Wick Editor 1.20 Dev Goals [Feedback Requested]

Feature Suggestions Patch Feedback
#1

Hi All,

As we begin work on 1.20 I’d like to share a few thoughts on important updates and request a bit of feedback. Take a look at some of the primary and secondary goals of the next update, and let me know which changes you think are the most important, or if there’s something you think should be higher on the list!

Primary Updates (Highest Priority)

1. Video Export Overhaul

There’s been quite a few improvements to browser-based video exporters in the last month! I’ll be looking to include some of these new changes in the enxt build which should allow for faster exports, and higher quality videos!

(It should also help reduce the total size of Wick Editor by over 20 Megabytes, which is huge for those with slower internet connections!)

Comment below with what potential features you’d like to see in an updated video exporter.

2. Renderer Overhaul

Interactive Projects in Wick Editor can sometimes run quite slow, especially games with lots of objects. After a few months of research, we’ve found that the main issue is our renderer. Unfortunately, the current version of Wick Editor is tightly coupled to this renderer, Paper.js. Paper is a fantastic open-source project that makes it possible for us to do so much of what we do in the editor, and so we’ll be hanging onto it for all of our editing needs, but have to do quite a bit of refactoring to use a new renderer that will be much faster.

Edit: The renderer overhaul should also help find and squash a number of bugs that may be a bit hard to fix at the moment, which is a nice byproduct!

3. Clip Tagging

Right now, if you want to keep track of all objects of a certain type, you’ll need to create an array in code. With Clip Tagging, users can add tags to clips and buttons and reference them with a really simple call in the code editor (most likely, project.getObjectsByTag(‘Tag’)).

You’ll also be able to do a hit test against a group of objects, like so

If (this.hits(‘Tag’)).

This should really speed up coding tasks!

Secondary Updates (Not Final, Give us Feedback)

1. Touch Events Separate to Mouse Events : Adding touch events to the possible interactive code options.

2. Colorable Layers : Recolor any layer in the editor so you can sort layers more easily!

3. Create an “Add Layer” button: New options for adding layers on the timeline.

4. Gradient Fills!
5. Adding Built-In Assets to Mobile and Tablet Wick Editor
6. Fixing Export Locations on Mobile/Tablet

Let us know what you think and please provide some suggestions if you have them :slight_smile:

10 Likes
When will the first test build of 1.20 come out
Can you guys make gradients and a shape tween
Forum Fighters: Rewritten (Discontinued)
#2

I’ll be so happy if your team could be focus on working in these 3 things:

[1] SubClip hits:I have to put a lot of extra code because the clip.sublicp.hits(…) don’t work properly. It seems that is an easy fix. It has to be with coordinates transformation, in which hits is using relative coordinates for subclips instead of absolute coordinates.

[2] Ordering clip depths at runtime (There is a topic already created for this)

[3] Include Gradient Fills This is limiting our possibilities to create better and realistic graphics.

4 Likes
#3

Here are my thoughts.

Primary Updates

  1. Video Export Overhaul

This is gonna be great! It always takes super long to export videos and that sort, so this should be super helpful!

  1. Renderer Overhaul

I agree with this one too. It seems like a project with more than 15 or so clips slows down the project a ton. Like Jovanny’s memory game: 16 tiles is way too much for the editor to handle, but after solving half the game, it’s so much faster. It would be nice to make big projects faster.

  1. Clip Tagging

This is going to be super useful!!! (I think I see a trend. :P) I’m glad there is finally a way to make different clips do the same things.

Secondary Updates

I don’t know what you mean by touch events separate to mouse events, but I would think that it’s things like “mousehover”, etc. but with other clips instead of the mouse. Sounds like it will help.
Colorable layers would help a lot too!
Gradient fills will be very, very nice to have!! I understand that it is only secondary though.
For the other ones, that will definitely help with mobile, but I haven’t used the mobile editor yet.

I see that Jovanny made a response, and I agree, having clip.subclip.hits() feels very important to have.

3 Likes
#4

Good news is that subclip hits is actually being worked on by @nick and should be included in a fix to 1.19 before 1.20 is released, or in the first version of 1.20 :smiley:

Thank you for the other suggestions folks!

4 Likes
Crashing When Render
#5

Ohhh wow… so good… for games in were you have your player avoiding different kind of clips, but all of them are bullets… this would reduce some game dev time for sure!

Updated: I know, I know, we could create a parent class for bullets and so on… but for lazy moments this would be fantastic.

2 Likes
#6

I think that all these updates (Especially gradient fill) are good, but I am also wondering about 3 other things.

1- Is there any other way to save your project besides using a .WICK file? Also I would appreciate if you could make the autosave a bit more consistent. (Such as every time you close the page)

2- What are some of the things that you could do to improve memory while animating?

3- Can we still open up old 1.18 .WICK projects using the new 1.19/1.20 editor?

2 Likes
#7

Hey @hambreyola,

We always have the goal of allowing older wick files from the same major version (i.e. 1.18 -> 1.19) so those should work fine unless there’s a hidden bug!

Autosave was also improved in 1.19.2 so it should run every 15 seconds or so now :smiley:

7 Likes
#8

very good news

  • new renderer. great !! I tried pixijs and it’s really fast and powerful. hope wick will go in that direction
  • touch events :+1:
  • gradient fill. Necessary. Very good (please dont forget support for imported .svg with gradient shapes)

I only recently switched to 1.19.
The console is a great addition but I’d hide the code editor while in preview play mode.
Actually you can hide console while non in play mode and hide code editor while in play mode. That will free alot of space for contents to be shown

3 Likes
#9

Im excited for touch events! Sounds like a good idea!

3 Likes
#10

When you metioned Gradient Fills, I was like “LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

3 Likes
#11

Changing the renderer sounds like a big update, and the color coded layers sounds sweet,
good luck with the next update :slight_smile:

3 Likes
#12

btw can you add skewing because i want to use it for tweens

3 Likes
#13

I think the Export Locations by Mobile and tablet should be improved :grinning: :+1:

3 Likes
#14

I just wanted to say you can also use MouseHover for touch, though wherever your mouse is, if there’s a button there it’ll click it, so touch triggers will be VERY appreciated be me especially for systemobile (preview below)
Project GammaRay1-27-2021_16-28-17.wick (3.2 MB)
i also have more feature suggestions that’ll be beneficial so check my profile out!

2 Likes
#15

i dont understand clip tagging

#16

@Youyou It is used for giving the same name for multiple objects. For example, you have 2 platforms in a platformer level. Give the platform assets the tag ‘Hitbox’ and give the player code to react to the tag ‘Hitbox’.

2 Likes
#17

Oh yeah @Luxapodular, add radial gradient fills while you are at it.

3 Likes
#18

and linear too

#19

Yep, video export needs some upgrades.
All exports I’ve tried so far are broken…

I want to make a clip with an notebook as background. The export looks like this:

[2 new photos · Album by Patrick Steckermeier] WickEditor video export

When using the vcam beta plugin, only the first two frames or so are broken, (the Rest of the mobile ist ok), but the notebook background is really fuzzy, like with a really, REALLY low bitrate.
When exporting to FHD, it seemingly gets stuck, while showing “Rendering Final Video”. I let it run overnight, and in the morning still wasn’t finished.

3 Likes
#21

Video Export is much appreciated, the rest being handy or sensible upgrades.

My feature requests:

  • Make sure that the hotkeys use keycodes instead of text (example: Ctrl+z = Ctrl+Z as it’s the same key)
  • Hotkey to force rotations to be multiples of 15º like in other vector drawing applications (inkscape for instance with Ctrl+rotate).
2 Likes