[HN Gopher] Show HN: Construct Animate - our new browser-based a...
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Show HN: Construct Animate - our new browser-based animation tool
Author : AshleysBrain
Score : 149 points
Date : 2023-03-08 10:17 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.construct.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.construct.net)
| jckahn wrote:
| https://artboard.studio/ is another excellent animation option
| that's got a somewhat simpler UI.
| ldenoue wrote:
| You can also check ScreenRun to create beautiful videos from
| screenshots or recordings in seconds https://screenrun.app/
| [deleted]
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| This looks really nice.
|
| I'm reminded of a desktop app Google has called "Google Web
| Designer" which can do similar timeline based animations and
| exports to the same formats. But it's nice being able to do in
| the browser without downloading an app. However, Web Designer is
| free so there's that. Also, who knows how long Google will
| continue to support this app.
|
| https://webdesigner.withgoogle.com/
| mdorazio wrote:
| Does it support importing svg files?
|
| As others have mentioned, the workflow looks a lot like the old
| days of Flash, which I really miss. I'll definitely be giving
| this a try for future projects.
| wraptile wrote:
| Only for paid plans by the looks of it [1]
|
| It took a while to figure it out as you can create a SVG object
| but can't import a file and there's nothing matching "import"
| in the docs.
|
| What a weird decision. Testing the software whether it would
| correctly work with my assets is probably the most important
| purpose of the trial version.
|
| edit: I've been corrected below
|
| 1 - https://www.construct.net/en/animation-
| software/manual/proje...
| AshleysBrain wrote:
| You can import SVG files to the project and display them with
| the SVG Picture object, and that all works in the free
| edition.
| wraptile wrote:
| Awesome, thanks for the correction. I see how it works
| right now. For the lazy: right click on "Files" on the
| right, select import and import your file, double click
| canvas and create SVG object, then the imported SVG can be
| selected in a dropdown on the left.
| porkradish wrote:
| This looks like a really nice tool. Would you consider a "Family"
| plan level of pricing? I have two children (12yrs and 15yrs) who
| love following Youtube animators and doing a large amount of art
| and animation themselves. The personal plan is too restrictive
| for them (layers being one major limit). Watermarks/logos in the
| final rendered content is fine as this is all non-commercial. I
| would have no problems supporting at ~$10 a month for something
| that fit a case like this. Thanks!
| TomGullen wrote:
| Drop us an email at support@construct.net and we'll help you
| out
| noduerme wrote:
| What's this built in? The whole GUI looks like a Windows
| application.
| TomGullen wrote:
| This is all written from the ground up in house.
| mikelovenotwar wrote:
| That doesn't answer the question.
| AshleysBrain wrote:
| It's browser-based so it's all HTML, CSS and JavaScript,
| written using our own in-house framework.
| noduerme wrote:
| The windowing / panels / dropdowns / UI components look
| really nice. Like, almost a whole desktop program. I was
| just wondering what UI framework you were using. All in
| house, awesome.
|
| [edit] Sorry, was the UI for the Construct actually built
| using Construct? Do you guys use PixiJS or anything like
| that as an underlying engine?
| AshleysBrain wrote:
| Thanks, we were aiming to make a desktop-grade UI in the
| browser and it's nice to hear feedback like that!
|
| The UI was separately developed with JavaScript, it
| wasn't made in Construct itself (which is mostly canvas-
| based). The whole runtime is also in-house - we don't use
| PixiJS or any other libraries, once again it's all our
| own in-house engine, custom WebGL/WebGPU renderer, etc.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I love how not using some sort of JS framework/library is
| confusing people! I for one appreciate the fact that you
| are not for multiple reasons.
| dhumph wrote:
| Can you describe how it's different/better than something like
| svgator?
|
| Also, i just went to create a new project: 2 things immediately
| were a problem 1. the modal didn't have differentiation between
| primary button color and secondary. I clicked cancel 2. after
| clicking create it took >30+ seconds and there was no indication
| that something was happening.
|
| I look forward to checking it out more!
| Springtime wrote:
| Surprised I hadn't heard of SVGator before, since I've posted
| about a lack of SVG native animation authoring tools in the
| past. Appears to have an option to use either CSS-based
| animations or JS-based (curious it appears to lack a native
| SMIL option which would offer various things the JS-based
| option supports and benefit most from authoring tools).
|
| On topic: remarkably the Construct Animate editor/demo works
| even without cookies/web storage enabled. Nice :)
| bisRepetita wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this.
|
| If I wanted to use one of those animations as overlay on a video
| I have (with transparency), what export would you recommend?
| Based on your intro video, is seems it would be a series of PNG,
| or is there some other option?
| AshleysBrain wrote:
| If your video editing tool can use an image sequence (e.g.
| 000.png, 001.png...), I'd recommend using the Image Sequence
| exporter[1]. If you want an actual video file with
| transparency, you can do that by using FFmpeg to encode a video
| from the image sequence, which we also have a guide for[2].
|
| [1] https://www.construct.net/en/tutorials/exporting-image-
| seque...
|
| [2] https://www.construct.net/en/tutorials/exporting-videos-
| tran...
| bisRepetita wrote:
| Thank you!
| arbitrandomuser wrote:
| motioncanvas seems like a nice open source alternative , although
| motioncanvas relies almost completely on JS to draw and animate
| https://motioncanvas.io/
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| Another nascent tool is Rive ( https://rive.app/ ). It claims to
| produce smaller output than Lottie ( https://lottiefiles.com/ ),
| which itself another animation container(?)--imagine .SWF for
| Flash.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| I cut my teeth as a programmer using Shockwave and Flash back in
| the day, so I'll always be happy to see that kind of IDE live on
| for others, even if I would no longer use it.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| I can recommend you check out the games development tools from
| this company.
| exodust wrote:
| On the other hand, they're subscription only. It used to be
| better, back in Construct 2 days, sensible flexible pricing.
|
| Then they changed it to browser based, subscription only,
| Chrome only. The whole thing becomes read-only the moment your
| credit card stops drip-feeding the subscription.
|
| When you poke around in these tools on the weekend, the
| subscription model falls flat. Being billed for "time" that
| happens to fall between my use of these products, is a bizarre
| way to charge customers for software. I get that if I rented a
| lawnmower, I'm paying for every day I have that mower because
| other customers want that same mower.
| TomGullen wrote:
| Construct 3 and Construct Animate are not Chrome only, it
| works in all major browser and even mobile/tablet devices.
| Chromebook support has been a major plus for us in the
| educational market.
|
| Construct 2 was pay once, but we found after a few years
| sales really plateaued. Going to SaaS was a difficult
| transition for us, but it's worked out well and we now see
| year on year growth which gives us a lot more breathing room.
|
| I think it's important to also recognise that pay once
| software just doesn't work as a model for a lot of countries
| around the world. As an example, for Construct 3 we charge
| the equivalent of ~$12 USD per year in Malawi which makes it
| a very affordable option, whereas a one-off price would have
| to be roughly quadruple that for it to be economical for us,
| and would likely put it out of reach of a lot of people who
| otherwise may of paid annually for it.
|
| SaaS puts more onus on us to cater for our current paying
| customers, before with pay once our focus was weighted on
| acquiring new customers. To what extent this actually plays
| out is kind of tricky to put your finger on especially from
| where I'm sitting but there is certainly an element of this
| in our work.
|
| I'm not going to pretend that SaaS is suitable for everyone
| and every product and I understand why people are adverse,
| but for us it's worked well and a lot of noisy predictions
| from some of our customer base about this being our downfall
| never played out. The transition to pay once to SaaS was a
| vulnerable time for our business and a very interesting one
| at that.
| [deleted]
| nico wrote:
| Awesome. A lot of people miss Flash and all the cool things about
| it. Great work!
| robertoandred wrote:
| The Flash IDE still exists, it's called Adobe Animate now.
| nogridbag wrote:
| I can't speak for everyone here, but I would imagine the
| majority of people creating Flash content back in the day
| were using some warez version. For me personally, I was a
| teenager and my parents had no idea what I was doing on the
| PC. I believe I started with Macromedia Flash 2 or 3. I just
| wanted to animate something on the screen for the same reason
| most of us started programming - that feeling of being able
| to instruct the computer to do something and see it come to
| life. I used Flash for a while and even got a small job in
| college creating a new Flash website. Even with all of those
| memories I have zero interest in Adobe Animate because
| animating things is not my career and I don't want yet
| another monthly subscription. I like that Construct Animate
| has a free plan, although the free tier seems too limited to
| be useful.
| thomasfromcdnjs wrote:
| For anyone too lazy to look into it. From my view it looks like
| Macromedia Flash 2004 or something. Which I love! Might actually
| check it out later.
| 58x14 wrote:
| Site hung for me (us-east) on the first few tries. Get ready for
| the HN hug, Ashley!
|
| I've never used any animation tools, and it's been on my list to
| make a few basic logo animations in css/js. It's striking how
| many features you guys have managed to ship in a webapp and I'll
| definitely play with Construct Animate in the near future.
|
| Also want to say that the tutorial/walkthrough is excellent, and
| gave me a great impression of the core functionality in under a
| minute. Without the walkthrough, I might spend the same ~30
| seconds being unenthused about the UI elements, which others have
| pointed out have a distinct mid-2000s appearance that I
| personally don't care for.
|
| Good job :)
| TomGullen wrote:
| Tom here from Construct, spent a lot of time recently working
| on improving reliability/scalability of website so when I see
| comments like this always sends a pang of fear through me :)
|
| Site resources looks to be coping just fine which is great (we
| often get upwards of 20 pageviews per second on our site at
| peak times) so will put this down as a blip.
|
| Look forward to hearing more about how you get on with Animate,
| Ashley and Diego have done a stellar job in getting
| productivity software running in the browser!
| 58x14 wrote:
| Sorry, didn't mean to ring any bells - but hey, you've made
| #1, so hopefully a little heads' up was helpful!
| dutchbrit wrote:
| Brings back good old Flash memories, good job!
| rafamvc wrote:
| Flash really got me hooked as a kid. It was easy enough to get
| started and had enough depth with their scripting language that
| got me to start to learn programming.
|
| I still remember the demo flash animation to this day.
|
| I wish more web products enabled a one kid show to get
| something done that wows adults.
|
| Web dev today is a messy onion of poor abstractions that you
| need to know too much to get a little done.
| napolux wrote:
| Same, I used to make flash games back in the days and even
| ventured into Adobe AIR :)
| nogridbag wrote:
| I used to love Flash as a kid. I just tried this out and ran into
| a few snags. I completed the mini tutorial which was pretty slick
| and clicked "Menu -> Preview" and it just showed the first frame
| of the animation (static pig). I was expecting a preview of the
| animation. I then attempted to export a gif and got a hard error.
| "Oops! Something went wrong." Standard MacBook 15" using
| Chrome/Ventura.
| hummus_bae wrote:
| [dead]
| AshleysBrain wrote:
| You need to change the 'Start on layout' property of the
| timeline to make sure it plays in preview. I think our guided
| tour should include that though, so I'll see about updating
| that.
|
| Not sure why that error happened when exporting a GIF - I just
| tried it and it's working here (Chrome/Windows). Could you copy
| and paste the error message and send it to me at
| ashley@construct.net? I'll see if I can figure it out from
| that.
| nogridbag wrote:
| That makes sense, thanks! Will send you the details
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