MyAvatarEditor.com Live

Last night I pushed a working copy of MyAvatarEditor.com live to the web. There is still a bit of work to do, especially regarding the guide and developers pages. That will be filled with time. Most importantly is that with the site live, and having the editor off the temporary beta page, avatar URLs will work for opening avatars and sharing them with your friends.



Additionally I've added a new page under a directory called "show" which will just show the character, full screen in the browser, without the editor interface. Example:
http://www.myavatareditor.com/show/?avatar=53a200520061006e0064006f006d00000000000000004a7940fb5c27c2428998b0c044a08080023ab867284014007ce502260d042450004d004100450000000000000000000000000000

You may notice that depending on the shape of your browser window, the character will be seen either in full or just as a head. Clicking on the My Avatar Editor logo will open that character in the editor.

I haven't yet decided if this page will be integrated into the editor or not, or even how useful it is, but it's there for anyone who's interested.

My Avatar Editor RC 1 + AIR Deskop Application

Release Candidate 1 for My Avatar Editor is now online (same link as before). Included is an installer for the Desktop version of the editor (built using Adobe AIR). The desktop version supports the associated file types .mae and .mii, drag and drop, and... well, really, that's about it :) Everything else the web version can also do.

Changes include, but are not limited to:

• AIR implementation updated for Flash Player 10/AIR 1.5
• Favorite Color selection now updates when a new character is loaded or randomly generated
  
• Legacy XML parser should now be fixed, allowing loading of older-style XML
• New XML format has been finalized (?)
  
• The assets loaded by the editor (the "character") can be displayed by itself (demo; similar examples were made before but required another wrapper)
  
• Remembered character data has changed to allow multiple Flash SWFs to use the same data (editor and character) so when you load the editor for the first time for RC1 it should show the default boy instead of your last character; this will only happen once and your character will be remembered from this point forward
  
• File menu button now at the end of the tabs at the bottom of the screen rather than being in the "General" tab
• Layout for the image export screen has changed
• You can now zoom in twice as much as you could before in the image export screen
  
• More code refactoring...

Check for issues, report any problems. This will likely be, or be close to, the final released version of the editor as it would appear on the main website... which I have yet to make.

Concerning the XML, I've decided to leave it alone. The idea of mapping the colors to hex codes kind of made sense for making it extensible, but the values can just as easily be checked for length or prefix to determine what they are specifically indicating (id value or actual color). Not confusing the real data any more than is necessary seems preferred.

In terms of releasing the source, I have some documentation I still want to complete before that happens, not to mention making sure there aren't any more issues to contend with. It'll be soon, though.

Beta 2 Posted [Update 2]

The current transitional beta page has been updated with beta 2 of My Avatar Editor. Changes include (but may not necessarily be limited to):

• Fixed lower hair for 8th style (row 3, column 2) on page 6
• Some interface reshuffling (tab reordering)
• Titles over avatar characteristics/options
• Shadow is a semi-transparent solid; this should cause less problems exporting
  
• Option to remove shadow from export
• Transparent backgrounds for exports show as a checkerboard
• Client-based (as opposed to server-based) save/load
• Binary files saved with the extension .mae
  
• New XML format (NOT finalized, see this note)
  
• New randomizer algorithm
• Flash Player 10 required
• and a whole, heck of a lot of code re-writing

Known issues include:

• The avatar link will not work
• Users may experience problems saving using Internet Explorer on Windows Vista
  

Report additional issues as comments to this post. With any luck, I'll be able to clean it up enough this weekend to make it available for download... actually, the "big game" is this weekend, isn't it... make that next weekend :)

Update:
As noted by Tommy, the eyebrow rotations in the latest editor beta were off. This was the result of a copy-and-paste typo where I accidentally had the maximum number of possible rotation values set to the number of possible colors ;). This should now be fixed. The new build version is 1.0.1.31t which you can check for in the top right of the File menu. If your number is lower, clear your cache and reload the page.

Update 2:
As reported by Mapi, I've included a known issue that users using IE and Vista might have troubles saving files.

My Avatar Editor - Transitional Beta

For those of you who haven't already noticed, a transitional beta of My Avatar Editor is now online. This is not what My Avatar Editor will ultimately look like, but its different enough from the Wii's™ Mii™ Channel to get it back on the streets (methinks).



Some of the GUI changes include:

• A change in the color scheme
  
• A change in the button (and other control) styles
• Characteristic buttons (tabs) have been moved to the bottom of the screen
• All characteristic tabs are represented at the bottom rather than having some in sub-tabs (for example face shapes and facial features now are each given their own tab)
  
• Arrows for paging through characteristic variations have been moved to the bottom
• There is no longer an avatar URL

In addition, there were a number of general fixes to the editor. These include changes that would have made it into the original version of the editor but hadn't yet been pushed live before it went offline. These include:

• The character shadow is now correctly behind/below the character's feet
• The eyes on Page 4 Col 1 Row 2 were given the missing eyelashes (the icon preview had them but they were not seen when on the avatar)
• Character names should now end when a null character is reached; this prevents new short names possibly revealing characters from long names used before the short name was set
• Fixed mole size range. It was incorrectly going to 15 (steps) when it should have stopped at 8

This version should also be the last version that will work on Flash Player 9. The next release will target Flash Player 10, currently in beta from Adobe. This will allow a lot of the hacks in the current release to be removed and allow for the updated save and load feature mentioned in a previous post (which supports offline saving and loading). Additionally, the next release should have a new look and feel that is more unique to My Avatar Editor.

There's no telling when this new version will be released, but it will be a while. I'm currently going through a code review now cleaning things up and taking out the aforementioned hacks where necessary. There will be some other architectural changes that could delay this process not to mention the fact that I still have to figure out how to implement Mii™ compatibility within the new feature sets that are to be added. I might provide more detail on that situation at a later time.

New Logo Ideas

Here are some thoughts I had for a new logo. I'm not sure what the color scheme will be, but I think it's likely I may at least stick with the orange (the red may be replaced with something else). That aside, I think I like #2 the best of this bunch, despite its similarity to (I think) the Apple Macintosh Finder icon.

There will be a new My Avatar Editor logo

Apparently there are problems with the current logo. Though I didn't notice it before, once someone brought it up, it was pretty clear to see. It's not as bad as some... but it's worth a change. And really, its not obvious until you look for it. But anyone who is looking will find it, so why bother trying to pass it off.


No word yet on what the new logo will look like. I'll have to figure something out.