List of Motors Included in Standard Version

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Psmith
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2015 6:13 pm

List of Motors Included in Standard Version

Post by Psmith » Tue Apr 21, 2015 6:07 pm

Chong:

I believe you have altered the list of included features/motors now included with the Standard Version.

I am particularly interested in the Motors - can we have a list?

Will I be able to do the "growing plant" method with the Standard Version?


Thanks,

Greg Smith

chong
Posts: 1178
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:21 am

Re: List of Motors Included in Standard Version

Post by chong » Tue Apr 21, 2015 6:59 pm

Hello Greg,
Here are the list of Bone Motors in the Standard version:

- FK Motor ( or manual Motor. This is the default that allows you to drag and manipulate the bone directly)

- IK Motor (allows you to drag the end point directly, the rest of the bones pose automatically)

- Smooth IK Motor (like IK, but smooths out instabilities for many joints. This is the recommended motor when first starting out. It gives the benefit of IK but is also completely stable so it makes it easy to manipulate)

- IK Rotate Motor (for walking etc.)

- Smooth IK Rotate Motor (for walking etc.. The Smooth IK version of it.)

- Bend Physics Motor (For tails, floppy items. Can also be put with a bone network to simulate flesh)

- Pin Rope Motor (Rope Physics)

- Rotate Cycle Motor (simple oscillating rotate action. Good to drive physics motors)

- Move Bounce Motor (horizontal and vertical oscillating motion. Good for bouncing gaits etc.)

The growing plant method requires the advanced version of Creature. That is because the growing plant animation is more than just simple bone to mesh deformation. It employs a complicated projective mesh deformation method ( behind the scenes it is doing lots of math ) that ties in with the control pt mesh motors to allow the mesh to track, grow and deform smoothly along a bone curve. To the best of my knowledge, I do not think if any 2D (or even 3D) animation software on the market right now allows you to do it like how Creature grows the mesh.

Cheers,
Chong

Psmith
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2015 6:13 pm

Re: List of Motors Included in Standard Version

Post by Psmith » Tue Apr 21, 2015 7:21 pm

Perhaps this is an unfair question - but people will most definitely asking it, in the future (I know this is the internal debate I am currently having):

How would you compare Creature Standard Version with Puppet 2D for Unity? Many of the same features exist in both, though I think Creature is more straightforward in application. Also, I do realize Puppet 2D has no automated motion features. Both make extensive use of meshes for both bones and Control Point Cages (Creature Professional Version).

I might also add that, currently, Puppet 2D is half the cost of Creature Standard Version - but maybe it is missing half the features, comparatively.

You don't have to answer this question, but it is the one gnawing at me right now.


Greg Smith

chong
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Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:21 am

Re: List of Motors Included in Standard Version

Post by chong » Tue Apr 21, 2015 7:35 pm

Hello Greg,

That is not an unfair question and something I am more than happy to answer.

1) Yes the automated motors imho are a big deal for Creature. They are not meant as a replacement for manual animation. Rather, they are a complement to allowing the animator to animate secondary motion a lot more easily. They are also an excellent tool for rapid prototyping and iteration. As you know, these things are typically very time consuming and doing it using motors will save you both time + cost.

2) Mesh weighting in Creature is very advanced. There are many tools out there that claim to do bone to mesh weighting but I think you can look at the results from Creature yourself(check out the samples) and notice the auto weighting algorithms employed do a decent job at generating nice shapes.

3) The very modular nature of Creature's framework means that adding fancy new bone or mesh motors in the future is easy. If a user requests for a new type of behaviour not currently provided by the system, it can be added. With other tools, you are stuck with a fixed set of options because there really isn't a motor system in place. Take note that when I mean motor, I don't just mean automated animation. The FK and IK motors for example, are just regular FK and IK systems where you directly manipulate positions or angles just like in other tools. What Creature does is it generalises the overall framework of animation to make it future proof and a lot more extensible.

4) You are not just constrained to Unity or any other tool alone. Creature being a native tool supports multiple game engines and web frameworks. I am constantly adding new support for other game engine/framework support. One day you might decide to move from Unity to say Unreal or maybe Phaser HTML5. Creature allows you to target different platforms and is not just confined to one particular platform. Again, this future proofs you against any changes as time goes on.

5) Creature provides a lot of export options not found in competitor's tools. It does the usual sprite frames, sprite sheets, video, gif and even FBX (for bone motors) to allow you to bring in to other 3D animation software. It also allows for Creature's JSON game engine export.

6) Creature allows you to set project backup options. This means Creature has a backup/restore facility in place (the number of backups is set by you) as you work, reducing the risk of you losing valuable data.

Cheers,
Chong

Psmith
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2015 6:13 pm

Re: List of Motors Included in Standard Version

Post by Psmith » Tue Apr 21, 2015 8:09 pm

Chong:

This is very encouraging to me.

The Pro Only features in Creature are really appealing, but the price is not practical for me - and my only other affordable option is to use Puppet2D.

There is, as you know, a very large difference in price - especially between Puppet2D ($45) and Creature Professional ($269) - very large.

Is there any chance you will implement an "early adopter" price for the Professional Version - to help with your future development and recruit scores of people, like me, who would prefer your application over the competition?

Also, I am strongly leaning toward using the Unreal Engine, since it's licensing is so liberal and enticing. Do you have any idea when they will upgrade their 2D game system - especially the importing of sprites? Right now - it is extremely limited in that department.


Sincerely,

Greg Smith

chong
Posts: 1178
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:21 am

Re: List of Motors Included in Standard Version

Post by chong » Tue Apr 21, 2015 8:19 pm

Hello Greg,

1) The reason why the Pro version is priced as it is is because it offers high end vfx features normally found in even pricier packages.
Those are Motion Capture/Transfer, Path Authoring, Soft Body Dynamics (this feature is found in tools like Maya, Houdini etc.), Rotoscoping, Advanced Mesh warping etc.
I think you will find the pricing of Creature Pro more reasonable than some of the other packages given the features it is offering.

Having said that, you can get along pretty far with the standard version. Remember again that even though the Standard version does only bone motors, because everything is a mesh, you essentially have mesh deformation in Creature done with Bone motors.

You can definitely fake growing of plants using a chain of bone motors in the Standard version. It would involve dragging the bones manually, a bit more tedious but still doable.

2) Yes Unreal Engine is the main runtime addition I will be focusing on when the Windows version launches. When the Creature runtime for UE4 is ready, you most probably will not have to worry about their 2D game system since that functionality will be handled by the Creature Unreal runtimes themselves.

Also remember with Creature for both Standard and Pro, the actual Game Engine runtimes, be it Unity, Unreal, Phaser, Cocos2d-x etc. are provided with full source code. So you can get a programmer to add additional features into the runtime for your own requirements. You are free to use the Creature runtimes for your own purposes once you have purchased a copy of Creature for any number of titles/games.

Cheers,
Chong

Psmith
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2015 6:13 pm

Re: List of Motors Included in Standard Version

Post by Psmith » Tue Apr 21, 2015 8:57 pm

Chong:

I'm not sure I fully appreciate the special "motors" contained in the Pro version - especially the deformation motors and other Pro features that deal with mesh deformation - as opposed to the bone methods of deformation. Control points (like FFD cages) are definitely more straightforward than bones for general deformation . . . Can you elaborate here?

And, what particularly does the "soft body" motor do? How does this function differently or more conveniently than bones?

And, I've looked at the "Runtimes" available - but it seems you need some coding experience to interface with the Game Engines named. Is this so - or is it just a straight export and import from Creature to these Game Engines?

Do you think you will be implementing a "dark UI theme" within the next year?

Is the purchase of the Pro license a perpetual one - or will there be upgrade fees in the future?

Thanks again,

Greg Smith

chong
Posts: 1178
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:21 am

Re: List of Motors Included in Standard Version

Post by chong » Tue Apr 21, 2015 9:06 pm

1) Regarding theming, I can't give a definitive answer yet since Creature just launched and I am addressing a whole host of other functionality issues :)

2) Runtime support requires coding experience, just like how other tools do runtime support as well. If you would rather not go that route, then exporting to PNG alpha sprites are your best option.

3) Soft Body Dynamics can be illustrated via this video:
https://youtu.be/4eif-Bn0h2s

The entire mesh is treated as a deformable body and a set of rather complex physics solves are run on the body. This allows the entire shape to respond and deform based off physics. It is useful for animating soft, jello objects if you unconstrain the whole body. If you paint out regions to target animation and stiffen up the material properties. it is useful for animating muscle reaction/flesh response.

Take note that this is not "rag doll physics" which is based off rigid body dynamics. Soft body dynamics takes it a step further and allows much more complex deformations to take place. It is also not rag doll in the sense that the points on the soft body motor still target animation. So you can get a directed physical motion (controlled animation) as opposed to rag doll which just flops all over the place without any form of directed ability. Notice in the video above, the legs of the doll are still moving about as it falls and springs back. That motion is driven by the underlying animation.

Soft Body Dynamics is a feature typically found on high end vfx tools. It is the standard toolset film and vfx companies use to simulate/animate Creature effects like the flesh on a dragon character, muscle reaction on a horse's leg etc.

Other than the other deformation motors, you also get flapping motors that do this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By0c51E ... freload=10

There is no image swapping involved in the above video. It is done entirely using the Mesh Flapping motor.

4) There are no upgrade fees. The purchase is yours for the lifetime of the product. In fact, if you look at the current version on the Mac App Store, it has gone through a couple of upgrades already, all of them provided free to the user of course. The new upcoming Sprite Frame Manager is free as well.

Cheers!
Chong

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