Simple 2D editor with image position, scale, rotation, order, layers and export to xml/json?

[Red Spark]

Hello everybody!

 

Currently looking for a simple solution to aid level design for 2D top-down game. I just need to import images, move / scale / rotate them, distribute them to certain layers or containers (for example "static", "collision", "effects" and so on) and to export all their transforms as a single xml / json file  with appropriate container hierarchies.

 

I've tried some existing 2D editors (Tiled, Ogmo, etc) and it seems like none of them are meeting my expectations. I've also tapped into the area of Photoshop scripting, but reading transforms from smart objects is overcomplicated, and the whole thing seems to be a little bit of overkill. Same with JSFL. I'm really digging to use Unity 2D as the editor, but exporting scene to json will require a little bit of scripting too.

 

Am I missing someting? There definitely should be a simplistic 2D level editor with xml/json export.

[Red Spark]

Ok, I've gone Unity 2D route and created a simple script to export all transforms and relative information of all sprites in the scene to JSON.

 

On a side note it's worth mentioning that Unity's sprites express blend modes via shaders, therefore applying blend modes in Unity Editor and exporting them to JSON is overcomplicated. So for effects and various triggers / spawns it's more convenient to use proxy entities in Editor, then read their transforms and other info in your JS code and spawn required stuff accordingly. Still not WYSIWYG, but pretty convenient worklow.

[shmikucis]

Have you tried MightyEditor? It does all these simple things you need and it's compatible with Phaser.

[Red Spark]

Have you tried MightyEditor? It does all these simple things you need and it's compatible with Phaser.

 

Wow, that's incredible piece of software and has huge potential   But still, seems to be in it's infancy as of now. Is it only tile based?

[shmikucis]

MightyEditor has tile support but not only that. You can put assets and arrange them together in groups. I'm working right now on documentation and examples. For now you can take a look at initial feature description http://mightyfingers.com/editor-features/

 

Btw, what should be done to the editor to get out from it's infancy?

[Red Spark]

Yep, thanks, tutorial helped to wrap things up for me   Seems like ME would be sufficient for my needs. Gonna battle test it soon.

 

Besides, there are a few raw corners here and there. For example, sometimes Assets tab shows some of my images duplicated. Exporting data doesn't work sometimes (creates empty popup), but refreshing the page helps. An exporting option for pure JSON without window.mt.data would be also nice. Scaling / rotating gizmos for images would also help a lot for enhanced workflow. In addition, blending modes would be very cool. And ability to attach custom data to entities. Window layout is reset every time I refresh or load saved level. Once I accidentally place a group inside another group there is no way to get it back to root - and the whole group hierarchy is confusing. Selecting an image on stage should be traced not against its bounds but against the image itself - in case of large rotated images they occupy lots of empty space and small images behind them aren't selectable on stage anymore (only in Objects tab). Also, seems like my level URLs aren't shown anywhere on startup, so I presume I should save them on my side? 

 

I'll come up with more once I battle test it. Keep up the good work! 

 

P.S. Also, seems like lots of cool details are already taken into account. History seems to be saved permanently, not session-wise. Holding Ctrl snaps to grid. Infancy wasn't the right word - should be more like a solid alpha.