I looked around for quite a while to find a good tool for exporting simple Flash frame animations to PNG sequences that could be used in game development. It’s true, Flash supports exporting a PNG sequence at different sizes, but it’s error-prone and tedious.
Then I found swf2pngs. It looked like it did exactly what I needed. When I first downloaded it a few days ago it didn’t quite have the features I needed. But the developer has been extremely supportive, and even added some new features to accommodate my requests.
The big reasons I now love and fully recommend this app are:
- Export from the SWF, not from within Flash. Exporting via Flash at different sizes means doubling (and quadrupling for retina iPad) the pixel values in your head *every time* you export. It’s tedious and error-prone.
- It’s fast and accurate:
- load up a single SWF
- export at the default settings for normal-res
- switch the scale popup to 2 and add the @2x suffix and export again. (I particularly like that I don’t have to rename all the files after)
- switch the scale popup to 4 and export again. - You can target a specific movie clip inside your SWF, though I haven’t ever needed to do that.
- If you have a bunch of animations that are the same size, stick them in the same FLA and rename each sequence right in the timeline (see their homepage for a much clearer explanation)
After using it for a few days, I can’t imagine doing any kind of frame animation for a game without it. And it’s only $10.
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay Photoshop for Devs series, I’ve crammed in as many tips as I could about using layers in Photoshop.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
- What am I clicking on? (or: why double-clicking on a layer seems to do something different every time)
- Create a new layer
- Move & select layers
- Transform layers
- Group layers
- Duplicate layers
- Duplicate layer effects
- Merge layers
- Fill layers with a colour
- Lock layers
- Layer opacity
- Layer blend modes
Do you save out multiple variations of a graphic by setting layer visibility? Ever wish there was a faster way to do that whenever that graphic needed to be updated?
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay “Photoshop for Devs” series, I show you how to use Layer Comps to save layer visibility settings so can easily switch between visibility “states” for multiple layers (and even layer styles) at once. This saves you from having a separate document or layer group for each instance of your graphic, and makes your source PSD’s easier to update.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
- Create broad layer comps to set overall visibility settings for multiple layers at once.
- Fine-tune your layer comps so that you have a comp for every instance of the graphic you are editing.
- Learn how adding and deleting layers affects layer comps.
Do you have skins or themes in your game? Do you arduously make changes to multiple Photoshop documents and save out new PNGs every time you make a change to a theme?
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay “Photoshop for Devs” series, I show you how to make a master theme template for your games using a single Photoshop file, and export all the required images in a single step. This process can save you hours of annoying, repetitive work.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
- Lay out your template file using shape layers and “placed” textures for resolution independence.
- Use Photoshop Slices to cut up the document and save out multiple PNG files.
- Create a new theme and save out a whole new batch of images in a few seconds.
- Use Adjustment Layers to quickly create colour variant themes.
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay “Photoshop for Devs” series, we’re going to go into vector shapes in more detail. Vector shapes allow you to create graphics that can be scaled without losing detail.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
- The basics: creating shapes.
- Selecting and moving points using the Path Selection Tool.
- Editing points (adding and removing points, converting points from corners to curves)
- Booleans (subtracting a shape from another, changing boolean settings after)
- Copy and paste shapes within a layer and from one layer to another
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay “Photoshop for Devs” series, we’re going to talk about clipping masks in Photoshop and when to use them to make things easier.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
Part 1:
- Place a photo in a Polaroid border, without having to crop it. Keep its full resolution so you can scale and rotate it as much as you want.
- Texture a chess board. Combine the texture layer with layer effects applied to the base layer.
Part 2:
- Add a reflection to windows in a building and change the colours with a clipped adjustment layer. Add art to a billboard shape with rounded corners and perspective.
- Create perfect silhouettes for your vector art. Mask multiple layers with a single base shape and apply layer effects to the entire group.
Music and sound effects usually get left to the end of a game’s development cycle, right when you don’t feel like working on it any more. My recommendation is to get someone professional to do it. One thing I learned from Adam Saltsman’s workshop (notes on this coming soon): I could spend 30 hours making music that is just “ok”, or I can get someone else to make something awesome in a couple hours.
But sometimes you need to get something in there, even if it’s just a placeholder, or you want to give your sound designer a starting point for mood and style. Here are a couple great tools for throwing together some music and sound effects, fast.
Update: As discussed in the comments, please note that it is difficult to overestimate the value of getting a professional to do your sound and music for you.
Marketing your iPhone app effectively is a matter of concern for all App Store developers. Getting visibility among the rising tide of apps in the App Store is an overwhelming obstacle for indie developers with limited budgets. Here are a few marketing resources and tips that I’ve come across that have been helpful to me. Click here to continue…
I was looking around for an easy way to create a checkbox on the iPhone, and it turns out there isn’t one. At least, not one readily available. I found a couple of posts, and thought that there should be an easy way to do this.
In that first post, he refers to this:
[button setSelected:YES];
So the method I came up with was to have a button with separate graphics for the required three states:
Normal
Highlighted
Selected Click here to continue…
