17 Tháng 3

Magica Voxel features: shovel in ground

The first of several Magica Voxel updates is live! I'm excited to announce that the groundwork is laid for supporting interoperability with Magica Voxel .vox files. You can process individual files or entire folders containing magica .vox files, and ATE will pump out versions of the .vox files from top-down for the height, color and normal map channels. This opens up a number of possibilities to use Magica Voxel in creative ways.

You should see "Magica Voxelizer" as a new option in the main Workspace menu!

• You can use Magica Voxel to create 3D parallax (normal mapped) texture patterns. These patterns can then be brought directly into your games, or assembled using the Atlas Tile Editor into useful sprite atlases (rinse repeat)
  
• You can use Magica Voxel to create sprites by drawing them from the top-down, opening up another way to create 2D art.

Upcoming improvements to this new set of features:

• Take orthographic pictures of vox files for use as isometric tiles, automatically from multiple angles!
  
• Auto-"bake" 3D orthographic (isometric) sprite effects up to 360 times per voxel for smooth 3-dimensionality. This feature is known as "3d sprites" in GameMaker and other pixel art engines.
  
• Take pictures of Magica Voxel artwork from multiple angles automatically.
  
• Convert Voxels to baked Wavefront .obj files, complete with vertex color data, for use in other 3D engines like Unity and Unreal.
  
• Convert to an ATE-specific format, allowing you to fully rig objects in a special format, that can easily be added to 3D game engines, and then bake out those multi-voxel models complete with advanced character rigs. This special format will allow a variety of additional features, allowing your voxel to take on new shapes not possible with standard Magica Voxel files!
  
• This ATE-specific format will also allow special baking for 2.5D effects using the "3D png" format. More information forthcoming on this awesome effect!

Once this feature reaches a density of usefulness, I'll create a video tutorial outlining not only the features, but how to use Magica Voxel.

If you've never used Magica Voxel before, you can find out more about this great free project here:
https://ephtracy.github.io/

Please note, an earlier, but good version of Magica Voxel has been added to the Utilities folder.



I also wanted to mention that we've added a Console window to help illustrate the great complexity that is under the hood in ATE: Atlas Tile Editor. During long operations, the console window will show you exactly what ATE is doing!
Please take a moment to respond if this feature is useful to you.

24 Tháng 12, 2018

Tutorial 2: Mulligan Particle Generator

Yay! Mulligans have arrived. Updated already, check the tutorial here:

Tutorial #2 for Mulligans

You can take a look at more flares by visiting GML-Pro Pack on Github: http://github.com/h3rb/gml-pro

Previous announcement:
It's Christmas Eve, and the Mulligans are coming!

Today I've laid the groundwork for the Mulligans. In the next two weeks I will be finalizing this feature and releasing it. Mulligans are an alternative way of creating explosions, particle effects, bullets and the like. In addition to creating the individual particles, I'm planning an export feature that will provide you with a way of exporting one or multiple mulligan effects.

Here's an example from Fringes of the Empire: https://twitter.com/LAGameStudio/status/767571233185599488

Why the term, Mulligans? We're not talking Golf here...

The term derives from a hobo term meaning a "stew of odds and ends", but also if you go further back, the term relates directly to "explosive", "missile", "mine" and "gunpowder" -- it also means a mishmash and a medley.

Our medley consists of: waveforms (for easing/tween effects), images, numeric values and ranges, and of course, WAV sounds!

By the way you can capture them when in windowed mode, using Screen2Gif (https://www.screentogif.com)

What the term means in ATE is simple: Particle systems built of a combination of images and sounds to make a "audio-visual effect soup" ... you can create and manage your mulligans, and what's more exciting, you can then mix your mulligans and export them in a few different ways:

1) You can snip and clip them together into a "final mulligan" that stacks multiple effects on top of each other, or lets you otherwise manipulate them in time and duration.
2) You can export just the JSON for each frame, so your engine can display them per-frame, generated on the fly.
3) You can export them frame-by-frame (no sound, though it does provide you with the JSON to play the sounds so you don't forget which ones you've picked)

Once you've exported them frame-by-frame you can:
1) Re-import them and assemble them into a sprite atlas
2) Trigger ffmpeg to build them into an MP4 file or animated gif
3) Use individual frames as a source for making new mulligans!
4) Use them in GameMaker, RPGMaker or other game engines!

I will produce a tutorial showing off these features when they are ready in early January. Stay tuned! And, if I don't get back to you in time, Happy New Year!