6 replies to this topic

[NPS]

First of all, due to nature of the problem I wasn't sure what category this topic fall into. If I chose wrongl, please let me know or move this thread for me. Edit: Thx.

Me and my friends are currently creating an android/iOS game using marmalade. We want to add an intro (animation) to it and we're wondering what's the best way to create and render an animation. Probably the easiest way would be for our graphics artist to create an animation in whatever software he likes and save it as *.avi or any film format. Then we would just display the film in game. But after a short research we came to a conclusion that it might be a bit (or very ) difficult using marmalade. So another idea was to create a 2D animation (as a series of layers and translate/rotate/scale/color&alpha change tranformations) in a 3D graphics software like Blender, save the animation (as keyframe information), then load it in our game and display. But we're not sure if that wouldn't be making a mountain out of a molehill.

So maybe there are easier ways (existing tools?) to create a simple 2D animation and rendering it in the mobile game (with marmalade)? Or, if the idea with Blender is ok, what 3D file format should we use? We need vertex position, texture and texture coords, colour and alpha information. Texture animation would be nice too.

Edited by NPS, 25 July 2012 - 04:15 PM.

[frob]

I've never used it, but Marmalade has a demo app that plays a simple video.

It looks like the SDK supports simple playback if the codec is present on the device.

[NPS]

Yeah, the coded-thing is the problem. We've already come across big problems with audio playback due to codec-issues. Theoretically it works and practically not always. So we'd like to use a reliable method, if possible.

[wodinoneeye]

You would think there would be some 'least common denominator' codec that most libraries and devices could fall back on (eating any inefficiency of data sizing and possibly imagesize/quality)

[NPS]

'least common denominator' codec

Any suggestions then?

[multiplang]

if your artist/s use Flash, there are probably a dozen tools covering various ways to bring that animation into a game engine using its sub parts instead of a rendered movie.

I wrote a tool myself that loads a swf and reads the displayobject tree each frame and outputs an XML file to reproduce it (with some limitations).

I think it's a good approach - obviously best for filesize too.

[wildboar]

Ok first of all marmalade does play videos just fine. The sound loop is messed up but rooAudio provides a temporary fix. I play splash screens just fine on ios. dont know about android.