ildaGen - ILDA file creation tool

[VibrationsOfDoom]

Two things that I would like to see...

First of all, let's say we have 64 frames. Let's also say that at frame 36, I want to
Introduce a circle into the screen of already animated images. If I insert a circle at frame 36, the program places the circle
By default where it should be if it was already introduced at the first frame.
So if I started all my images in the middle at frame 1, the circle (at frame 36) can seemingly only be placed where it should be if it was animated at frame 1. If I try to move it anywhere else, it defaults to where it should be based on trajectory and direction from frame 1. Hope that makes sense lol.

Also, any plans to import old files OTHER than format 4 or 5?

Don't want to sound like I'm being nitpicky. This is a great program and I'm looking forward to creating cool geometric colorful animated files!

[Grix]

I understand what you mean. Currently you can only animate spanning from the first to the last frame, but more control over this is definitely planned for future versions. At some point I want to create a timeline of sorts so that you can freely control at which frames objects are placed and animated at. But it's a bit of work so it might not make the next version.

Same goes for legacy ilda file formats. I want to support them at some point, but palettes is a PITA. For now though, it's quite easy and free to convert your older files into format 4 or 5 using for example laserboy.

You're not sounding nitpicky, hehe. As said I very much welcome suggestions, after all the product is in the beta phase

[masterpj]

a few tips *more will follow*
add a setting where you can change the transparency/brightness of the onion skinned frames and a feature how many frames you can look back and forward with the onion skin.

With the animation can you control the curvature of a movement or is it only a few select interpolation curvatures you can choose from?

Does your drawing tool work vector based where you define parts as a spline and move handles or is it where you have direct control of the spaced points?
Both methods come with their up's and downs. For one the one where you work with splines you can manipulate the image better once its drawn and actually do optimizations automatically after an image has been drawn as no spacing will be defined, just the thape.
However the latter also makes the drawing process harder and you will have less controll over the drawing when you are an advanced user, this is not criticism towards your software in a negative way.. thats just one of the percieved things I have with the laser drawing tools with time.

Hope any of it helps!

[james]

Same goes for legacy ilda file formats. I want to support them at some point, but palettes is a PITA. For now though, it's quite easy and free to convert your older files into format 4 or 5 using for example laserboy.

If you simply assume that almost every ILDA file of version 0 or 1 will be using the 63 color default palette, you'll be right 99.999% of the time (no palette defined). ILDA section 2; the palette, was never really well implemented by other ILDA art apps much before LaserBoy, even though it was accurately described in the ILDA file spec since the early 90s. I have never found an example of a correctly implemented section 2 in an ILDA file that was not made with LaserBoy.

FYI: I started writing LB in late 2003, well before the "format wars" and the addition of sections 4 & 5.

You can export any palette you either find or create in LB as a table of plain ASCII text values to import into your app.

James.

[Grix]

a few tips *more will follow*
add a setting where you can change the transparency/brightness of the onion skinned frames and a feature how many frames you can look back and forward with the onion skin.

With the animation can you control the curvature of a movement or is it only a few select interpolation curvatures you can choose from?

Does your drawing tool work vector based where you define parts as a spline and move handles or is it where you have direct control of the spaced points?
Both methods come with their up's and downs. For one the one where you work with splines you can manipulate the image better once its drawn and actually do optimizations automatically after an image has been drawn as no spacing will be defined, just the thape.
However the latter also makes the drawing process harder and you will have less controll over the drawing when you are an advanced user, this is not criticism towards your software in a negative way.. thats just one of the percieved things I have with the laser drawing tools with time.

Hope any of it helps!

Onion skinning settings will be added soon, thanks!

Currently you can only choose from the provided animation mode, manual curvatures may be added later but it would be some work and I it's not a top priority right now. For the x/y translation animations, you can possibly makeshift some custom curvatures by stacking several animations on top of each other using the reapply button. But as of now this would unfortunately not work with other animations like blanking because the reapply button completely overwrites the previous properties.

As for the drawing tool, it creates points directly, it does not use functions. I realize this have some downsides and it might come back to bite me when I implement optimizations later like you say, but for now I'll leave it like it is. But I might change it later, we'll see

@james: Thanks for the insight. That makes it a bit easier. There is another reason I have not implemented it yet too though. I feel like the earlier versions with palettes are kind of deprecated, and I am reluctant to enable them to keep being used. 63 colors is hardly useable nowadays if you want to create quality shows..

[masterpj]

Here is a tool I recommend.
The polygon line tool.
First you draw polygonial and and the line keeps connected and drawing every time you click the mouse button left. You keep drawing until you right click.
Then it would be cool to define if a point is a corner point or not.
You should not do angle detection as this really complicates the drawing process.

[Grix]

You can do something similar to that by using the line tool and holding down alt. This snaps the start position of the line to the end of the last drawn object, so you can do this: http://i.gyazo.com/9d77b729bffe48ce6be0c776e7f90648.mp4

But suggestion noted! There is obviously some problems with the current solution, for example you must manually aim the last connecting point and you can't automatically animate them seamlessly

[james]

@james: Thanks for the insight. That makes it a bit easier. There is another reason I have not implemented it yet too though. I feel like the earlier versions with palettes are kind of deprecated, and I am reluctant to enable them to keep being used. 63 colors is hardly useable nowadays if you want to create quality shows..

Well, yes and no. The 63 color palette contains a nice set of fully saturated hues, so it's not a bad place to start. You will find that a lot of laser "clip art" is in the old formats of either 0 or 1.

So just allow import and not export.

Also those SD card readers only know how to read 0.

James.

[VibrationsOfDoom]

I understand what you mean. Currently you can only animate spanning from the first to the last frame, but more control over this is definitely planned for future versions. At some point I want to create a timeline of sorts so that you can freely control at which frames objects are placed and animated at. But it's a bit of work so it might not make the next version.

Same goes for legacy ilda file formats. I want to support them at some point, but palettes is a PITA. For now though, it's quite easy and free to convert your older files into format 4 or 5 using for example laserboy.

Seems like James and I had a hard time figuring out WHY LaserBoy wouldn't change the ild files to the 3d format, which was format 0... SO, gonna have to go through this AGAIN James, well this time it's to convert to format 5...

Weird thing, and it might have been an issue with these particular lasers, but my Goldenstar doesn't seem to like format 4 very much.... I think it handles 5 better...

Or shit, was that the other way around!??!?

[james]

You should prob contact me about that elsewhere.

Looking forward to that!

James.