Thursday, September 10, 2009

Avatar Core 0.5.0 + My Avatar Editor Lite

Avatar Core 0.5.0 has now been released on the project page (both SVN and ZIP download). The release notes have more information about the changes made.

It should be noted that the SVN repository has been redesigned to also include documentation, examples, and a library SWC for the framework. The location of the source files have moved a couple of directories deeper as a result, so you may need to make some changes with respect to classpaths/source path references. The ZIP download also reflects this restructuring, though it only includes the source code and the same selection example as before.

"My Avatar Editor Lite" is now a new demo example. The source is currently only available through SVN, though you can browse the demo source files through the project page. A live version of My Avatar Editor Lite is also viewable online. It's a great example in that it uses a lot of the features of the framework.


I've also combined the two new demos from before (with Fred) into one demo now listed in the SVN examples. It modifies position, scaling, and rotation using mouse interaction. However it doesn't go so far as to incorporate Constrain behaviors. The original demos will probably remain on the wiki for now unless they end up becoming incompatible with new releases.

So what's next? For one, the documentation will need updating. I don't think it covers a lot of the new changes very well and is pretty lacking in other areas too. With that, also more attention given to the documentation on the wiki. Then, its just a matter of tying up and loose ends preparing for a 1.0 release for production use.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Avatar Core Rendering My Avatar Editor Characters

I recently got an example using Avatar Core to render My Avatar Editor character heads up and running. It uses the same visual assets but none of the original codebase (My Avatar Editor does not use the Avatar Core framework; it was created before work on Avatar Core started).


Clicking on the head will get you a new random variation.

This will ultimately become another demo, but I still want to add controls for modifying characteristics - almost to parity with My Avatar Editor, but lacking anything that would unnecessarily over-complicate.

In doing this exercise, as expected, a number of additional bugs and limitations were addressed. They will be fixed in the next release due out with the completion of this demo.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Avatar Core 0.2.1 (SVN Only)

The svn repository for Avatar Core has been updated with the 0.2.1 changes. There shouldn't be anything broken, per se, in the current 0.2.0 download, so you can continue to use it for testing purposes. That download will get updated for the next release.
The next release will probably be a 1.0 release candidate. I'm going to sprucen up the documentation a bit more and try to make a 'lite' version of My Avatar Editor with the framework to see 1) if its possible, and 2) if it's easy, to moderately easy to use. Any problems found in that attempt will be fixed for that build.

If anyone has any bugs to report or feature requests, now's the time to do it. (And doing so through the blog is fine for now.)