v21.1 New Battle Animation Editor (v22 preview) 2.1.1

Description​

This plugin contains the new battle animation system and editor I've been working on for Essentials v22. It's been in development a long time, and is the last big thing to sort out before the release of Essentials v22.

This new animation system revolves around particles, which appear and disappear, move around, change colour and all that fun stuff. This is different to the existing (old) animation system, where each frame of an animation is entirely separate from every other frame. Because a particle now exists throughout the entire animation, its movement and appearance changes can be made smoothly from one state to the next (interpolated), which makes the whole animation smooth and not limited to 20 FPS.

Other features include a special kind of particle known as an emitter (which emits lots of sprites instead of being just one) and various kinds of randomness that let the same animation look a bit different each time it's played. There is also better choosing of which animation to play for a given move/common event.

Animations are now stored in legible PBS files, making it easier to keep track of changes and to share individual ones.

There's a lot more I could say about this, but I'll let you find out about it for yourself. The meta.txt file contains more information about this plugin and the files it includes. There is obviously a learning curve to this, so don't be put off if you don't know how to do everything immediately. Documentation will be written in time, and you can help with that by pointing out things you want to know.

This animation system/editor/plugin is still in development. If you have ideas for any other features or tweaks you would like to be implemented, please let me know in the replies.

This animation system and editor are already in the "dev" branch of the Essentials GitHub. If you're using that, you already have the code in this plugin, but you should still download this plugin just to get the graphics and audio.

How to use​

1. Download the plugin.
2. Copy the contents of the "New Anim Editor" folder into the main project folder.
3. Run your game. The plugin should compile automatically, but you may need to compile manually.
4. The Battle Animation Editor is accessible from the main Debug menu. Choose "Other editors..." and then "New battle animation editor".

What I want from you​

I'm releasing this plugin now, before Essentials v22 comes out, because I want to get some things out of it first before declaring it good enough and complete enough to be in Essentials.

Playtesting and bug spotting​

What is it like to use? How do you use it? Could the user experience be made better? What additional features would you find useful? Do you want another colour scheme which is all orange all the time?

Also, bug reports are always welcome.

More animations​

I want a bunch of new animations ready to go for Essentials v22. It's a big ask for me to make them all myself, so I'm asking you to help out.

I've included all the particle graphics I could find from HGSS to help make animations. I've been mimicking the Gen 4 animations so far, and consistency would be nice. If you're interested in making animations for Essentials, please let me know.

Essentials doesn't need to include every single animation immediately, but a variety would be good. Additional/replacement animations can be made available as resource packs.