The Theory of Game Tools
The purpose of most game tools is to streamline process of content creation. They should enable the artists to easily get assets straight into the game, thereby reducing the work load of the programmer. That’s the theory anyway. Right back when we were building Balls Unleashed and Throng, I started making the Character Editor 2D with this theory in mind. The idea was to have an animation tool that could handle a hierarchy of Quads that could move independantly (eg head and arms attached to a body) and do sprite sheet style animation on each Quad at the same time. …
