22 APR 2023:
Whew, glad that uploaded! It was 2.986 MB and the limit is 3MB!
- As you can see, I've been working with Embergen 1.0 this week. Sorely missing from the game at the moment are explosions for minor hits on enemies. The above explosion comes pretty close to what I'm looking for although the in-game version will be much smaller. The actually rendering and exporting was pretty easy, but -- as before -- the hard part was figuring out how to get the exported frames to look exactly like the viewport frames.
In my RENDER--> Export settings I had to change my Alpha Blending Mode to Straight Alpha to get the right look.
- I've found that 20 frames of animation is sufficient for these small explosions. Five frames show the explosion going from nothing to full blast. The next 10 are to ensure those pretty explosions stay on screen long enough for the player to see them. The explosion fades away in the last 5 frames.
- Right now this folder of 20 frames is about 577kb, but I'll be able to get that even smaller by using a sprite sheet, which I successfully tested and integrated several months ago.
- Ideally, each ship will have a different "minor hit" animation and possibly a different animation depending on what weapon you use.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." -- Benjamin Franklin
Thanks for reading and have a great rest of your week!