Alternate update titles range from The “Bent out of Shape” Update, The “Distorted” Update, and The “Twisted Pixel” Update. Anyway, guess what the major new feature for this update is?
Changelog 4.3.1 (May 27)
Not a terribly exciting minor update, mainly updating the LibGDX backend. But it does have a few fixes, mainly with flipping gradients certain shapes.
However, after 12 years of just one ad per session, the Free version now may show an additional ad here and there as you open/start new projects. There is a cooldown and it won’t spam you. Honestly you likely won’t experience it much, but it does help support Stick Nodes so that’s neat right? Right?
Fix issue with gradients when flipping triangles and certain trapezoid shapes
Added figure lock toggle to the Quick Tools
Updated LibGDX backend, not very exciting but could introduce unexpected UI issues, please report any you find
The Free version may show an ad when opening projects (after acceptable cooldown period)
4.3.1 (May 27) – Is it out yet: ✅ Google Play, ✅ App Store (May 30), ✅ Amazon
Sprite distortion/skew (toggle with button in Sprite menu or docked quick tools)
Added sideways gradient for triangles (yes, finally)
Added local project backup system, overridden saved projects are stored temporarily (see Open Project dialog)
Improved docked quick tools to have new buttons: separate “X/Y scale” for Sprites, an “edit” button for Movieclips, and a “toggle shape type” in Creation Mode
Improved undo/redo with some quirky behavior with certain actions/repeated actions
Now allows internal scaling when importing Sprites can now be negative (baked-in flipping, basically)
Updated the “Get Pro” message to entice more cash flow to my bank account (buy Stick Nodes Pro btw)
Other minor changes like adding Facebook to the splash screen and adding a “lock” icon to the lock buttons
4.3.0 (April 29) – Is it out yet: ✅ Google Play, ✅ App Store, ✅ Amazon (April 30)
So after centuries of asking, the ability to distort (aka skew, squash, and stretch) Sprites is now a thing. Switch between normal scale/rotation mode and distort mode to get different toggles on your Sprites and squish, warp, and generally mangle your images to your heart’s content. Feedback on this is welcome, and improvements will likely be coming soon (like the ability to easily perform a more standard parallelogram-like skew).
Also something that was requested for millennia, the ability to apply a sideways gradient on triangles. I know, I know – hold your applause. Hopefully this will assist in getting the perfect three-dimensional shading on all those spiked triangles along your OC’s head and arms. And hands. And body and legs and tail and – you get the idea.
Worth mentioning is the new local project backup system, which should just help be a bit of a safety net in case you ever encounter an issue with your saved projects. Instead of completely overwriting an existing project file when you press “save”, the app will now move that file to a backup folder and preserve it for a period in time in case you ever want to revisit an older version of your project (or, if something happens to the newest save). The backed-up projects will auto-delete after some time, but in the meantime will hopefully prevent a disaster or two if necessary.
And that’s that for now. Version 4.3.1 will be coming in May because I have to upgrade some of the backend stuff before the end of the month due to some new Google policies. Along with that update will likely be a few fixes and improvements as well. Also, as mentioned in the last update post, coming soon perhaps…a summer collab?
Not the most creative update name but you get the idea. Also there’s only one proper way to pronounce “GIF” – let me know in the comments. Also subscribe and smash that bell.
Anyway, new update time. Technically it’s a relatively minor one and still just part of the 4.2.X series, but I felt the need to move to a new post finally.
Changelog 4.2.7 (February 22)
New: Sprite mass image import / GIF import
New: “Copy” button for main node in Creation Mode (copies whole stickfigure)
Fix: Touches, when node-digging, encountering a locked node “stopped” it
Fix: Touches, if a textfield is selected and fat-finger it, it selects a nearby node
Fix: Panning mode + “Show background in front” made it disappear in Movieclip mode
Fix: “Precise” polyfill mode was not always defaulting to off
Fix: Drag lock causing undesired tween effect
Fix: Undoing delete of a bunch of joined figures sometimes changed its layering
Fix: Color picker in “Sprite Import” dialog window wasn’t able to sample the image
Fix: UI was not properly showing updated “Hollow” property for circles
4.2.7 (February 22) – Is it out yet: ✅Google Play, ✅App Store, ✅ Amazon
So, just a lot of fixes, but mass-importing images should help a lot of you heavy stand sprite users. And animated GIFs (imported as Movieclips) should open up the door for a lot of meme-able opportunities.
Another relatively minor update should be out shortly, as I have to update some internals of the app to comply with upcoming Android deadlines, and then onto work for something more interesting for 4.3.0.
Remember the splash art competition from like, forever ago? Yeah me neither. But there was one! And the winners WERE chosen! I just kinda sorta accidentally deleted them all. So I had to redraw the winners from memory but hey, it only took me six months…and they came out pretty good. Proud of self.
And also, Stick Nodes has officially turned ELEVEN years old – the first version of Stick Nodes released on Android on August 19th, 2014 (read about it here lol).
Stick Nodes is actually older than some Stick Nodes users which is…actually no that can’t be true. Can it?
Changelog 4.2.6 (November 6)
Oh you thought we were done? Nah not yet, this is another minor update to this 4.2.X branch. The main goal of this update was some boring behind-the-scenes stuff that was necessary. This includes upping the minimum-supported Android version to comply with new Google standards and replacing FFmpeg as the primary audio-encoder for Android exports as well.
Upped minimum-supported Android devices from Android 5 to Android 6 and replaced FFmpeg as the primary audio-encoder for Android
Bug fix: Non-circular figures were able to have “radial” gradient applied which didn’t do anything but broke their appearance when flipping
Bug fix: Setting “Background on top” when in Movieclip Mode made the background disappear
Bug fix: When previewing a stickfigure in the library, the actual stickfigure would scale itself down permanently if it was too large
Bug fix: Drawing new trapezoid in Creation Mode from a trapezoid with 0-thickness would give wacky results
Bug fix: The setting for “Show only main nodes” would get reset after playing the animation
Change: Polygons can now have “radial” gradient setting as well
4.2.6 (November 6) – Is it out yet: ✅Google Play, ✅App Store, ✅Amazon
While nothing should appear different on the surface, these changes are at the very core of the app, so some instabilities and issues were discovered and fixed during development. Everything should be good to go now (famous last words).
The removal of FFmpeg was due to it seemingly being no longer supported/developed for Android. It’s been replaced with native Android code to encode the audio for exported MP4s. (This took forever to get working.) Any change in the quality and sound of the audio should be unnoticeable, but exports may take a second-or-so longer per-sound when exporting. However as a nice side-effect, the download size of the app has been significantly reduced without the bloat of FFmpeg so that’s cool I suppose.
Upping the minimum-supported Android level will now exclude Android 5 devices from installing Stick Nodes anymore. Now, Android 5 came out in 2015 and according to Google only has about 2% market share worldwide so I doubt many of you are affected.
Also, between all these changes, a long-present issue where newer Amazon devices could not install Stick Nodes Pro has been resolved, so that’s neat.
Changelog 4.2.5 (August 23)
Fixes iOS keyboard backspace issue, and other minor corrections
4.2.5 (August 23) – Is it out yet: ✅Google Play, ✅App Store, ✅Amazon
Changelog 4.2.4 (August 20)
New splash screen characters, thank you to all who made art for the event!
New mode for the Quick Tools, “Docked”, which allows for quicker and more useful access to a lot of commonly-used tools – turn on/off in “View Options”
New “Tween Mode” setting added to figures to change the type of tweening (linear or easing) on a particular frame
Added option for haptic feedback (vibration) in “App Settings”, if your devices has that functionality
When creating a Polyfill, it is now much easier to select nodes and also move around the existing Polynodes (use the new “Precise” toggle)
Added different gridline patterns to the Camera
The “Save Reminder” windows now shows you how long since your last save
New toggle in “View Options” to “Show all nodes of active figure” which may be useful when “Only main nodes” is turned on
Circle gradients can now go horizontal/vertical and also half-circle shapes can be reversed
Added a lot of new sounds (Pro only) – search for “424” in the “Import Sound” window
Moved around some buttons and new icons, and some other bug fixes and tweaks
4.2.4 (August 20) – Is it out yet: ✅Google Play, ✅App Store, ❌Amazon
– – –
New Splash Art
Not gonna spoil the winners here, but the roster has been finally updated!
Many hundreds entered, and it was a tough back-and-forth approval process selecting the best of the best. Thank you to everyone who entered, and don’t be discouraged if your character didn’t make the cut, it was a hard-fought contest.
Docked Quick Tools
Replacing the old “Quick Resize Tools” is the upgraded docked version. In this context, “docked” meaning the menu is no longer just a floating mess of buttons at the center of the stage, but rather columns of commonly-used tools aligned along side the edges of the screen.
The point of updating these tools was two-fold, one to make them much more robust and responsive and two to get them out of the way of the your view of what was being worked on.
You can stick with the legacy version if you wish, it’s available for toggle in “View Options”, but getting used to the new docked version will vastly improve your work flow imo, what with the quick and intuitive UX options such as dragging/incrementing, double-tapping to reset, quick-rounding via tapping, etc. Play with the buttons and see what they all do.
Tween Modes
This is a somewhat minor change, but could have very useful…uses. On a per-object basis, you can change how that figure tweens in that particular frame to the next one. No longer just always a linear tween, you can do ease-in or ease-out (or both).
This will likely be more useful in frames that are held for a longer period of time, via either a delay or “slow motion” (aka more time for the tween to actually tween) – like when panning a scene or something. Eventually I’ll likely add some interpolation customization option via a curve graph but right now this is all you get.
Polyfill Precision
Something that may fly under the radar for some but I find incredibly useful is the massive update to the polyfill creation menu. Now it is exceptionally easier to create/edit existing polyfills by using “Precise” mode to select nodes more, well, precisely, before setting them to be a polynode.
Similarly, it’s possible now to select polynodes and see/adjust their ordering in the polyfill (polyfills should always have their nodes added in clockwise-order, else you may get visual glitches).
Many Other Things
Aside from the above major changes are even more changes such as different camera gridlines, linear-gradient circles and upside-down half-circles, and haptic feedback toggles (vibration).
I’m tired of making images and GIFs but there’s also:
Show/don’t show nodes when tracing toggle
Easier to quickly change or “scrub” the traced frame
New UI icons and subtle changes (sorry you’ll get used to them)
Changed the way the connector lines indicate which direction they are going
Added Mansion of Mayhem badges/winners to the splash screen
Many bug/crash fixes
And that’s that.
Sorry this update took so long. Not gonna lie, lots of unexpected irl events took up my time these past few months. It’s also why there was no summer collab this year, but there will be something later in the year likely to peak/release around Christmas time if the collab team can synchronize for that.
Oh also there’s a Discord where people talk about stuff and things.
So after centuries of asking, the ability to distort (aka skew, squash, and stretch) Sprites is now a thing. Switch between normal scale/rotation mode and distort mode to get different toggles on your Sprites and squish, warp, and generally mangle your images to your heart’s content. Feedback on this is welcome, and improvements will likely be coming soon (like the ability to easily perform a more standard parallelogram-like skew).
Also something that was requested for millennia, the ability to apply a sideways gradient on triangles. I know, I know – hold your applause. Hopefully this will assist in getting the perfect three-dimensional shading on all those spiked triangles along your OC’s head and arms. And hands. And body and legs and tail and – you get the idea.
