BattleChara Generator reopening tests

[Alex]

Originally posted by Razor
I'm trying to figure it out.
Why did you post that desktop picture?
Just... why?

Good question.
I'll also suggest to neb87 to REDUCE a bit his avat pic.

Think at poor 56k users, they may want to kill you for this.
This is a techincal thread about generator tests.

[GaryCXJk]

OHMYGODWAAAAH!!!!

Not because the Battlechar Generator is up, but OMEGOSH look at how many frames there are!

So, this is my first suggestion. I know it may take up a lot of space (in terms of, you'll need to scroll more), but there are 48 frames, let's say devide the frame property chooser into groups of 16 (maybe 24 if we have to), using 2/4 rows per resource type. Now, this may be problematic, since now the property section will take up more space. So, how about, like, using CSS to reduce the size of the text of the dropdowns, maybe even the size of the dropdowns, to reduce the ammount needed to scroll from left to right.

[Alex]

Ehm... yes.
I knew about this.
But i failed doing some tests on the suggestions you made.

Reducing the size of dropdowns is nearly unuseful.
After all, there's 48 boxes there!
Evenif i'd find a way to work only of real frames (which are 33), 33 boxes are sill too much.
Now i'm working in 1280x1024, and i can see right to frame 19.
33 is nearly double.
And finally, a smaller font would be unreadable.

Yes, another way would havs been to "split" the box.
I thinked a lot about this, because a 2nd row for each layer would mean 4 rows instead of 1, because i should repeat also the headers (description) row.
For example:
row1: tr fr1 fr2 fr3.... fr24
row2: the values
row3: fr25 fr26 fr27.... fr48
row4: the values.

This would mean, in case of a full resource:
1 body = 4 rows
1 face = 4 rows
1 dress = 4 rows
1 hair = 4 rows
3 items = 12 rows
Total = 28 rows!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A bit too much, maybe....

I don't really have magic ideas, this time...
Suggestions or other comments on what i said?

[Prpl_Mage]

Shrink that Avatar and remove that picture please, it is screwing up the topic.

[Moosetroop11]

Good to see you're still alive, Alex

[shadus]

Originally posted by Bluhman
Shadus' is going to explode when he reads this thread.

What?

[GaryCXJk]

Okay, a sollution that might not solve it all, but can slightly reduce the horizontal scroll size.

SELECT, INPUT, TEXTAREA {
   FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
   COLOR: #51485F;
   FONT-SIZE: 10px;
}

Font-size can be changed to 8px. This might reduce the visibility, but I believe even font size 7 Verdana is readable. Not sure about the rest though.

Oh, and maybe one final suggestion, which isn't really needed, but a GZipped split pack, for use in Game Maker (so that you won't have to split the images by your own).

Too bad PHP 4 and higher doesn't have the GIF license anymore, that would come really handy for Game Maker.

[Xaliber]

Originally posted by Razor
I'm trying to figure it out.
Why did you post that desktop picture?
Just... why?

maybe he want to say something like "you are number 1"?
take a look at the person in the picture. He raise his thumb

sorry if this is out of topic
just want to try to answer
sorry again if my english aren't so good

[Alex]

I tryed, but looks very awful with smaller fontsizes.

Now i made a different test, splitting the boxes.
More space on top required, anyhow. But go there and give a look, i need feedbacks an this. Let me know how you fell it.

About gif, will talk later. Now the new machine has the new GD library and php5, and.. gif is supported again!

[EvilShadowX1]

Sad to say I don't like it, I don't like any of the new generators!!!

They are WAY too complex, I like the old transparancey, place change, etc, etc. more because It was simple!

so bleh! if you could put both up then yeah I would use, but for now I ain't really gonna use it :/

[Alex]

EvilShadowX1, I'm sorry.

But the new generators are not only "more complex", they're also much more versatile.
The simpler version you're talking about had many limitation, compared with this version.
After all, generators are utilities, and IMHO more possibilities are better than less.
It's up to you to decide to use them or to create your sprites by yourself.

[SaiKar]

I love the the changed to the character set generator. Grouping like resources vastly reduces the amount of stuff to wade through. I can see a resource and check to see if it comes in colors I like better. Very useful, easy.

The bchar one... eh... there are a LOT of frames. Maybe you should have a frame for every row as opposed to every individual pose, and have changes to that row affect all three poses in that row. I can't imagine wanting to change something in one pose but not another.

[Alex]

This may be an idea!
I tryind grouping frames as poses. Plz check the result in the generator.
Now it has only 16 frames, evenif frames 8,10,12,14 and 16 are always empty.
Anyhow, with 16 frames, only one row for all boxes is fine.

Just give a look to the actual solution and comment, thanx!

Edit:
Please do not consider the flash preview for battlegen now, i will fix it when we'll decide how to actually use the generator itself.

[Alex]

A little update:
I changed something in my admin panel, now i can sert, for each generator, the frame order to use for flash preview.

So the"empty frames" of battlegen are now ok, they're not shown a all in flash preview!

Only thing is that, with the actual test settings (3 frames instead of 1) means that the flash preview frames are 3 frames as well.
In one word, it's an animation of the whole poses.

Anyhow, i'll wait comments on the "3 in 1" actual solution before trying something else.

[GhostClown]

I think it works fine that way, but can the animation be slowed down?