After finding Playnote Studio I was inspired to make something that would actually allow me author animations on-device. So this week I threw together a little prototype of a pixel art animation toy called Pocket Pix!
Here's a time lapse of me making an (uninspired) animation of a bouncy ball:
And the final animation:
This app still needs some work, but I thought I'd share a prototype to see how many people are interested in such a toy, and gather any early feedback!
Features on my todo list:
a tool bar of tools/settings/commands
selection rectangle
move selection or whole frame
some implementation of a fill tool
auto playback, without onion skinning
a menu system for browsing your collection "pix"
onion skin setting (before, after, both, off)
toggle pixel grid (with major grid lines?)
invert colors so you can do white on black and have onion skinning
export frames as pngs
Controls:
DPAD to move cursor around
HOLD B + DPAD to move the cursor around faster
PRESS B to open the animation timeline
PRESS A to paint a pixel at the cursor. The pixel color is the opposite of what's current under the cursor.
thank you for the 'prototype'. It feels very robust and intuitive indeed! An awesome tool for the playdate. - I wish the control pad (arrow keys) would move the cursor/brush continuously, when held down. And it would be awesome to create more than one animation/project.
Thank you for this prototype! Just received my Playdate and tried the app. I’m an animator by trade, and love the fact animation can be done on this device.
Hope to animate something this weekend! Are you still collecting feedback on the app?
Thanks! The dinosaur was fun to animate on the Playdate, and using the crank to step through the animation drawings reminded me of the old projectors used to review animation before digital. I’m very excited you’re making something like this on the Playdate!
All the todo features you listed would be great to have, especially the ability to move a whole drawing or a selection. I also found myself wanting a continuous move while holding down the d-pad, like Geekhunger mentioned, but it’s hard to know what the duration time should be for it to kick in. I imagine it would be short, but it’s something to “feel” out I suppose. I liked having the option to hold B + d-pad to jump the cursor around quickly. I used that a lot.
The features currently available are great. I liked having the ability to easily reshuffle the drawings around, duplicate drawings, and clear drawings quickly. Super easy to use.
One thing I’m curious about is if there would be a way to hold drawings when the future auto play is implemented. Maybe that might complicate things too much, but it would be nice to not to have to duplicate a drawing multiple times to fake a hold.
Also with the auto play function, would there be a way to adjust the fps? That might be nice to have, or at least a simplified speed adjuster, similar to Flipnote.
I was also wondering if there might be maybe 1 or 2 gray value options if possible, especially since you’re thinking of adding a fill function.
Again, thank you for making a way to create animation on the Playdate! Even though I can’t save currently, I might make another animated clip just for fun.
Added 2 menu bars which are opened with the B button (timeline has been moved, see below).
The top utility bar contains icons that perform an action, toggle as setting, or open another UI. It currently contains the following icons:
Open timeline. This is the UI that was previously mapped to the B button
Insert frame. This is a faster alternative to having to open the timeline in order to insert a frame.
Toggle onion skinning on/off.
Trigger auto playback. Hides onion skin/ui and auto plays/loops your animation. Currently locked to 30FPS, frame time customization coming in a future update.
Clear frame. Quickly erase an entire frame.
The bottom tool bar works as a mode toggle for your drawing tool. Selecting a tool will replace the active tool (the left most icon). It contains the following icons:
Pencil tool. This is the previous default drawing mode.
Move frame. Move all the pixel in a frame. A rectangle select is coming in a future update.
Fill tool. Flood fill!
Added active tool icon to lower-left hand corner.
Added frame numbers next to frames on timeline.
Updated crank sfx to be more cranky.
Your current pix is now saved on app sleep, lock, and terminate.
Good job
I’m very excited you’re making something like this on the Playdate!
