Spline Based, Tweened Animation Software Development

[Psmith]

Having worked with many 2D animation programs (and being dissatisfied), I have considered the possibility of developing a prototype, myself. I thought I would try to get the opinion of users of LiveCode regarding how difficult such an endeavor would turn out to be.

Basically, this vector drawing and animation program would need to keep track of all control points of every spline that is drawn - so that each one can be animated automatically, by means of tweening, from one position to another over time. I'd like to build in "arc following" - so that as a spline point moves, it does so following the path of a "guide arc".

This program would also need to have advanced timeline functions, allowing users to manipulate "whole" objects and individual points by means of graphic curves (movement over time) - and adjust relative spacing of "keyframes" as well as having the ability to move and duplicate "blocks" of animation data (drag and drop - stretch).

What do you think? Would this be an extremely complicated and advanced project requiring more skills than a beginner could muster and master in a "reasonable" period of time? Could such a project be approached in a "modular" fashion - allowing it to be built a little bit at a time?


Greg Smith

[Mark]

Hi Greg,

There already is an extremely complicated and advanced project that does exactly what you are describing. It is called Director and is very expensive. If you can make a very simple and easy-to-use programme that basically does that same but more easily and quickly and at lower cost, then you might have a hit.

LiveCode should be able to do this, particularly if you include only a subset of the most important feature that Director has. You can use the EnhancedQT external to export your animations to QuickTIme.

Kind regards,

Mark