Stick Nodes - Mobile animation app! (BETA is released)

[Ralph]

See this post for information on the BETA.

----------

This is a copy and paste from a topic I made on animator.net. It seems things have changed and DD has found a new home, too bad I end up losing my old account, though.

I was a really old member and ex-mod, signed up to DD back in 2005. I'm back now with some news though!

----------

Wow, DarkDemon.org. Well, Animator.net now, but whatever, same thing.

No one here will remember me except a small handful, but I'm a very old member of the forums. I can't even remember the last time I made a post here.

Anyway, Pivot is what got me started in a lot of the nonsense that I'm doing today and for that I'm very grateful. I've always been fascinated with animation, both in Pivot and with Flash (though I've had to put it aside to focus more on game development in the past years).

But good news, I've finally been able to combine those two passions into one project.



Announcing Stick Nodes, a powerful stickfigure animation program created with mobile devices in mind.

It's not released yet, but being that it's nearly complete, I figured it was a good time to get the word out a bit. I figured the DarkDemon community would be the best place to start.

You can see some features, screenshots, and videos on the official StickNodes website: StickNodes.com.

You can also follow the development on my site or by following me on Twitter.

Anyway, so what's good DD? How's it been? Any questions/feature requests for Stick Nodes? No promises since development is nearing the end, but I plan on releasing updates to the app once its released so I'll be noting down all comments / requests.

[kellawgs]

Wow that tween feature is something that has serious potential with Pivot, I think. Really interesting.

[thebiscotticakeman]

ok im in this could potentially help me in animation :3


but for serious questions first

*is it going to be free ?

*what mobile phones would you plan to release this ?

[tuna]

This actually looks really cool. The tweening idea is also really great.
Very interesting, good luck :)

[Skype]

Long time no see. Your web dev skills are slipping though bro ;)

Interesting concept. I have no interest in these sorts of things but having had a look at your portfolio it's good to see you doing so well.

[Olix Flix]

I always thought about that.
Once I dreamed pivot was a device, like a gameboy. (lmao

[The Black Mamba]

I've always wanted an app like this, I even looked for one once. good work.

[Ralph]

Sorry for the delayed replies guys, was away over the weekend. I appreciate all of the attention this is getting.

Also, to anyone PMing me, I can't reply back because of a limitation that I think is placed on new accounts.

@kellawgs
Yeah, the tweening is pretty great, it was the first idea I had that really motivated me to take a crack at actually developing this. Right now I have the app adding only 1 frame of tweening between keyframes, but I'm seriously considering upping that to 2. It wouldn't be too hard, but I'd need to refactor a little bit of code.

@thebiscotticakeman
Right now I'm only targeting Android devices (both phones and tablets) because I already have a Google Play developer account and I have access to many different Android devices. Once I gauge the reception of the app and potentially work out any bugs / changes, I'm going to work on an ios version (which should be *simple* because of the nature of the underlying framework I'm using, LibGDX.)

Nothing is set in stone yet, but here's my plan in terms of free/paid. There will be a free version with no limitations outside of a small watermark in the corner of exported gifs and an ad that shows periodically on startup. On the flip side, they'll be a paid version, probably $1 - $2 which removes these. Think of it as a way to reimburse me a little for the development time on this project ;)

@Tuna
<3 you too

@Skype
There we go, there's an old member that remembers me. Yeah, I put web design to the side. The Stick Nodes website was thrown together in just a few hours one afternoon so it's pretty bad too, lol.

I'm planning on actually making something more presentable once the app is released, maybe even allowing for users to submit projects / sticks sort of like Droidz.

@Olix Flix
Only the best animators dream of animation programs.

@The Black Mamba
Thanks. There actually is 1 stickfigure animator app on Google Play (titled Stickfigure Animator I believe). To be honest it seems solid enough but at the same time a bit "eh". You can check it out if you want.

[Ralph]

Went to test some things, ended up doing a little bit of animation.

Non-tweened:


Tweened:


Good stuff, that tweening.

[Kev]

sup ralph. 90% sure you don't remember me (i was wolf/ahri on dd) but i helped you with all that wordpress pizzazz that was going around in the past. fortheloss i think?
was pretty old

you and skype actually got me into web things but yeah i dont think you remember me lolol its been a looong time

[kellawgs]

Went to test some things, ended up doing a little bit of animation.

Non-tweened:


Tweened:


Good stuff, that tweening.

Take notes, Peter.

Also I'd like layers. And also a timeline for audio (would make putting animation over a Pivot animation so much easier).

thx m8

[The Black Mamba]

That looks nice! This is coming along nicely.

[Ralph]

@ 金剛デース!
You know, I do actually believe I remember a Wolf from DD.org a while back. Or I might be confusing that with someone else... Anyway, yeah, I think you're referring to forthelose.org which was my old site about web design/dev stuff. I sold it a while back and started up what I have now, fortheloss.org, haha.

@kellawgs
Layers and audio would be amazing, but I think that gets a bit too in-depth and technical for the simple app I have it mind. If things go well I might very well focus my efforts on a more robust desktop version and in that case I'll definitely be looking into more advanced features like this.

@The Black Mamba
I love you too.

[Gary]

So when's the estimated time for this to be released?

[Ralph]

@Gary
I was originally saying late-June to early-July, but at this point I believe it's more of a solid July. Thanks in part to feature-creep and all of the small little bugs I keep finding.

I mentioned this in my most recent update post, which also shows off some more non-tweened vs. tweened animation.