Avatar Core 0.2.0

Avatar Core version 0.2.0 (beta) is now available on through svn on the project page. The API documentation has also been updated. The release notes for 0.2.0:

=== 0.2.0 (August 28, 2009) ===

There have been a number of new API changes, as well as a reworking
of how parenting is handled. The new approach allows Constrain behaviors
to work better with parenting. In addition some rendering changes have
been made that change the effects of parent transforms on their children.

- Added Viewport.resetContent()
- Added a padding parameter to Viewport.fitContent()
- Added ThumbnailArtSprite class
- Added SourceLoaderSprite class as a base class for ArtSprite and
ThumbnailArtSprite
- Renamed AvatarArt to AvatarDisplay to prevent confusion with with the
Art/ArtSprite classes
- ArtSprites no longer redraw themselves (i.e. their feature) when their
feature property is set. This was creating many more calls to draw() than
was necessary, though may require additional manual calls for updates
- Scaling a parent feature no longer scales its children; child position,
however, is still affected by scale
- Renamed Transform to Adjust to prevent confusion with flash.geom.Transform
- Instead of mirroring features with a negative scale, flipX and flipY
properties have been added to the Adjust (Transform) class
- Fixed a bug in Adjust.add and Adjust.subtract where x and y were flipped
- Renamed "update"-related API in Feature and Avatar to "redraw"
- Changed parent-related API in Feature (removed getParentFeature, added
parent, [internal]parentCount, [internal]updateParent)
- Features are no longer hidden if their parent cannot be found. They are
instead left visible and treated as though they have no parent
- Added Feature.getConcatenatedParentMatrix()
- Added Avatar.updateParentHierarchy(). This is called frequently through
other APIs but may be necessary to call to make sure the parent
hierarchy of an avatar is accurate
- Added getDefaultPropertiesInXML to IXMLWritable, helping to reduce the
inclusion of default values in generated XML
- Range class now has a steps property
- Separated Constrain.position (Rect) to Constrain.x (Range) and
Constrain.y (Range)
- Removed Rect class (was only used by Constrain before)
- Constrain uses its Ranges' steps, if provided, to apply stepping
to constrained values
- Constrain is now applied to feature adjusts (transforms) rather than
directly to art sprites to allow child adjusts to honor the
constrain
- Added Constrain.name, making it more convenient to access Constrain
behaviors in a feature
- Other minor bug fixes

Complete ReleaseNotes.txt.

The wiki pages, demos, and non-svn downloads still need to be updated. I'll try to get to those in the next couple of days.

Avatar Core 0.0.3

Avatar Core 0.0.3 is now available from the Avatar Core Project Page. The same structure of the framework remains mostly the same, though a lot of the API has changed. A lot of this is a result from the increased focus on allowing Avatar's to be able to be self-contained, without needing a library to link to. Currently, this does introduce a problem with some features of the framework (which will have to be figured out in the next release), but I think overall it's for the best.

The live demo has also been updated (and can be downloaded, with the framework, from the downloads page).

More information about this release can be found in the release notes.

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.