So update 4.2.0 was originally intended to be released on 4/20 for obvious reasons, but due to extreme feature-creep and wanting to make “connectors” as fleshed out as possible right away, it took another…five months.
My bad.
Since you’ve waited long enough, here’s the changelog.
Changelog 4.2.3
- A couple miscellaneous crashes fixed
- Flipping (joined figures) is reverted to old method. To do the new join-anchor-axis-flip method, long-press the button
- Shape fidelity improved to export-quality only when on Creation Screen
- Fixed undo/redo of Sprite rotation (when joined)
- Fixed visual glitch with camera-locked figures (with joins)
- Fixed visual glitch with add-tweened-frame (with joins)
- Fixed visual glitch with scaling (with joins)
- Added the toggle for “Preserve visual angle” to the Connector pasting button
- When undo/redo-ing multiple flips and/or multiple pushing, it is reduced to just one event. This will likely eventually be applied to other similar repeated events in a future update
4.2.3 (October 11) – Is it out yet: ✅Google Play, ✅App Store, ✅Amazon
Changelog 4.2.2
A quick patch fixing reverse gradients.
- Fix reverse gradient bug that Gigan caused
4.2.2 (September 27) – Is it out yet: ✅Google Play, ✅App Store, ✅Amazon
Changelog 4.2.1
- Fix bug regarding flipping gradients on static segments
- Fix visual glitch with transparency background in Create Sprite menu
- Fix node-digging which did not keep Movieclip/Sprite nodes prioritized if already selected
- Misc additions to be revealed later 🙂
4.2.1 (September 26) – Is it out yet: ✅Google Play, ✅App Store, ✅Amazon
Changelog 4.2.0
- New segment: Connectors! These segments stay attached between two nodes
- Trapezoids can now be curved, have toggle-able rounded-ends, and have easier thickness control
- General Smart-Stretch improvements (combined with Connectors this allows for new possibilities for figure creation)
- New node options for “Angle Lock” and “Drag Lock”, which keep a node on a specific axis
- New node option for “Floaty” next to the “Stretchy” toggle – changes the way stretchy nodes tween
- Stickfigure rotation is displayed via a line on the main node, and can be set directly now via the menu
- Added some new options in “App Settings”, check the enable/disable list
- Added a “screen padding” value in “App Settings”, to adjust the UI so it is not hidden behind your phone notch
- Android: The “Keep App Alive” notification is now a toggleable option and needs to be turned on
- The UI generally has been refreshed with new icons, compacted, and slightly rearranged (calm down)
- Changes to how nodes are selected, by tapping consecutively in an area of a cluster of nodes each node will be selectable, and once selected, that node will stay selected upon the next time you touchdown on the screen to drag it
- Changes to the behavior of the UI/menu, it attempts to remember your position so as you select different figures and navigate around, the menu will seem to not “jump around” as much
4.2.0 (September 24) – Is it out yet: ✅Google Play, ✅App Store, ✅Amazon
Watch the launch trailer by @arcionek here, as it recaps a true real-life story of how this update came to be!
Connectors
Connectors at face-value are pretty self-explanatory. They are a special type of segment that will always keep its endpoints connected between two nodes. They also have a draggable midpoint node for your convenience. Other than that, they behave like any other segment – and can be any shape, size, or color. You can even have Connectors connected to other Connectors!
Trapezoid Updates
Trapezoids (for you non-freedom folk, these are known as trapeziums) are now the more powerful version of segments! With the ability to have rounded tips, curves, and easier thickness-control, this allows creators much more versatility when trying to create certain designs on their figures.
Angle Lock, Drag Lock, and Floaty Nodes
Some new node options are available that should help in specific use cases. Check in the menu for new Angle Lock and Drag Lock properties.
Angle lock, as the name suggests, keeps the node at a particular angle no matter how the parent node moves. It can be relative to the main node (absolute) or relative to the nearest non-static parent (this is useful in certain rigging circumstances when utilizing Smart-Stretch).
There’s also a new option for stretchy nodes, Is Floaty. This toggle changes the way that particular node tweens, as shown in the video below.
Rigging
Combining the power of Smart-Stretch and Connectors (and sometimes the new angle-lock options mentioned above) unlocks the possibility for some really crazy creations. Not limited to but including things such as inverse-kinematics, 3D parallel backgrounds, and bezier curves!
To be fair, there is a steep learning curve when attempting more advanced rigs like these, whereas assembling a simple “arm contraction = muscle pump” type of rig is more doable once you understand the basics of the new Smart-Stretch options.
A guide by our resident rigger arcionek will be available this weekend, showcasing some of the potential for rigging. Otherwise, a good way to learn is to just mess with everything yourself. There are new toggles under the “Smart-Stretch” menu, play around with them and get a feel for what they can do.
Oh, also, the app ships with a new default figure, _Stickfigure (IK), so you can mess with the inverse-kinematics version of the Default right away!
Node-Digging
Changes were made to the way nodes are selected. When in a cluster of nodes, it’s often difficult to get a certain node selected. Now, via repetitive tapping, all nodes in the area will cycle through being selected as the app “digs” through the cluster. (Prior to this, only the “top”-most two nodes would keep cycling between being selected.)
Once a node is selected, it will also stay selected on the next touch-down, so you can adjust and drag it easier.
The image to the right shows how the nodes in the cluster are all being selected one by one, simply by tapping in the area.
Screen Padding
Apparently iPhone users were having a bad time, due to the notch on the screen taking up a lot of space. There’s no way to “fix” this other than to simply push out the menu so it’s not blocked by the notch or the rounded corners. Find the setting for this in the “App Settings” window, among other new options added in this update.
The Most Sigma Beta-Testers
Shouts out to the beta testers in the super-secret, cool-kids-only Discord server. I’d name names but I won’t as to not forget anyone and also privacy. But they the real MVPs. Without their constant nagging and ruthless abuse of the new rigging system, this update would have been out five months ago and just had some new trapezoid features and that’s about it.
Mansion of Mayhem
The 10th anniversary celebratory collab, Mansion of Mayhem, is 99% finished, and is going to launch on September 28th with a premiere on Youtube. It’s gonna be pretty neat. You should make sure you’re there.
I’m not sure of this is an issue, or if anyone else has the same issue.
I tried to make a Connector IK System For a Serpent, But The Lag i received was Unbearable.
I’m not even joking, The Playback Lag was Worse than Playing Back Some of my Animations from blender of a Mesh with 150,000 vertices rigged to 100 bones.
Even Moving the Figure itself was almost unbearable.
Most of you would say that my device is a crappy potato, I’ll have you note that this device I’m using can Visually Handle, WAY WORSE! The highest my tablet has managed to successfully export was a project worth almost 2 Gigs of frames, each frame with 10-15 thousand nodes per frame.
But with the connectors I put on that serpent, my tablet almost Crashed from a project that had < 30 frames, and the figure itself was 1,100 nodes.
So when their’s the time, I think their needs to be a Massive Optimization Update for the Connectors.
The connectors are fairly optimised, although it’s strange you’re experiencing performance issues.
Does it happen when using connectors in general? What device are you using?
The device I’m using is an iPad Air, this device has tanked projects that are almost 2 gig large.
But for some reason connectors are just its bane.
But TBF I Use The Connectors VERY Aggressively. You average figure may have as many as 50 connectors at a push, but my most recent figures have Hundreds, Maybe over a Thousand Connectors, and I can tell it’s the connectors, because I have figures that have the same or even higher node counts, and even they don’t give me that much lag.
But I will say when I just do the simple task of applying Connector Kinematics to old figures it doesn’t lag.
Soon I’ll upload a figure that has a lot of connectors to the workshop and you can see what I’m talking about.
that large amount of connectors -could- in theory cause a ruckus depending on how you have them rigged
im curious to see an example myself as well
On my yt channel i posted a video showing how truely bad the lag was.
I was attempting to put Connector Kinematics On a Junwei figure, mostly wanted to test if they were viable to use for stuff like snakes and longnecks.
I had Even Worse Lag Than Other Connector Heavy Figures with 3x the number of nodes.
Here’s the link if you need it:
I’m really curious how it has been linked up, but yea… Agressive abuse of them could cause some performance issues, but it shouldn’t be THAT bad.
Connectors usually have to dynamically calculate the target position, required angle/length as well as position of the midpoint… However it generally doesn’t cause issues on my end. Although, if you have thousands of connectors on a single frame, I don’t think it’s much that can be further optimised lmao. Still weird that it lags when you drag the midpoint though. (I don’t work with the app’s code so don’t know how it does it exactly)
i managed to put 500 nodes in one stickfigure and it lagged like crazy
how?
connectors don’t care about node limit
I’d like to know, iscthere a feature planned where we can manually draw on frames, to do stuff like impact frames?
I have been having a glitch that after a certain amount of frames about 100-200 frames if I add a tweened frame it will crash
King Ralph PLEASE increase the width/height limit to 9999 or infinity I need my quality dragon ball sprites in 1 group 😭💔💔
“sigh” that would be like a gigabite per frame so no way he could do that. sorry your device wouldent handle it and neither would mine.
@ralph update sn
the tape on my mouth is gone
Hey, this is really just an update idea. What if we could have a sort of 3D smart stretch automatically built into stick nodes. You can select a node and enable an option called 3D stretch(node has to be strechable) and when you use the tweening option, it animates it in a sort of 3D style.
guys if a sound file is too large for sn then use some website or smth to lower the quality
it works for me
I just have one, slightly question, Ralph. How do I update my Sticknodes Pro app?