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[renderhjs]

updated to version 1.30
http://renderhjs.net/shoebox/air/shoeBox_1.30_public.air

documentation
http://renderhjs.net/shoebox/

Quite a lot of bug fixes went into this release but I also managed to release some new toys like the Tile Extractor that can generate a TMX tile map with a tile map based on a screenshot, or the Extract SWF tool that is still in development. Because some tools have actually multi purposes I want to update the documentation in the near future with some practical tutorials on how to use some tools in a different way like creating bitmap fonts using the extract and pack sprite tools.

A overview screen of some of the interesting goodies in this release

[Hima]

This is amazing! Please tell me you accept donation! 

[DanFessler]

This is most awesome thing I've seen in a long while.  I'm most excited for you to release your extract-swf framework for unity so I can start playing with it.  I'd suggest you make an XNA framework for it as well to cover your bases.

I have a suggestion for extending ani sheet to be able to cut up sprite sheets into individual frames.  I've made my own tool for this in the past, but it'd be nice to include in this shoebox.

[Richard Kain]

I haven't used the Flash IDE for developing graphics for so long, that some of these tools would never be necessary for what I work on. At the same time, I could see that pack sprites feature being really useful for OpenGL rendering. (where minimizing how often the texture is swapped out can result in major performance savings)

As always, you are a technical wizard, renderhjs

[renderhjs]

I haven't used the Flash IDE for developing graphics for so long, that some of these tools would never be necessary for what I work on...

I am sometimes in the same boat, especially when I work with Unity3D (where 3dsMax is more my IDE for asset creation). But these tools are no way intended for just flash developers, like the animation sheet tool for example supports also animated GIF animations - not just SWF's. The sprite packing and extracting tools on the other hand are what I use for Unity when I need UI, billboards or sprite based things.
I also use them if I work with other artists together to extract their sprites that they drew on a canvas (PNG sheet for example) and I can split each individual item as a separate PNG image.

I have a suggestion for extending ani sheet to be able to cut up sprite sheets into individual frames.  I've made my own tool for this in the past, but it'd be nice to include in this shoebox.

Yes me and a co worker had an idea for that as well, but it would work best if within the filename a naming convention would already exist, like something indicating how wide and tall a individual frame is, or if its a one row animation strip how many frames it has.
e.g. fireAnimation_112x63.png would indicate that a particular frame is 112x63 pixels, figuring then out how many frames there are is easy.

[DanFessler]

Why not pop up a quick dialog box asking how many rows and columns the image has.  It's information the user can tell pretty quick just by looking at the image without having to measure pixel sizes, and you're not forcing people to follow naming conventions which would be super annoying.

[renderhjs]

I am very picky and careful about UI flow matters. The core philosophy of ShoeBox's UI is to be as straight forward as possible, so ideally you just drop something and it does stuff - no gabs, interruptions and stuff that always gets in the way (e.g are you sure?, please specify,...).
Obviously when you are about to save things to the hard drive there still needs to be a confirm button but I really want to have the whole UI as direct as possible.

So I guess those settings would go into the settings section (right click on a tool). I plan at some point to have the settings to be visible next to the result panel at all times (optional) but that's more for the long run.

But yeah trying to get that feature in, where you can split a animation strip into individual frames back.

[DanFessler]

Hmmm... I can understand the minimalism, but at a certain point you're doing more harm than good sometimes - making it more complex for the user than necessary due to the simplicity of your tool.  I have an idea though that can solve this perhaps.  What if we compromised - if you right-click drag a file into the shoebox the settings panel pops up automatically, and if you left-click drag everything stays how it is now?

[renderhjs]

I worked today on a Bitmap font genrator (*.fnt table) to be used with common frameworks such as UiToolkit for Unity3D.
The issue with tools such as BMFont from Angelcode and alike is that they don't let you customize the type effects in Photoshop.
My solution expects a PNG image with a fixed character sequence (as defined in the settings). A blob detector finds the characters back and packs the sprites into a texture sheet. From there on the texture and a *.fnt file are exported so they can be used in the engine or framework.



I don't read any kearning data from a font file hence why right now spacings are equal between the bounds of the characters.
Once it does ok what it should do I will release an update with a preview on this new tool.

[Richard Kain]

You're a magician, renderhjs! I cooked up my own font solution a few weeks back using Angelcode's program. It was fine for the basics, but what you're working on knocks it into a cocked hat. Bitmap fonts are great for text-heavy games. Looking forward to this new feature in your ShoeBox.

[ANtY]

OH GOD, this is just so awesome, it has like a ton of features I need! Amazing job, need to try it right now!

 

[renderhjs]

Some improvements today on the Bitmap Font tool. It has now a nicer preview window and I got 90% of the fnt format completed in the exporter. Almost ready to go public, needs some testing with Unity and uiToolkit though before I release it in the wild.

[Udderdude]

Very nice set of tools.

[renderhjs]

I managed to make it work in Unity using uiToolkit. The upper part shows unity and the lower part the preview window of ShoeBox with the Bitmap Font tool.



I'll create a template for uiToolkit too as it requires some changes such as

• extention to be txt instead of fnt
• pack in 2x and normal res (if you need that)
• pack the text texture into another texture atlas with json (as txt extention) file.

A friend is going to try this tomorrow in Cocos2d to see if this works right out of the box for him.

[renderhjs]

some more tweaking on the Bitmap Font Tool, pretty much done with this tool

pixel font test
I had to tweak a few things internally to allow detecting such tiny pixel islands as characters but now it works pretty well with pixel fonts too.




Narrow Sans Sarif font
Your typical anti aliased reading font. Even though the kerning is constant here it looks actually pretty decent if not quite good.




Bitmap Font settings
The output format can be customized but will be a *.fnt file (non XML) as a default. But it also can be a custom XML, json or anything else file.