Spriter: How's this thing work with DST?

[Pyr0mrcow]

Title says it all.

I'm trying to learn how to use Spriter in combination with DST. I'm an active learner; basically, I have trouble understanding things if I don't understand their practical application. Starting from the end and working my way back is my sort of thing, along with immitation.
I don't need anything too in-depth, but I'm wondering if someone can explain this in basic terms...
What is Spriter's actual use, in terms of being combined with DST?
Moreso, what are the connection points? What does Spriter tell the compiler? What do the compiled assets tell the game? In the Spriter files themselves, often only a few parts are represented, or many are piled on top of one-another. I don't see those parts actually animated within Spriter...so, what tells the game what to do with those parts? Anchor points make sense, that does seem to be communicated. I saw a bit of the defining of frames due to an error. But what about the movements? At what point do 3 stills of an axe or an arm become a fluid animation?

I get Spriter, to some extent. I get how it could be be used on its own, and I'm pretty sure I get how to make new things with it, though I haven't had the need quite yet. I just don't get how it works with this game, particularly items that exist in the game by default.

 

(I'm interested due to trouble we've been having with our mod for adding extra variations to players that have skins equipped, and that which they interact with, which requires creating pseudo-copies of existing assets, first. My other interest...is something that I don't want to spoil too much, but it requires brand new animations, or if I'm lucky, clever editing.)

Edited November 25, 2016 by Pyr0mrcow
...wait, that's probably not basic...

[Lumina]

I can't answer for sure. I guess that some anim (especially anim like hat or tools) aren't really decompiled correctly when using spriter, because for example, there is only one image shown when i decompile one hat anim, but in game all the assets are correctly displayed. Which is strange.

But when you want to create a custom anim you need to do all the steps. Same, some anims are correctly decompiled and you can see the animate part when you open the .scml.

[Fuffles]

Its easy to use imo, you can create animations, if you want I could post how Im making mine currently, so that you can have a described example

 

[Fuffles]

3 minutes ago, Lumina said:

I can't answer for sure. I guess that some anim (especially anim like hat or tools) aren't really decompiled correctly when using spriter, because for example, there is only one image shown when i decompile one hat anim, but in game all the assets are correctly displayed. Which is strange.

But when you want to create a custom anim you need to do all the steps. Same, some anims are correctly decompiled and you can see the animate part when you open the .scml.

as I see you can open anim files? could you show me how are tools and hats animated? or how to decompile such? Id love to see how klei did their animations of some sorts (especially Wearables)

[Lumina]

57 minutes ago, DragonflyTheGiant said:

1 hour ago, Lumina said:

 

as I see you can open anim files? could you show me how are tools and hats animated? or how to decompile such? Id love to see how klei did their animations of some sorts (especially Wearables)

I'm sorry, maybe i wasn't clear. You could decompile anim/tex/build in a spriter file, but in the case of hat and tool, i tried to explain that the result is strange and doesn't show all the anims.

[Pyr0mrcow]

See, that's where it gets weird for me...the fact that the compilations/decompilations do actually vary. It isn't consistent. Actually, that's part of the problem with the mod, too. Sometimes, certain segments of the files simply won't display...dropped versions, mainly. But, with the hat, the dropped version of the hat is included with every other version of said hat when compiled. Yet, the dropped version refuses to display.
Some items include an anim with them which is required to decompile, others don't...
From what you've said, I feel like I'm right about creating new anims being more straightforward to me due to it being a relatively defined process, so I'm not really concerned about that. Moreso interested in pre-existing assets.
...specifically at the moment, default hats and tools, actually. Well, I'm glad we're not the only ones having trouble with that.

...though, might there be a way to bypass Spriter entirely? Would be particularly useful given the quality loss created by the whole automatic resizing thing.

Edited November 26, 2016 by Pyr0mrcow