Time for action – editing an existing frame with Pencyl

The game file to import and load for this session is 5961_05_05.stencyl.

Note that, when using the Pencyl graphics editor, hovering the mouse cursor over any of the tools in the toolbar will display a tooltip detailing the name of the tool.

  1. Display the Stencyl Book Snake actor in the Animation Editor; the snake actor has only one animation, with a single frame.
  2. In the main panel, in the Frames section, the first and only frame for the snake actor should be highlighted with an orange border; if it is not, click on frame 0 to select it.
  3. Locate the Edit Frame (External) button at the bottom of the main panel and click on it. Be sure not to click on the Edit Frame button; that's the option for changing frame durations!
  4. In a few moments, the Pencyl image editor will be displayed on the screen with the snake actor in the editing window.
  5. Click on Zoom Tool, represented by a magnifying-glass icon, in the toolbar at the left edge of the screen.
  6. With Zoom Tool selected, click in the gray area of the snake's fangs.
  7. Click on the Dropper tool in the toolbar.
  8. Click on the light gray area of one of the fangs.
  9. Click on the Pencil tool in the toolbar.
  10. Using the Pencil tool, click to paint the fangs, so that they appear longer, as shown in the following image:
    Time for action – editing an existing frame with Pencyl
  11. If required, use the Undo feature to correct any mistakes by selecting Edit | Undo on Pencyl's main menu, or use the shortcut keys Ctrl + Z, or Command + Z on Mac OS X.
  12. In Pencyl's main menu, click on File | Save.
  13. Click on File | Quit.
  14. When Pencyl quits, observe that the changes to the snake's fangs are immediately represented in the frame's icon in the main Animation Editor panel.

What just happened?

We have used the Pencyl image editor to make a modification to the snake actor's graphic.

Clicking the Edit Frame (External) button in the Animation Editor automatically loaded the snake actor's graphic into the Pencyl graphics editor.

We then zoomed into the image to allow us finer control over the changes, and used the Dropper tool to select the color of the snake's fangs. Once the correct color had been selected, we used the Pencil tool to make the fangs longer.

Finally, saving the changes and quitting Pencyl automatically updated the actor's image within Stencyl's Animation Editor.

Using an alternative graphics tool

Some Stencyl users may wish to use an alternative graphics tool — perhaps one with which they are more familiar, or which provides more advanced features than Pencyl.

..................Content has been hidden....................

You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.
Reset
3.133.144.217