a single screen application, but I know not everyone likes work that way

4. I get what you're saying, I'm still trying to figure out a good way to make the sections easier to navigate without getting overwhelmed/lost, but I'll take your suggestions into consideration 

5. This is on my to-do list, hopefully in the next update

6. I agree, I was supposed to use proper slightly larger icons, but forgot to update them. I'll make a note of that

7. I'll have a look into how easy it is to theme with the UI library I'm currently using

8. The majority of properties should have a tool tip when you hover over them, I'll check to see if I've missed any

For point #3, it's fine if the panels can't be fully undocked from the application itself and free-floating (ex. BlastFX on Monitor 1, Emitter Properties are on Monitor 2). If the Panels can be reordered within the main program window, that's sufficient for my use case. Admittedly may be scope creep, but allowing these panel preferences to be saved to a file so that I can use the same configuration across multiple computers. Feel free to ignore if implementing this has diminishing returns.

For #8, there are tooltips for the entries after you expand the parent categories under Emitter Properties, but there aren't any Tooltips for the parent properties themselves. This ask is born from my reluctance to open up categories but may become unnecessary when point #4 is addressed. I'll make another separate  post after I spend more time working with this program in my workflow.

Developer

Please take a look at the latest 2.0.3 update change log as I've managed to (hopefully) address a few of your points

Oh yeah, these changes in 2.0.3 help out quite a lot! The Collapse All button helps a ton, and the ability to reorder layers is very useful. The color-coded Parent Properties and their tooltips definitely help me parse the list better, along with the Hide/Unhide icons. For any other new suggestions, would you rather me create another post or continue to reply to this one?

Developer

You can keep replying to this thread if you like

  1. Sliders require a lot of precision to click and drag. This is mostly a problem when the Export Range marker and the scrubber bar are nearly on top of each other. Maybe increasing the handle size or length?
  2. An option to use the Export Range marker as the endpoint for the animation preview instead of looping only at the 3 second mark. (If the export Range is at 2.10 sec, Loop the preview from 0.00 -> 2.10 sec instead of looping 0.00 -> 3 sec)
  3. Click and drag to toggle lock and visibility of multiple emitters in Scene panel in a row, and/or using Shift + Click to select multiple entries in the Scene panel so I can add them to a folder in one go.
  4. Ability to align or center layers to the canvas.
  5. Ability for the user to preview the loop that would be exported without having to play trial and error of exporting and deleting the GIF/video if I don't like it. The output window won't show things like FPS changes. (May be a stretch, but I've had to export and re-export multiple times whenever I tweaked something like FPS). 
  6. Ability to manually type in the exact value for the Export Range by clicking on the seconds value instead of relying on fine tuning with the mouse and the slider handle (it's not very pleasant to use when using a Steam Deck or a mouse with high sensitivity)
  7. I want to be able to type in the exact value for the Simulation Bounds and Export Area instead of only using a mouse to resize the window for specific dimensions.

Thanks for your consideration, and I apologize if any of these are unclear.

Developer

Thanks, those suggestions make sense and should be fairly easy to implement, I'll try and get those sorted soon

(+1)

I think you should up the render resolution to be much higher then 512x512. I am a video production artist and I would literally LOVE a program like this that is significantly faster and easier to use to make 2D explosions then other programs. But the render resolution completely kills it for me. If you do this one small favor for me, ill buy it, not on sale so you can get all of the mula, and ill love you 5 ever. 

Please.

Seconded -- This request was also on my ongoing wishlist for feature requests, too. I'm not sure if 1024x1024 is big enough for AbstrctBlckArt's needs, but I was thinking something around that would be good for my own needs. Not sure how it would impact program performance though, but it would possibly be a gamechanger if implemented.

Developer(+1)

I'll look into this as you're not the only one who's asked about it, is there a particular upper resolution you'd like to see? I need to see about performance etc, but I'll see what I can do

Ill shoot for the stars and ask for 4096 x 4096. I think that more then covers all of the needs that this program could be used for but hopefully isn't toooo computationally expensive! haha 

Developer(+1)

That should be okay, probably a little slow at that scale, but it'll depend on your specs. I've changed the export dialog so that now the output scale actually renders at the scale/resolution you set (rather than scaling it up/down after), so once I release this update, you should be able to go as high or low as you like

LETS GOOOO!!!!! Thank you!

(3 edits) (+1)

Hello! Tried out the BlastFX software and it's very good at making particle like sprites!
There is one idea in mind that would be something worth checking out.

I dub it: Pinpoint Keyframes

Pinpoint keyframes is where the user can place marks on the timeline so then it would make the play-head instantly snap to the nearest pinpointed keyframe for a controlled, animated sprite. Just for creative reasons.

Maybe make a change to the spritesheet export too so then the exporter knows what frames to export based on the pinpointed keyframes...
BlastFX has a LOT of potential!

Developer

Is that so you can create short, snappy, stylised effects that require fewer key frames?

Yup, precisely. Short, snappy, stylized as you said. Not just for any games made but for something like if you wanted to make a custom explosion for OLDER games such as DOOM.

DOOM would be one good example cause an explosion takes like about 2-3 frames... BlastFX currently exports a lot of frames which kind of leads to handpicking which "frames" looks good enough.