The #Halloween2020 Stickfigure Contest

October 26: And that’s a wrap, entries are closed. If you submitted sometime today (October 26) or earlier you’re good, and your submission will be up within a day or two. Winners will hopefully be posted some time on Friday, or maybe Saturday (Halloween).


Yes we’re doing it again!

I would’ve liked to try something new, maybe animation-based, but for sake of simplicity and lack of proper planning on my end we’re gonna keep it simple.

Summary: Make relevant spooky stickfigures, submit with #Halloween2020 hashtag, admins choose best per category, win cash money.

Rules and stuff

  • Enter by submitting a stickfigure/pack with #Halloween2020 hashtag in the description. Do not forget this exact hashtag or your entry will not be counted.
  • Submissions must be something brand new, not already submitted or edited.
  • Submissions must be Halloween themed, obviously. Scary, spooky, unsettling, etc.
  • Each user is allowed a max of three entries, regardless of category. But you may only win once.
  • Winners are chosen mainly on visuals and how well-made the stickfigure is. Things like “lore” and such are not main judging points.
  • Due date: Submit by October 25th to allow for time to be approved and uploaded to the website before Halloween.

Categories

To prevent certain niches from overshadowing other submissions, the submissions/winners will be grouped into three categories, each with slightly different rules.

1) Character (Person / Monster / Beast)

Judging is based strictly on visuals and ease of use.

Using a base is allowed, but edits have to be extremely significant where the original base (even if it’s your own base) is almost unidentifiable. As a result of this, some bases are likely to be impossible to use (Project Landfall, for example). In fact, bases are discouraged and only the most basic of bases should be considered. The point of this stipulation is so everyone is starting on a level playing field.

Change 10/2: Edits (significant edits) to your own base/OC are allowed. Only if you are the originator of the base/OC. In this instance, the base will be obvious, but as long as it’s your own it’s allowed.

Must be an OC, cannot be a character that already exists in media (Michael Myers, Slendertubbies, etc). It can be generic ideas, however, such as a ghost or a vampire.

Change 10/4: Okay, after some thought, here is a better limitation. Characters like Slenderman or Michael Myers (scary characters in horror-based media) are allowed. What is *not* allowed are characters that are not directly related to Halloween or the horror genre (a titan from AoT), unless it’s an OC (if you make a brand new really scary-looking titan from the AoT universe). The rule for bases still applies – if you use a base it should be as barebones and simple as possible if it’s not your own. And even then there should be significant edits.

Examples not allowed: “Goku but he’s a werewolf”, a Xenomorph, a basic FNAF character, a bloody Godzilla
Examples allowed: Jason Voorhees, Dracula, a zombie, a creepy half-mech half-unicorn killer dude OC, a FNAF/Minecraft mob OC that you come up with from scratch (no base)

2) Background (A full scene, not just objects or props)

Judging based on visuals and how versatile and well-made the background is.

For example, long/horizontal backgrounds allow for users to have a much bigger play area for animation. Also, layers – having a background made up from two or three separate pieces allows for users to place their characters and objects “inside” the scene rather than just “on top” of it. This may not be applicable to every background, but any way you can make your submission better, the better your chances of winning.

Unlike the character category, this can be based on pre-existing locations or scenes (the FNAF rooms, for example) but of course, OC submissions will likely take an edge.

3) Other (Props, effects, objects)

Likely will be “everything else” that doesn’t fit into one of the above categories.

Again, OC submissions are preferred, but because of the vague nature of this category it will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Change 10/11: Memes/recreations of memes are allowed, as long as they are related to Halloween.

Examples not allowed: Very generic and low-effort recreations of typical objects – like a simple pumpkin or a standard bloody knife
Examples allowed: Detailed pumpkins/Jack-O-Lanterns, well-made blood effects, candy packs (trick or treating), realistic spider and webs, etc


Users need not specify the category. You only need to submit your stickfigure/pack and include the #Halloween2020 hashtag. That’s all. I will quickly categorize each submission as it comes in (it shouldn’t be difficult to discern a category).


Winning and Prizes

Winners will be chosen by the Three Admins who will deliberate for hours on who deserves to win. I’ve asked them both and they’re cool with it.

The winners should be announced on or around the day of Halloween, there will be a new post made on the homepage here.

Each category will have three winners.

1st Prize $50 and a shiny website badge
2nd Prize $25
3rd Prize $10

Cash will be provided through gift cards of your choice. As I am in the United States, it’s sometimes difficult for me to acquire an international gift card/code depending on the platform (Google Play, for example) – but we can try to work something out. Possibilities include places like Google Play/App Store, Amazon, Steam, or even just Paypal if all else fails.

Alright. I think I covered everything. Now I just pray you people actually read but, let’s all be honest…

New Version (3.1.9 – 3.1.13) – The Caching Update

Edit September 28 – Version 3.1.13 was released for Android over the weekend. I didn’t really announce it as it wasn’t too major, below is the changelog for it.

Changelog 3.1.13

  • (Android) Updated FFMpeg library to fix certain Samsung (and other devices) failure to export videos near 100%.
  • (Android) Fixed a very rare and odd glitch where some devices (for me, an old Kindle) would have stickfigures with filters disappear or look wrong during export.

Planned for this week is to release 3.1.14 to both IOS and Android.

On Android, this will change nothing except the build target of Android when compiling (Google is soon enacting a policy where app updates need to be built with Android API level 28 (and next year, level 29 which will change the way SN can store files unfortunately, we’ll deal with that in 2021)). While I do not believe this will break anything, I want to change nothing but this and release an update, to limit the number of possibilities if things go wrong.

On IOS, I will be updating the RoboVM framework used to compile for IOS, which supposedly fixes a rare app-freezing glitch.

Both will not be noticeable changes, but are necessary. Once 3.1.14 is released, that should be it until 3.2.0, where more exciting things are planned.


Edit September 18 – Version 3.1.12 is out for IOS users! Yes, IOS users get an update first! I mean, it’s because they’re the only platform with the bug but that’s besides the point.

Changelog 3.1.12

  • (IOS) Fixes frame thumbnail scrollbar issue.

To keep versions the same, Android will be receiving an update soon.


Edit September 7 – Another quick patch! Look, just…programming is hard.

Changelog 3.1.11

  • (Android) Fixes faster playback affecting some users.
  • (September 12) This update is now released for IOS users!

Edit September 6 – A quick patch was just uploaded for Android users (still 3.1.9). (May take a few minutes to appear.)

Changelog 3.1.10

  • (Android) Fixes the blank Open/Import windows that was affecting Android 10+ users.

It was a storage permission issue with new Android versions, I’ve reverted the build targets so essentially the app should no longer NEED to abide by the new storage restrictions.

What?

That means, if you were affected by this issue, if you update the app it should be fixed. If it’s not, try a combination of uninstalling Stick Nodes (Free/Pro), restarting your device, and reinstalling the app. This may be necessary to get the system to recognize the new permissions.


Time for new updates again! Fun fact, this update was supposed to come out relatively quickly after the last release of 3.1.8 (mainly to fix the wonky text issues on some buttons).

I ended up having a good idea (I hate that) and, well, over a month later – here we are.

Changelog 3.1.9

  • Lag improvements, especially during playback with tweening. Improved some math calculations.
  • Added an option to cache single-frame Movieclips as an image. This will make rendering these Movieclips very quick and reduce lag. It is best to use this for backgrounds or high-node objects, placed inside of a Movieclip.
  • Added an option to have the “Trace Frame” background in Movieclip Editing mode increment as you add frames to your Movieclip, allowing you to easily animate something while using your project frames as a reference.
  • Added visual indicators to the timeline to show where the currently-selected frame is (to the left or to the right). Related, when deleting a frame, the timeline no longer snaps to that frame. These two changes should make visually manipulating frames in the timeline easier.
  • Can now paste text copied from outside the app into textfields (using the “Paste” button, under the textarea in the menu).
  • Max camera wobble increased (shouts out to vamrack).
  • Fixed visual text layout issues.

And guess what, this new version comes with a brand new Ain’t Don’t Nobody Read™ video update by yours truly. ASMR edition!

This video covers Movieclips in general, as they are very powerful objects that help with memory usage and, as of this update, lag – when used properly. So check that out. Smash like. Subscribe. Buy Stick Nodes Pro.

What is caching?

The video covers this, but here’s a quick tl;dw summary.

This update has a new checkbox for non-animated Movieclips, “Cache”. Checking this box will essentially turn the movieclip into an image. It will lose quality, look blurry, and basically no longer be vector-based art (sharp, crisp) but rather a rasterized bitmap.

Well cool, but…what does this mean?

It means it will render quicker. A lot quicker.

As the video shows, caching a very complex background (5,000+ nodes) increased playback speed 300% and completely eliminated lag.

Here’s what you need to do to take full advantage of Movieclips:

  • 1) Place any high-node object into a Movieclip. This includes backgrounds, weapons, cars, etc…
  • 2) Add this Movieclip to your project’s frames as a single-frame (non-animated) Movieclip object. (This alone reduces memory consumption throughout your project.)
  • 3) Check the “Cache” checkbox on these Movieclips – this will make them render much, much faster.
  • (Note: Movieclips will not export at this lower quality, it is just a temporary visual side effect that will only be seen in-app.)

And there you have it. Hopefully the final update in this 3.1.0 – 3.1.9 saga…mainly because I’m out of subversion numbers until we break into 3.2.0…which I have saved for, something special – just wait.

Stick Nodes Is Six Years Old!

Talk about time flying. The date was August 19th, 2014 – Stick Nodes was taken out of it’s month-long BETA period and thrown live onto Google Play and other Android markets. You can see the release post here on my very old and slightly broken development blog.

As you may be able to tell from the vibe of that linked post above, I had no intention of Stick Nodes becoming anything other than another creation to throw on my portfolio and was looking to move on pretty quickly. In fact, there was no intention for an IOS version (and honestly, no intention for MP4 export either let alone any other advanced features lol).

As a gag let me go through a comparison of some of the stats I had posted “one month later” after release, and compare to today.

 

Statistic 2014 2020
Free Installations (Google Play) 2,500 5,983,729
Pro Installations (Google Play) 27 33,994
Free Installations (App Store) 7,400 1,900,000
Pro Installations (App Store) 210 59,400
Stickfigures to Download 0 35,000+
Website Users 0 19,170
Avg Website Sessions Per Day 3,650 31,700

It’s funny how Apple has a much better Free-to-Pro conversion factor even though the “Free” downloads are much smaller than that of Android. I wonder why that would be. Yeah, this is big brain time.

Also here are some other random stats.

Statistic 2020
Best countries (Android) Brazil, United States, Philippines
Best countries (IOS) United States, United Kingdom, Philippines
Setting: Left Hand Mode Enabled 0.005%
Setting: Axis-Lock Enabled 2.82%
Setting: Dark Skin/Custom Skin 3.30%
Setting: Stylus Precision 1.28%
Setting: Show Quick Menu 31.15%
Setting: Show Zoom Buttons 1.42%
Splash Screen: Rick Rolls 78,528
Splash Screen: Most Clicked King Demon, Sean, Son Goku Anims
Splash Screen: Highest Ball Score 66 (Android), 53 (IOS)

So happy birthday to Stick Nodes! And not to get out of character too much here, but thanks @ all you guys that stick around and make the community an actual fun place to be.

That’s another thing that I never foresaw, an actual “community” for Stick Nodes – and a thriving one at that. Somehow it has grown across multiple social media networks and has built hundreds if not thousands of Youtube channels. That’s pretty cool and I can only hope it continues. Right now it looks very good, as June, July, and August – actually almost every month of the recent year – has been one-upping the previous in terms of growth for Stick Nodes. App downloads, website visits, new users, etc are all up and growing at record-breaking numbers every month and as long as y’all stick around, I’ll keep updating Stick Nodes.