Features on the Development Roadmap

[stykzman]

(As of 10-22-2011)

I've broken the list of features into three sections: those we are definitely planning on implementing, those we are considering implementing, and those we can't or won't implement (and for each of these we'll give a specific reason why). The items in the list are in no specific order.

This list will get updated over time, and I've tried to provide a target version for certain features when I can, although don't hold me to them - it's just my best estimate (in fact, things in one section may end up being implemented in another).

 
FEATURES WE DEFINITELY WILL BE IMPLEMENTING

= Already done

Features That Have Been Announced for 1.5 (to be released (hopefully) around Christmas 2011)

• General
  
  • "Corruption Insurance" - Those of you that have hit the "This is not a Stykz document" dialog know that corruption sometimes occcurs with Stykz documents. In the past, I recommended turning on auto backup as a preventive measure, but 1.5 will have an option that is turned on by default, which is saving a text-based version of a Stykz document along with the main document. This way, if the main document ever corrupts, the text-based version can be used to recreate a copy of the document from scratch.
    
  • Unlimited Segments in a Figure - If anyone has hit the "too many generations" dialog, this will disappear due to a different method of managing segments and nodes under the hood.
    
  • Better Performance/Smaller File Size - This is obtained by reducing the number of objects that Stykz has to manage under the hood. In Stykz 1.0, support for having nodes both in front of all segments and interleaved with the segments meant maintaining two sets of nodes (one set hidden while the other was being shown), and the nodes that were interleaved with the segments were actually part of the figure object. In Stykz 1.5, I will only be managing one set of nodes, and that's the ones in front. This means that the ability to show nodes interleaved with the segments will no longer be available. If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at the Stykz Help page on Node Layering). NOTE: If removing interleaving is really is a problem for you, please let me know.)
    
  • Simplify the restoration of backup files
    
• Stage/Window
  
  • Allow for different backgrounds on different frames
    
• Import/Export
  
  • Import bitmap as background image
    
  • Sprites (imported images)
    
• Palettes: Frames
  
  • Add ability to insert a blank frame
    
  • Add ability to select and delete multiple frames
    
• Figure Manipulation
  
  • Change the transparency/opacity of a segment or figure
    

Features That Are Targeted For 2.0 (although they could come earlier)

• Stage/Window
  
  • Grids and guides, with optional snap-to-grid/guide lines
    
  • Optional single-window-with-panels implementation
    Something like this early mockup:
    
    
    
  • A "work area" outside the actual stage area to make it easier to make backgrounds or other figures larger than the stage
    
  • Zooming in and out of the stage (to make it easier to work with small sticks)
    
  • Dockable palettes for those that don't want to use the single window implementation
    
  • Optional separate editing window or method of isolating a figure on the Stage so you only can touch/modify a single figure
    
  • Status area to show information like what figure your mouse is over, etc.
    
• Import/Export
  
  • Importing multiple .stk files at once
    
  • Ability to save a select figure on the Stage or from the Library as a .styk file with a "Save As" dialog
    
  • Let you save a set of figures as a "background" (like a city scene) that can be imported / allow sharing of backgrounds
    
  • Can specify a range of frames to export in the dialog (i.e. you could export frames 10-50 of a 100 frame animation). Useful for showing previews.
    
• Playing Animations
  
  • Eliminating the separate Stykz Player window and have playback occur in the document itself
    
• Figure Manipulation
  
  • Change the transparency/opacity of a segment or figure
    
  • Holding down the shift key to constrain drawing/dragging to 45 degree (or smaller) increments
    
  • Showing the angle/length of a segment while creating or dragging a segment, even if the Props palette is closed
    
  • Setting node sizes from 1-10 pixels in width; both as a figure-specific and document-specific setting
    
  • Allowing the Subselect tool to create a selection rectangle (or lasso) to select one or more segments or nodes (perhaps two different tools or one method that selects segments while the other method selects nodes)
    
  • The ability to specify which node of a figure is the drag node
    
  • The ability to edit a polyfill to add/remove/change nodes.
    
  • "Sliding" segments (see this thread)
    
  • The ability to either split a segment into a number of segments (nodes distributed evenly) or to select 3 or more nodes and have the space between them distributed evenly.
    
  • Ability to turn circles into ovals with command-option-drag (cntl-alt-drag).
    
  • Ability to specify the location of a node or figure with x,y coordinates.
    
• Palettes: Library
  
  • Supporting a shared library for network/school installs
    
  • Folders in the Library palette/ability to reorganize your .styk files without manipulating the actual files themselves
    
• Palettes: Frames
  
  • Being able to "repeat" a frame (as in Pivot), or being able to specify the duration of a specific frame
    
  • Add ability to insert a blank frame
    
  • Add ability to select and delete multiple frames
    
  • Optionally displaying the time point for each frame based on the frame rate and duration of each frame
    
• Palettes: Properties
  
  • Custom color picker that lets you select colors in a number of different ways, including RGB, Hex, color names, etc., and includes an eyedropper tool for quick color identification
    
  • Ability to crop the stage size from places other then that top-left (see this thread for more info)
    
• New Tools/Objects
  
  • Really simple text boxes (one font/size/style/color per text box, no rotation or special effects)
    
  
  Features That Are Targeted For 2.5 (although they could come earlier)
  
  • Multimedia
    
    • Sound effects / Background sound
      
    • Transitions / Visual effects
      
  • Stage/Window
    
    • Rulers, with several different measurements (default: pixels)
      
    • Onionskin enhancements (at least these, maybe more... see "Considering" below)
      
      • Option to show onionskins for the next frame as well as the previous one
        
      • Option to show onionskins directly behind figures, or in single layer
        
  • Import/Export
    
    • Automatic upload to YouTube (and possibly other sites as well)
      
  • Figure Manipulation
    
    • Apply ink effects (burn, dodge, xor, reverse, etc.) to segments or figures
      
    • The ability to name figures
      
    • The ability to apply a change on one frame to affect the same-named figure on other frames (or the whole document).
      
  • Palettes: Frames
    
    • Inbetweening
      
    • Drag-reordering of frames; cut/copy/paste frames; paste-in-reverse option; specify a certain frame as the default first frame for new animations
      
    • The ability to name frames and let you jump to a specific frame by number or by name
      
  • Palettes: Library
    
    • The ability to add multiple selected figures to the Library as a single library entry (and of course to drag them out as a single action)
      
  • New Tools/Objects
    
    • Draw objects (polygons, ovals, arrows, etc.)
      
    • Advanced Text boxes (lets you specify individual font/size/style/color by character, include rotation, tab stops/columns, etc.) / word balloons
      
    • A freehand curve tool
      
    • A layers palette that would let you see all the figures by name in a frame and change their z-order; possibly being able to group sticks into layers and have layers be locked or shown/hidden (like Photoshop and others); selecting a layer would optionally just show nodes for object(s) on that layer; you'd also be able to select one or more of the topmost layers and specify that they always stay "in front", or one or more of the bottommost layers and specify that they always stay "in back"
      
    • The ability to "pin" sprites together so you can make a "cutout" figure (or the equivalent)
      
  
  Features That Are Targeted For Some Version After 2.5 (although they could come earlier)
  
  • Figure Manipulation
    
    • Merging figures (useful for creating figures that are vertically symmetrical - for example creating one side of a sword, copy it, flip it, and merge it to make a full sword)
      
    • Splitting a figure into two figures, either at a node or in the middle of a segment (see this post by Reecyboy)
      
    • Grouping/ungrouping figures (so you can rotate multiple figures as if it was a single figure)
      
    • Create polyfills between figures (see this topic by Wind3H)
      
    • Adding the ability to "straighten" or "smooth" a set of lines
      
  • Import/Export
    
    • Merging/combining animation files ("Insert Animation..."), including the ability to insert part of an animation file (frames x to y)
      
    • Export to SWF
      
  • Palettes: Frames
    
    • Grouping of frames into "clips" or "scenes"
      
  • Community/Distribution
    
    • Automatic uploading/downloading of .styk files to/from the Forum (or other sharing area for Stykz files)
      
  • New Tools/Objects
    
    • The ability to paint your own backgrounds
      
   
  FEATURES WE ARE CONSIDERING IMPLEMENTING
  
  (Note: Items on this list are ones that we don't have enough info to make a decision on yet. Once we've looked into them and know the full impact of implementing the feature, we'll put them on the right list(s).)
  
  
  • General
    
    • User-definable hot keys
      
    • StykScript - the ability to create macros attached to Command buttons, and generally to control Stykz through scripting (see this wiki page for more info)
      
  • Import/Export
    
    • Import Pivot 2 and possibly Pivot 3 .piv files
      
    • Export to AVI or other Windows Media format (e.g. WMV)
      
    • APNG export
      
    • SVG import/export
      
    • Export to Flex
      
    • Watermarks
      
  • Stage/Windows
    
    • Onionskin Enhancements
      
      • Multiple onionskin levels shown as well as specifying where/how onionskins are displayed (for example, if you have a figure that takes up the entire stage, you wouldn't normally be able to see any onionskins, since the onionskin layer is below all of the figures - but adding this feature would let you specify how to layer/manipulate the onionskins to get around this limitation)
        
      • For multiple onionskins, provide the ability to set the percentage of opacity (darkness/lightness) for each step (both forwards and backwards), or if choosing solid colors, the colors to be used for each step (see this topic by Sean)
        
      • Being able to select a certain frame's (or frames') onionskins to show on the current frame - that is, if you were on frame 5 and were trying to position something relative to a figure on frame 1, you could choose to see frame 1's onionskins on frame 5
        
      • Being able to temporarily see the onionskin of a figure in front of the figure it's attached to (see this topic by .joker)
        
    • Applying background images, possibly with the ability to move them over a certain number of frames (this may be fulfilled with Sprites and Inbetweening, though)
      
    • Optionally showing the full path to the document in the title bar
      
  • Figure Manipulation
    
    • Adding an optional highlight around selected figure(s) and onionskin(s) to help distinguish them from others (see this topic by JerK)
      
    • Picture effects that work with sprites: greyscale or sepia, for example.
      
    • Gradient fills for draw polygons and polyfills
      
    • Attaching two or more nodes together, kind of like they were "Velcroed" to each other and would move together. (This would allow you to make what acts like an enclosed shape in a figure.)
      
    • Allow for layering of segments between figures (example: a stickman playing a guitar)
      
    • Add the ability to "knock out" parts of a figure (like making a doughnut out of a filled circle, or cutting out the "mouth" of a figure in profile to show the background behind (see this topic by scykei)
      
    • Add the ability to expand/contract polyfills by a designated amount (see this topic by dipper.f).
      
  • Community/Distribution
    
    • Adding a credits screen at the end of an animation
      
  • New Tools/Objects
    
    • Providing the ability to add some "depth" to animations, even to the point of shifting the point of view from the viewer (see the Depth thread for more info)
      
    • A perspective tool for adjusting the perspective of sticks (like in GIMP).
      
    • Adding shadows to figures at a specified angle and skew
      
    • Bezier curves
      
    • Adding a "blur" tool (like in Photoshop)
      
    • Add streaks and a smudge tool to show high speed motion effects (Note: this may be similar to the "blur" tool suggestion and the suggestion for tapering lines)
      
    • A "focus frame" or "crop" tool that will allow you to specify what portion of the stage should be exported to the animation; this would allow you to create a larger frame of figures, and then on each frame just move the cropped/focused area so that it creates a moving camera effect.
      
   
  FEATURES WE CAN'T (OR WON'T) IMPLEMENT
  
  
  • Importing animated GIFs - We can't do this because the GIF format basically just holds a series of raster (bitmap) slides in order, and there's no way we can extract any "figure" info from them. The only thing we'd be able to do is to possibly import each frame as a full-frame sprite (maybe for tracing or positioning purposes), but once an animation has been exported to GIF, we can't reconstruct the animation from the GIF itself.
    
    And even though it's possible to write "metadata" (identifying information) into a GIF that's created by Stykz, the only thing I can see this being useful for is to recreate a .stykz from a GIF because the original .stykz was lost. In any event, it's not something we will be doing.
  
  --------------
  
  
   
  FEATURES ALREADY IMPLEMENTED IN RELEASE VERSIONS OF STYKZ
  
  
  Features That Made it Into 1.0
  
  • Multiple undo/redo
    
  • Export to Animated GIF format
    
  • Import Pivot 2 .stk files
    
  • Drag-and-drop from Library palette to disk to export .styk files for users to upload, and vice-versa (drag-and-drop onto the Library palette to import .styk files)
    
  • Allowing preferences and library items go in a folder next to the Stykz app instead of where prefs are normally installed
    
  • Best possible Animated GIF export (i.e. optimize the output to crop unneeded whitespace, reduce the color tables and optimize them for proper color matching so you don't need to use websafe colors)
    
  • Import Pivot 3 .stk files
    
  • The ability to "lock" a figure into place so it can't be moved or pivoted (useful for background figures)

[ShadowEXP]

being able to copy a pivot picture and pasting it awsome.

[Whisper of Light]

Why is this topic unlocked?
Ok, ShadowExp, What do u mean? That you should be able to import .stk files from Pivot? If so, that feature has already been implemented.
Btw, for suggestions, create a new topic in the feature requests section.

[stykzman]

Why is this topic unlocked?

The topic's unlocked in case anyone wants to comment on the proposed list of features in upcoming versions...

Ok, ShadowExp, What do u mean? That you should be able to import .stk files from Pivot? If so, that feature has already been implemented.
Btw, for suggestions, create a new topic in the feature requests section.

No, I think he's talking about the ability to copy and paste figures (you can do this either on the same frame, between frames, or between documents); this was already in Stykz in the first Mac public beta, so there was no reason to put it on this list.

[Hoboapple]

When is 2.0 projected to be released?

[Chris]

When is 2.0 projected to be released?

Probably net year I assume.

[Hoboapple]

Aw, man. Then again, I guess I didn't really expect very soon anyway. Are there going to be smaller updates along the way?

[DarkFlame]

You bet - plenty. soon should be the next one.

[Hoboapple]

Alright! Phew, that just made my day.

[samthekiller]

Hi guys when 2 will be released and add a Keyboard Shortcuts like when u press n next frame lot more easier itll be
and every figures are now in stk format fix it and do it taht it can read pivot 3 files too