Organizing Images
I was wondering if they have implemented a way of organizing images within a project?
I have like 100 images and its very difficult to find the ones I am looking for.
Thank you, and Happy New Year!
I have like 100 images and its very difficult to find the ones I am looking for.
Thank you, and Happy New Year!
Best Answer
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Socks London, UK.Posts: 12,822
Unfortunately not : (
I feel your pain, I have a couple of hundred images in my current project, some of them image sequences that need to be in the right order and - putting it lightly - it's a nightmare !!
Hopefully GS will introduce something as simple as folders eventually.
Answers
@tyler.vankanan@gmail.com Hi, no folders as @Socks said but the next best thing is tags. In effect, by dragging images into tag groups is pretty much the same as folders, really.
If you're not sure how to do this, go to the Home Screen in GSC and click on the Actors tab. Then click the plus sign in the left column to add and then name your tags. The same image can be in as many tags as you want, by the way.
When that's done, you can isolate your groups, by tag name, using the dropdown menu found at the bottom right of the Inspector. Choosing one will then only show those images in the Inspector with that particular tag.
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But if it did work as you described that would be pretty good, maybe not as good as having folders, but it would still be a big improvement over what we have now.
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In the Actors tab the only thing I can add tags to are actors (unsurprisingly, lol : )).
Are you sure you are not mixing up actors and images ?
For instance I just dragged 100 or so images into a new project, then went to the Actors tab . . . but I'm still not able to access the images from there to tag them ?
Here's a quick movie of my adventures:
http://www.mediafire.com/?7bx74ux99xoqd28
Yes, I mean images, but on Prototypes in the Inspector (dragged from the Images Library)...I should have made myself clearer... they can be tagged and so can be grouped for easier viewing, based on their tags.... as I say, much the same as folders really.
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I see, but we were talking about organizing images rather than actors, tags only work for actors, not for images - unless we turn every image into an actor - but I don' really want two or three hundred extra actors in my project or even have to create them all and tag them all ( and so on ).
And even if we were to create a few hundred extra actors so we could tag them this still wouldn't help organise the images section in any way, for example if I needed to open up the images section and grab frames 28 to 112 of image sequence 'AAA' how would having actors that are tagged help me ?
Maybe I don't quite understand what you are getting at, but it doesn't seem like it would help?
Like I said unfortunately we can't add tags to images : ( but if we could it would be pretty good, but I would still prefer a basic folder structure in the images section.
Hi @Socks, I know we were talking about Images, but my thinking is that they're still images when on actors! (as you know)...just didn't explain what I meant...
My reasoning is as follows: I can't see any point in putting images into the Image Library that you're not going to use, so it doesn't matter that you can't add tags to just the images in the Library, because it's no worry at all to drag all the Images into the Inspector as actors with images...cos they're going to be used anyhow, and so should be there, and then can be organised with tags, in much the same way as if they were put into folders...
And as for your example, I'd choose AAA in the tags dropdown menu of the Inspector, so I'd see only those images in the Inspector tagged AAA, and could much more easily select the ones I want (28 to 112 in your example). If there are 400 actors with images in total, I've made life easier by just seeing the sequence I want to select from.
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Images don't need to be actors, a 'change image' behaviour on a bullet 'hit' or an explosion doesn't require that the image be first made into actor, image sequences don't need to be actors, individual images for a custom font or custom scoring system don't need to actors, images used in your particle effects don't need to be actors . . . and so on.
Just because your images are not also actors doesn't mean they aren't being used. You would see those actors with the tag 'AAA', rather than images, you'd still have to return to the images section if you wanted to actually select and use those images rather than just look at them . . . imagine if you now want to drag these 84 images into animate behaviour (it is after all an image sequence) - how would viewing 84 actors that use the same images help out ? I think the operative phrase here is 'just seeing', you can't select images from this window, you need to return to the tagless world of the images panel to select an image.
It would be nice to be able to open a folder and actually grab the image or images you want rather than produce hundreds of extra actors for your project and tag them all just for the ability to be able to see the image to be reminded of what it looks like (something I suspect you already know) before going to the images section and actually searching for it.
Who knows, maybe your system of tagged actors representing every image as a visual promot for what to look for in the images section might work for some projects, but I think those asking for a folder structure for image handling are more likely to be people who use lots of images in their projects - and in this scenario folders are a much better prospect as far as I can see.
OK, I was just trying to help out!
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I appreciate your input, but reserve the right to disagree !
Socks
Folder Structure Evangelist / UK Anti-tags league.
Hi @Socks Sure thing and understood, no worries there... Let me explain a bit more about the "direction of thought" I was coming from:
I realise that tagging actors doesn't help in a Animate Behaviour scenario, and you're so right about the need for something like folders in the Images library for that sort of thing.
But for one of my projects, a major one I've been working with, on and off for quite a while, tagging actors with their images is invaluable... the project is an interactive multimedia app where there are many hundreds of images, and grouping them on actors with tags has made life so much easier when choosing which to use, etc. Also each actor image can be in as many tag groups as I want it too...
I also use tags to group actors used in each scene, so it's easy to just show a particular scene's actors at any time, without them getting lost in all the others.
I thought perhaps @tyler.vankanan@gmail.com might have been working on a similar-form of app.
Anyhow, although tags don't do all that you'd want them to do, and aren't a substitute for folders in the image Library, they're still really useful I think ( to mention as well using them with overlap or collide rule)... perhaps you'll learn to love them one day... ;-)
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: )
Just some food for thought lol! I cant wait for GS to update a few more things!
hehe its all a process :-P thanks for the discussion tho!
Hi Tyler, I obviously didn't have my "sixth sense" head on today, so didn't glean that you were specifically talking about animation images...glad @Socks helped out anyhow!
But still, hopefully tags will be (or already have been) useful for you at some time or other; although obviously not in this context.
Back to the prob. of organising groups of images for animation frames, in the meantime – before we might get folders to organise them – maybe the following workaround might help some:
I guess you're already naming frames of animation in each sequence with meaningful titles: e.g WalkA01, WalkA02, etc; but to help define the groups more, make an extra frame as the first image of the group to bring in to the Library, with maybe a solid red background and white type, marked with the appropriate sequence as words: WalkA, RunA, JumpA, JumpB, etc. This way you have the groups visually separated by red blocks, also titled for easier finding.
And when all the animation frames have been used from the Image Library into the Animate Behaviours as you want, these red divider blocks can be deleted from the Images Library.
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Thanks!
Another useful tip for those poor souls dealing with image sequences.
As people probably know GameSalad has a bug when importing image sequences, it mixes them up in a mysterious way only matched by the randomness of a national lottery number selection process. - You attempt to drag this sequence onto an animation behaviour and all kinds of weirdness proceeds. It's a real pain, the only way has been to either drag each image into GS one at a time or once your sequence has been imported go through them in the images panel putting them in the right order.
But I worked out a solution !! (must be done in this order):
Drag your 100 frame image sequence into the images panel - it will be all messed up as usual 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13 . . . . etc etc . . . but once you have done this make a blank actor and apply an animation behaviour to it . . . . then drag the image sequence directly from your desktop (not the image sequence within GameSalad) straight into the animation behaviour - and then when you are asked if you want to replace the images hit 'replace' (hit enter/return on your keyboard) for each one - a case of sitting there for 20 seconds repeatedly hitting return . . . . the result is a perfectly ordered image sequence in an animation behaviour with much less hassle and file wrangling.
Hi @Socks I'm not sure why you're getting order of images mixed up when dragging into GSC; personally I've never had that problem, and can't duplicate this behaviour with a test either, i.e dragging images from the desktop, nor from a folder....providing you select the files in the order you want them, they will be brought into the Images Library in the exact same order...that's what I find anyhow...
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On the subject of creating an Animate Behaviour, here's a tip for anyone who doesn't know: simply drag your frames out of the Image Library into the Rules section, and the Animate Behaviour will be automatically made for you with the frames inside as you want. You can also drag the images straight from the desktop into the Rules section, and again the Animate Behaviour will be automatically made.
(This also works for dragging Music or Sounds out too, or from the Desktop, striaght into the Rules section i.e the appropriate behaviour is automatically made for you.)
Hope that helps someone! :-)
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Can you select an image sequence of - for instance - 50 images (imagine they are simply image files of the numbers 1-50) from a folder, drag them into GameSalad's image panel and they arrive in the correct order ?
Here's a sequence for you to test !
http://www.mediafire.com/?y24704saqyt8zti
When I do this they get imported in a mixed up order, this issue is universal, it always happens (ie: it doesn't just happen now and again) - and the mixed up order is never the same twice, it seems to be random each time.
?
Strange.... I'm getting 8 and 9 reversed order twice, and 1 and 2 reversed, once, this is dragging the images in about 20 times.... I'm not sure what I've done differently those three times, but for certain, the majority of times they came in OK.... but hey, I see what you mean....
Edit: just tried another five or six times.... Select All seems to cause a wrong order problem, usually just two swapped position.... but as far as I can see, if the first one is selected and the last one selected with shift held – all selected that way – they seem fine.... odd, isn't it...
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But I hold out hope for the new engine !
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