Animation no longer importing correctly? [SOLVED]

[Spotted_Dragon]

So, I've been having a real headache, mainly because my first animated file works, but my second one does not.

1) My animator/artist sent me a walk animation, which works when I press play in the Sprite Editor. Only it was set up in rows and not as a straight line, so I asked her to edit it and resend.
2) She sent the new file, but when I import it, it shows up as one long image of all eight frames, and does not animate when I press play.

I put them both into my Test Room and pressed play on the game, and while the one in rows worked (despite being in the wrong structure), the straight one did not. They also fell to the bottom of the screen, but that's neither here nor there and something I can fix easily. I am wondering what I am doing wrong?

 

[Slow Fingers]

To convert sprite sheet in sprites, go to the edit sprite window.
In the upper option tabs, go Image -> Convert to frames
Enter the parameters of your spritesheet, click convert, and voila!
Hope that helps

Also, clear the cache after import/exports/modifications to sprites, the beta especially seems very picky about it.

 

[Spotted_Dragon]

Huh. So, any reason why the first one worked?

 

[Slow Fingers]

I've never seen a sprite sheet split itself magically, maybe you did import it as a strip image in the first place and simply don't remember?
Anyway, even if you use the "import strip image", the config box pops up to get the width, height, offset, etc... so it's weird if you really did not do anything of the such!

 

[Spotted_Dragon]

Nope, the first one split itself automatically. Either that or it was a weird side effect of it being in two rows.

Anyways, I figured out the answer to both this as well as my art quality reduction/resize problem at the same time. I just did a test importing images frame by frame instead of via strip (cause I tried Import Strip and it came up with a blank frame), and even though it resized my art, it was still vibrant and clean. I'm 100% fine with importing frame by frame in the future.

 

[RefresherTowel]

I've never seen a sprite sheet split itself magically, maybe you did import it as a strip image in the first place and simply don't remember?
Anyway, even if you use the "import strip image", the config box pops up to get the width, height, offset, etc... so it's weird if you really did not do anything of the such!

If you end the name of your sprite sheet with _strip# (replacing # with the number of sprites in the sheet) it will auto cut the sprite into the correct number of sub-images.

 

[Slow Fingers]

If you end the name of your sprite sheet with _strip# (replacing # with the number of sprites in the sheet) it will auto cut the sprite into the correct number of sub-images.

Oh really? I'm guessing the offset has to be 0, but pretty nice, will try it!

 

[Yal]

Nope, the first one split itself automatically. Either that or it was a weird side effect of it being in two rows.

Anyways, I figured out the answer to both this as well as my art quality reduction/resize problem at the same time. I just did a test importing images frame by frame instead of via strip (cause I tried Import Strip and it came up with a blank frame), and even though it resized my art, it was still vibrant and clean. I'm 100% fine with importing frame by frame in the future.

You should be able to avoid the sprite being resized if you import it from an empty sprite (no existing subimages)... and if that fails, first resize your blank sprite to the source image's sprite size so you know they'll match.

 

[Spotted_Dragon]

My new problem is that, when I resize, the character's edges seem to randomly get edited out or thinned. That's not due to the animation, everything is smooth even in motion (smooth lines frame by frame). They look absolutely fine in the Room Editor, but once I press 'Play', it randomly messes with the size of the black outlines.

Per attached pictures: S1 is before import, S2 is the import, and S3 is what I'm tying to get it to look like (the artist sent me an animated gif).

 

[RefresherTowel]

Looks like it might be a camera scaling issue. Does your camera width/height and viewport width/height match?

 

[Spotted_Dragon]

I apparently have 7 Viewports, and all Camera and Viewport settings are at 1366x769, which is not the size of my room at all, in fact those numbers are much smaller. I can try with a smaller room to see if that works. If that is the issue, I can try changing all of them, but if I can create just one singular camera, I'd much rather like to do that. I have not yet gotten around to any Camera tutorials, although I most likely should watch one on how to center the camera to my character.

EDIT: A smaller room worked. Doy. Should have thought of that before. Thanks for the camera tip.

 

[RefresherTowel]

Ok, so you see the "Visible" checkbox there? If that's not checked, the viewport/camera is not active at all, so the scaling will be entirely based off your room size. Since your room size may have been bigger than your monitor resolution (even if they are the same, if you're not in full screen, they won't actually be the same), GMS had no choice but to scale everything down to fit properly, hence the lines becoming thinner.

Unless every single room is going to be the same size and you're never going to have any scrolling, you'll need to activate one of those viewports. After that, it is the relationship between your "Camera Properties" (basically the photo that is being taken of the screen) and "Viewport Properties" (the size of the display you are going to show that picture on) that matters, room size will not factor into it at all once you have activated a camera. As long as your camera and viewport are the same size, you won't have any scaling issues at all (unless you set that size to bigger than the resolution of your monitor, in which case you will get distortion again).

 

[Spotted_Dragon]

Will do. Thank you for your patience.

 

[Slow Fingers]

I apparently have 7 Viewports[...]
I have not yet gotten around to any Camera tutorials

They would teach you unless you have splitscreen, a "surveillance camera" system, or some sort of high-end minimap, you only need one!

 

[Spotted_Dragon]

Yeah, I figure I'm going to want one that focuses on the main character image.

 

[Slow Fingers]

Yeah, I figure I'm going to want one that focuses on the main character image.

I think PixelatedPope has a pretty good one on Youtube, if I remember correctly

 

[Spotted_Dragon]

Here is the much smaller, much cleaner 257x235 Spit. Hanging from a ledge by his belly, which is another issue for another day.