From CrossDoc webpage:

CrossDoc was built to help game developers on transforming abstract game ideas into an executable real world, task to task project. In its core view, a game project can be mapped as a hierarchical tree of elements and individual tasks can be estimated from the interactions between them.

This cross analysis process not only helps to measure the work effort more efficiently but also brings unforeseen ideas on table in design time while showing problematic or too expensive features from start. On these collected tasks, the time effort can be estimated and the time spent on it recorded (either realtime or post work). With these data CrossDoc displays the done/total tasks number, estimated/worked time and overall project completeness in a nice progress bar.

Many otherwise nice game projects falls on lack of motivation and stamina because sometimes people tend to underestimate the complexity of implementing so many nice features planned in the enthusiasm of the brainstorm. To help in avoiding this is the reason behind CrossDoc existence.

Of course it was built for long term projects but this little tool has been helping me since my first Ludum Dare on game design, time estimation and quick project control.
I took some time to polish it and finally share it with the world, so here is it, at time for LD26.

http://www.arcadiumplayware.com/crossdoc/

I found that I couldn’t compile the timelapse as my resolution was too big for mencoder. Going through the images one by one to downscale every one was not going to happen. All the automated softwares I found was either adfilled, couldn’t be installed on a 64-bit windows or crashed with my dataset. So I took a couple of hours out of my freetime and wrote a simple console application to take care of it.

The usage is pretty easy, write a xml file that tells it what to do

<batch>
    <actions>
        <resize width="2048" height="1546" />
        <save/>
    </actions>
</batch>

And the just call it:

ImBatch.exe <input pattern> commands.xml <output folder>

and it will do all the work.

So with that said, here it is in all it’s glory: https://github.com/sirGustav/ImBatch

Pyxel Edit is a pixel art/tileset editor I put up an early version of before the last LD. It was rushed and pretty damn broken in many ways but people still seemed to find it useful.

All the positive feedback I got made me want to fix it so I decided to take the version down to do it right. I have been working on it since then, rewriting  a big part of the code base and adding a lot of features. There’s now also a site for the project at pyxeledit.com where you can download it.

It’s made in Adobe AIR so it runs on Win and Mac, not Linux, sorry. (I have been told it runs in WINE though)
There is also a captive runtime version at the site if you don’t want to install AIR.

I’d love to hear what you think, and if you have any suggestions for features or anything else (maybe I can add it before the next LD!).

http://pyxeledit.com

I have released the current build of my pixel art tool PyxelEdit for use during Ludum Dare 23.

It has some special features that might come in handy for making pixel art and tiles.

Get it here:

http://danikgames.com/stuff/pyxeledit/

http://pyxeledit.com

A screenshot:

Here’s a video showing some of it’s features:

Here is a little program I’ve been playing around with (inspired by the theme Evolution, which didn’t make it again):

• Random Art Evolver (Flash)

This program generates random images based on a code (which is shown at the bottom) and mutates them. When you click on one of the images, you’ll see it in full size at the right and all images will start to evolve from that point on. If none of those get any better, you can restart the same code by clicking on the large image.

Once you have found an image you want to use for something, you could capture the screen and save it somewhere as a bitmap, but the idea is to simply save the code and use a function to generate the image at any time.

The library is for haXe, it generates a BitmapData from a given String. It shouldn’t be too hard to port it to as3 as well.

Enjoy!

Who wants a wallpaper made out of thumbnails from all the LD games?

This here python script (and png for the LD logo) will generate them in various sizes for you.

example output:

Once all the jam entries roll in, I’ll run it and make a post with wallpapers in various sizes for download.

It also dumps a non-resized-for-wallpaper grid.png and an xml file containing each game’s author, game id, title, etc. that maybe someday I will have a good use for.  You can quickly customize it or update for future LDs by changing the variables at the top of the file.

It requires this Python module which you may have to download and install.

EDIT:  whoops, I had a stupid bug in the part that was supposed to center the thumbnails within their grid cells and instead right-aligned ‘em.  It’s fixed if you download now.

Here is the script I’m using to create a time-lapse video of my desktop, with webcam video superimposed in the corner and an audio track. Works for me in Debian Linux with uvccapture, scrot, and ffmpeg installed. Hopefully this is helpful for others. Note that I had to hard code the location of the script at one point because I am a bash bonehead. You will probably have to change that to match the location on your system.


#!/bin/bash
#
# Timelapse video creator.
#
# Uses the following tools: uvccapture, scrot, ffmpeg.
#
# Start recording with 'timelapse start' (continues until killed),
# compile captured frames in to a video with 'timelapse compile'.

interval=5 # delay between frames (will probably longer due to processing time)

arg=$1

if [ $arg ]; then
if [ $arg = "frame.jpg" ]; then
counter=`cat counter`
counter=`expr $counter + 1`
echo got video for frame $counter
scrot screen.png
echo got screenshot for frame $counter
composite -gravity southwest frame.jpg screen.png composite.png
convert -quality 100 -resize 800x composite.png `printf "%04d" $counter`.jpg
echo processed frame $counter
echo $counter > counter
elif [ $arg = "compile" ]; then
ffmpeg -shortest -qscale 3 -ab 192k -r 10 -i %04d.jpg -i music.mp3 video.mp4
elif [ $arg = "start" ]; then
uvccapture -oframe.jpg -x320 -y240 -q100 -c/home/win/scripts/timelapse -t$interval
fi
else
echo "timelapse "
fi


Finally, my time lapse tool (Chronolapse) is ready for some serious testing.

Windows users can grab the exe here: http://code.google.com/p/chronolapse/downloads/list

Linux/Mac: I haven’t done any work on your versions yet, but everything but the webcam ‘should’ work. You’re next!

When you find bugs, please either comment here or send me an email to the address specified in the manual.

Since the mini LD started, I’ve been filling my time with diablo, TF2, C&C3, amusement parks, and other non-coding activities. However, I have been sneaking in coding time here and there, and am making progress on my tool, despite being well outside the ‘deadline’. I posted a gui shot to IRC, but forgot to put it here, until now!

People’s biggest complaint seems to be that it is rather dense. Well screw those people. Seriously though, it is a semi-heavy tool, but I’m hoping I’ve put it together logically. I’ll be writing instructions on how to use each part and I’d like to think that, with a little tool-tip help, each section is pretty self explanatory.

Since I haven’t really discussed it here yet, my tool, codenamed Chronolapse, creates time lapses. Right now the only working webcam library I have is windows only, but that might be addressed later. The goal is to make it a snap to make time lapses like the one below. Here is an overview featurelist:

• Synched Screenshots and Webcam Captures (can do either one or both)
• Simple ‘Annotation’ – show messages like status etc on your timelapse
• Picture in Picture – example: put your webcam shots in the corner of your screenshots
• Video – convert your images to video for you

I decided to make each of these features a seperate entity to give the user as much freedom and functionality as possible. It will add a little bit of time on the backend as you go through each ‘phase’, but it really enhances the value of the tool. Here is a picture in picture example: First, you capture your images. Instead of allowing you to pick PIP at the beginning, it just saves the two different sets of pictures. After you’re finished capturing, you can run it through the PIP section, selecting size and position (and sources). This gives you a new folder of pictures with the PIP effect. Now, if you want to go back and change where you put the PIP, it is as simple as tweaking the settings and re-doing the PIP. If PIP was built into the capture, you couldn’t change it at all. It also means you can use any program you want to do any of the steps, and CL will fill in the rest. You can capture with CL and create video with virtualdub, or capture with something else and add PIP with CL, etc etc etc. You have da powah!

Example Goal Timelapse – This wasn’t made with CL; it required 4 different tools to put it all together, plus the youtube annotation. Being able to make this using just one program (well, need to add sound separately) is the end-result goal of CL.

My LD 12 Timelapse

gotta be honest here, I started two days ago so I’ll submit what I have so far.

I’ll finish it off some other time and upload it here <3