No - spritestacking is not as effective for the most of things but there is something playful about it - it changes the way you think about what you draw which imposes an unique style on your creations.
It's not really just the nostalgia. It's taking the base from that point in time while applying things that were not computationally possible back in the day. It's a continuation of that style that many simply appreciate and it's not going away anywhere. Sure we can have photorealistic movies but somehow people still appreciate cartoons.
I am sorry to be that guy but your assumptions are wrong. Rendering voxels is much more expensive than rendering regular meshes. The polygon count is actually tremendous. Getting detailed models with voxels requires a lot more data than polygon based mesh.
These units were a huge inspiration for me - if you dig through various modding forums you will notice that they use a lot of unknown dedicated software and that there are tons of models created outside of the gamedev bubble by extremely talented people that have nothing to do with the industry on a daily basis and because of that they remain pretty much anonymous.
I remember seeing some really impressive unit mods when I was younger. I only got a glimpse at some of the tooling in a short documentary about the Tiberium series. I remember there was a voxel editor on a screen. It's cool to see some development in this area. Sometimes I day dream about making use of voxels for simulations or games.
Please check out my twitter for current examples - I have been polishing this renderer for 2 years now and it has improved a lot https://twitter.com/rezoner/media
I am not using spritestacking as a mean to render things since a long time. It's intentionally sharp, low res and non antialiased because that's the style I like in games.
Thank you. It's coded from start to end because I am not familiar with any software that do trailers. I first coded it then wrote music (in FLStudio) that is aligned with events in a demo.
Ahoy. I am the author of SpriteStack.
I am really honored to be on HN front page and I would like to straighten some misconceptions about this app.
The version that is available and its trailer has little to do with the current state of the application.
New release brings voxels, lowpoly and sprites together to create 3D animated game objects and export them as 2D spritesheets. It's purpose is not to replace your favorite software (Aseprite, MagicaVoxel, PicoCAD...) but to bind them all together into something even more useful from a 2D gamedeveloper point of view. So it can import - a lot of things.
Hi rezoner, this tool (both versions) look so cool!
I saw you ask on twitter a few days ago for explanations from people who may have looked but then didn't buy, and I'd like to offer my own experience if you're interested.
I'm at most a hobby artist+gamedev, so I expect I might download this and play around with it for a few days, then forget that I ever had it for ~months, before playing around with it again someday. Because of that pattern, I don't make a lot of purchases for art's sake, e.g. I have wanted pico8 for a long time, yet never acted to buy it. I end up setting a bit of an unfairly high bar for believing I'll actually get use out of a new cool thing like this.
So then, looking around and seeing a new version is coming soon with a lot of big changes/features, and today's version is $30, my immediate question is "would a license for today's version grant access to the new one?"
With that in mind, I looked around on your twitter, your patreon, your itch.io, and a few of your website pages, and I wasn't able to find an answer. I might have just missed it! But that left me feeling scared that I'll pay $30 today and in 3 weeks or something, there'll be a new cool thing that I can't have. But I know that if I just wait a while, I'll likely be able to get the new thing then. So... it pushes me toward wanting to wait, even despite your reasonable request for help in funding development of the new thing I want, which I want to help with.
I also saw a mention of access to a renderer coming soon, for patrons, but as an outsider I'm not sure what the renderer is with respect to the rest of the project. I looked over the patron levels and wasn't sure if there's a reason to choose one level over another, outside of how much I want to contribute. Not that there needs to be! But I wondered about it, and the uncertainty gave me enough anxiety to kind of put off the whole decision. And now we're here. :)
So, to recap:
- I want to contribute to your patreon to feel like I'm helping
- I want to buy spritestack (especially the new one, but also the current one)
- I'd be willing to pay probably $40-50 today
- I'm scared I might pay, then miss out on some benefit, and it's making me defer the decision
Just read this on the Steam page for SpriteStack regarding the upcoming release.
Do not worry to get current version of SpriteStack - it's the one that will get updated with all the new features you can read about there https://spritestack.io/upcoming. After the update the price will go up so it's the best moment to get it - also it helps me to focus on SpriteStack instead of looking for funds.
QA: Yes it's completely safe to buy current version as it is going to be updated with the revamped software.
Thank you very very much for such a detailed experience. It's super helpful and I will address it. I've learned that behind one person with certain problem there are number of people that will just abandon it without ever being vocal about it - so it's pretty much always worth to fix what at a fist glance might look like an individual experience. Sorry that you had to dig for answers.
I have reworked the front page. If you have time to look at it and tell me if it makes you less doubtful I would appreciate it. No pressure though, you already helped me much.
I keep some alive but they are really just burning my budget which is quite poor since I am a full time indie wannabe so I consider shutting them down.
Hi, think this looks really cool, although I am a little confused what I, a propsective consumer, should be doing. If I want to give this try, should I buy the current version? Is there a separate purchase for the new version? Does the license carry over?
tl;dr what/where should I buy at this current moment
2) You can safely buy current version as the next update will replace it - as in - you get the new software.
3) I need a few more months to finish it but I want to release the rendering part of the app (simply without animator) for my patrons in July - https://www.patreon.com/spritestack
Quality pixelart is more expensive than 3D assets. You get all angles and bone based animation from a model while you have to draw every animation frame in every angle manually with 2D approach. On top of that a 3D world brings easier customisation and reusability of assets.
