ChronoCrash Modders Tools 0.7.9.10.1

[Piccolo]

By the way, it looks like that the program has some issues with .gif images on the past, was it fixed?

I'm not sure, I don't remember this problem. Most .gif images work properly that's for sure. If anyone still has this problem, please send me the specific .gif images so that I can look into it.

 

[DCurrent]

Piccolo,

Loving the new error trapping. Before, you had to be so careful and save religiously. One click in the wrong spot and *poof* back to desktop, all progress lost. Now you get an error report and the app continues gracefully. That alone makes the tool SO much more usable. Great work sir! 

My only complaints are the page slide outs are a bit cumbersome at times. Maybe an option to lock them? Also, I might be missing something, but as far as I know, there's no way to control the zoom other than mouse wheel. Is there a key command I'm missing?

DC

 

[Piccolo]

...

Thanks DC. Yeah makes me wonder why I didn't include this error trapping system before when I released this I guess on the development side, it forced me to fix crashes as soon as they happened while using the tool, whereas this system let me bypass them.

Untick "Options" => "Auto-collapse"  and the panels should be locked in place. It's a global option though.

Hum yeah I just checked the code and there is just the mouse wheel for now. I'll add visual buttons and keyboard shortcuts (ctrl and + / ctrl and -) for next update.
EDIT : ok the zoom buttons and shortcuts are added, will roll out in next update. Ctrl and + / Ctrl and - will let you zoom/unzoom wether you are focused or not in the sprite view. +/- keys alone (without Ctrl) will let your zoom/unzoom only if the focus is in the sprite view.

 

[zexika]

Every time I think I've found a great tool, it's people like YOU that continue to impress and inspire as you better the community's resources. Piccolo, you rock! Thank you, and I look forward to using your app going forward.

 

[ABK]

I gave it a try again and im glad its not crashing , you can cancel errors, i was wondering does it have any keyboard shortcuts for anim playing ?
Onion skin  is great, quite genius feature, i see gif export exports empty animation with imagemagick convert.
Id like to have a lot of keyboard shortcuts opened for customisation like create bbox ,attack box create empty anim, clone current anim (with cloned added to name), frame changing with arrows and ctrl maybe, i know you can click on small frames on botom but id like to just use shortcuts.
Shortcuts would speed things up a lot.
When i set offset, my cursor icon is a hand, it would be better as axis or arrow, but axis or + would be better.
that 0 with + where offset is set is not alligned properly with actual pixels/lines of the grid background precisely, its in the middle of bottom and top pixel of the grid line.
Id like to copy bbox or attack box from previous one, is that available without going into txt editor ?
cant set platform

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "gui\entity\__init__.py", line 1279, in mouseReleaseEvent
  File "gui\entity\__init__.py", line 66, in platformUpdated
AttributeError: 'Platform' object has no attribute 'wall'

 

[zexika]

Just got the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "gui\project\__init__.py", line 119, in projectClicked
  File "gui\project\__init__.py", line 85, in loadProject
  File "gui\main\__init__.py", line 112, in loadProject
  File "gui\main\fileselector.py", line 517, in loadLibrary
  File "ntpath.py", line 110, in join
  File "ntpath.py", line 159, in splitdrive
TypeError: object of type 'NoneType' has no len()

Program will no longer load my /data folder. To say this is disappointing is an understatement. Tried with v2 and auto crash with no error log. I heavily rely on this program for my modding. Hopefully it gets updated asap. I am officialy done with deving until this gui based program is usable again. Piccolo, I can only hope you choose to release a new version in the future. Thank you for your contributions to the community.

 

[msmalik681]

Piccolo can you please get a github repo setup for this application?

Also the extra folders that are in the root directory are they modified when the application is running if not can this application be compiled using the --onefile option?

 

[Piccolo]

Piccolo can you please get a github repo setup for this application?

Also the extra folders that are in the root directory are they modified when the application is running if not can this application be compiled using the --onefile option?

Yes I will do that soon. EDIT : https://github.com/maitre-piccolo/chronocrash-modders-tools

I'm not sure I get what you mean by "extra folders" but nothing is supposed to be modified in the source folder while running. Settings files are somewhere else.

Zexika Looks like a minor problem. Probably has to do with something weird with your mod folder name. In the meantime you should be able to launch the program by editing the setting file manually. Should be in C:\Users\YOUR_NAME\AppData\Roaming\ob-utils\settings.ini. In the [general] section.
BTW copy/paste (here or in PM) the content of this general section so that I can clearly understand why you have this problem.

bWWd I'll see what I can do,but some of these should be easy to implement.

 

[zexika]

Zexika Looks like a minor problem. Probably has to do with something weird with your mod folder name. In the meantime you should be able to launch the program by editing the setting file manually. Should be in C:\Users\YOUR_NAME\AppData\Roaming\ob-utils\settings.ini. In the [general] section.
BTW copy/paste (here or in PM) the content of this general section so that I can clearly understand why you have this problem.

I will PM you the details because the project is secret for now, DC knows my reasoning for this. I will follow up with you. For the sake of transparency and learning, I was using this tool the entire time no problem, and have not changed the folder name, so i'm confused as to what the heck I did to break it. I'll PM you the file contents.

UPDATE
So I decided to put forth my auditing efforts to analyze a working backup data folder and compare file sizes and structure, and I've isolated the issue to be a models.txt file that was causing the error. Totally bizarre! I'm going to spend the next hour running through this file line by line to try to figure out what caused this. I'll PM you again to update you.

UPDATE 2
Okay, in my wonderful sleep deprived state, I forgot to call the know NAME function before specifying the new data/PATH jeez. 

I think, there can be a useful outcome to this blunder on my part. Piccolo, knowing these specifics, it's it possible to update to the tool to recognize and call this error in the future? May not do much for experienced Devs, but for newbies it may prove quite useful in quickly identifying this issue.

 

[Piccolo]

I think, there can be a useful outcome to this blunder on my part. Piccolo, knowing these specifics, it's it possible to update to the tool to recognize and call this error in the future? May not do much for experienced Devs, but for newbies it may prove quite useful in quickly identifying this issue.

Sure, but to be clear you are referring to a line supposed to be like this :

know joe data/chars/joe.txt

And you wrote :

data/chars/joe.txt

Or was it :

know data/chars/joe.txt

I guess the last one, but please confirm.

 

[Piccolo]

I'm currently adding "custom keyboard shortcuts" settings. For now I simply enabled four functions available for custom shortcuts : set bbox, set attack box, zoom-in, zoom-out.

If you want me to make other functions available for custom shortcuts, please make a clear list of these functions.
Also specify if you want a local shortcut, a global shortcut, or both.
A local shortcut is a shorcut that is available when the focus is within a specific zone. For exemple the sprite view. Local shortcuts don't require holding a modifier key (Ctrl, Shift, Alt, ...), you simply press a normal key. But they work only when the focus is within a specific zone.
A global shortcut is a shortcut that is always available. Those require holding a modifier key (Ctrl, Shift, Alt, ...) + a normal key.

 

[zexika]

Sure, but to be clear you are referring to a line supposed to be like this :

know joe data/chars/joe.txt

And you wrote :

data/chars/joe.txt

Or was it :

know data/chars/joe.txt

I guess the last one, but please confirm.

Correct, it would be

know joe data/chars/joe.txt

but I instead did

know data/chars/joe.txt

forgetting to specify the name as joe was missing.

As for the shortcuts... honestly man you really have a great program here and I'm not too sure it needs a ton of future features added, particularly because I have yet to run into anything I need it can't do. They way you colorize in the various boxes make things very simple. I think adding custom shortcuts has the potential to be great to cut back on manual box generation and the time it takes to fill in the blanks. Actually on that note there is something I am curious about.

I noticed that with the program, if there is only one bbox offset specified for an attack or movement animation in character.txt...
[Example] offset 32 93
Then it will automatically generate another one for the rest of the sprites. This of course saves time and I think it's actually very useful. Problem is, if you need to adjust it, you have to X it out in the top right corner, and the data gets 0'd out. So then you have to go back to the first sprite tab, write down or try to memorize 5 or 6 coords or dmg specs, then go back and re-fill data.

Is it possible to make it so that clicking X to modify the auto generated bbox data does not zero out values? Also, is it possible to make attack boxes auto generate data like the tool does for bbox data? This would be an amazing shortcut for sprite animation editing!  ;D

Bughunt Info:
I would say that depending on the character.txt file loaded and where the bbox coords are specified for animation data, the tool will auto error or sometimes crash. I could assume it's because the coords could be too far out of boundaries, or the the tool isn't a fan of preloading animation data NOT configured by it originally due to some kind of formatting inconsistency somehow. I'm not certain of the technical reason for this, but it's definitely a thing. I usually find myself completely stripping damage data and offsets prior to starting a new character with this tool when generating animation data for new character sprites. A minor quirk, but I still love using this program.

Special Request:
Before I forget Piccolo, I do have a special request for you! And I think this may actually make your program really fun to use, even from a sandbox standpoint. I'll list my request in specific parts below:

1) Would it be possible to allow for the Animation tab to be enabled under the LEVELS tab on the left column?
2) If Animation for Levels is enabled, can we also auto generate screen coords for monsters by hover our mouse cursor over the level.gif image in the tool? If we're using the character animation editor for example, lots of spare room to display the coords in the bottom right corner.
3) Assuming all of the above was possible, can we then add monster and objects column, where you can specify/select a monster or object by clicking on it from this new column, and drag it onto the level screen, where when you save object on map, it auto generates the data for the level file? This would take ease of level editing to the next level!

That's all I can think of for now. If I have any other suggestions, i'll share if you'd like. Also any time at all I can help you bug hunt or provide info just let me know man. I use your program all the time and so I've definitely become familiar with it.

 

[DCurrent]

Piccolo,

If I may, one thing I think might be helpful is the ability to reload images at the frame or animation level without resetting the whole application. I'm not sure how you cache sprites, but I find if you set a frame, but later modify the image it refers to, there's no way at all to see those changes reflected without a full shutdown. It slows things down a bit when you are tweaking animations and see you need an extra in between frame or a sprite needs some pixel correction.

Or... Maybe the ability is there and I'm just missing it somehow.  :

It's a great app regardless, and much more stable now. That was an awesome upgrade! Now I'm really looking forward to those keyboard zoom controls!

DC

 

[Piccolo]

If I may, one thing I think might be helpful is the ability to reload images at the frame or animation level without resetting the whole application. I'm not sure how you cache sprites, but I find if you set a frame, but later modify the image it refers to, there's no way at all to see those changes reflected without a full shutdown. It slows things down a bit when you are tweaking animations and see you need an extra in between frame or a sprite needs some pixel correction.

I just added a button to reload the sprites of the current animation. It will be available in the next version, which I will probably release during the week 

 

[Piccolo]

Ok I'll work on this later, in the meantime I uploaded a new build with the last tweaks that were made since the last upload.

You can test the custom keyboard shortcuts that are available. To modify the custom shortcuts go to "Edit" -> "Settings" -> "Keyboard shortcuts".

 

[msmalik681]

Would it be possible to have the releases on the github page ?

I am still trying to get a working linux version and I would like to release them matching your releases.

 

[Piccolo]

Would it be possible to have the releases on the github page ?

I am still trying to get a working linux version and I would like to release them matching your releases.

Yes, I added it

I also just tried to build a standalone executable in Linux (with pyinstaller). It works well, but the package is damn big ! (almost 500 Mo).
So to create linux packages I think it would be better to just create a package with the source + dependencies requirements. That's basically how all python apps are installed in Linux anyway.
But the pyinstaller standalone works too, it is just really big as it is. There is a definitely a way to trim it though, as it seems to pull unnecessary libs for some reason.

EDIT : Ok it is possible to reduce the size manually by deleting the useless libraries that are wrongly pulled. By deleting the big ones the standalone is then ~250Mo. Could probably reduce it down to ~30Mo by deleting every other useless lib, but I don't have time to sort this out on my side.

...

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into it later. Though I did not understand everything you proposed at the bottom, especially point 1).

 

[msmalik681]

Thats odd it was about 20mb or so for me i managed to get it working on ubuntu 20.04 but to make a good compatible appimage (like a exe) i need to compile on ubuntu 16.04 that is proving to be quite the problem satisfying the dependencies.

But if there is extra stuff you can strip away thats great.

 

[Piccolo]

Thats odd it was about 20mb or so for me i managed to get it working on ubuntu 20.04 but to make a good compatible appimage (like a exe) i need to compile on ubuntu 16.04 that is proving to be quite the problem satisfying the dependencies.

But if there is extra stuff you can strip away thats great.

Yeah basically pyinstaller pulls all the libraries you have on your installation. It creates a sort of replication of your install. As I have many libraries on my Linux install the output is big. I'll try to do the reverse, strip everything then add one library at a time until there's no error  ;D

 

[DCurrent]

Sorry, I hate to chime in with bugs - as a developer I know how annoying that is.

Just tried out and, at least for me none of the new key shortcuts work at all. Also, the mouse wheel zoom control is now very unstable. You can't really zoom precisely any more.

DC