Exporting gradient information for color cycling

Questions & Problems
#1

Hi,

I anticipate this will probably be one for the devs.

I’m working on a small interactive art project which incorporates color cycling; I’m creating the artwork in Pro Motion, doing some processing in Python, and then the interactive part is implemented in Game Maker Studio. For this it would be really useful if I could export the gradient data into a format that can be read by other software, or somehow extract it from the PMP file.

By gradient data, I mean all the data which can be accessed through the gradient manager, e.g. the color indices assigned to each gradient, color cycling enabled, color cycling speed, color cycling direction etc. If I can export this information, I will be able to encode it into the data I import into GMS, saving myself the trouble of re-creating the color cycling info manually.

As far as I can tell, currently no option exists to export gradient data. I can read the .PMP file into Python as a byte stream but obviously it’s difficult to extract information from without knowledge of the file structure.

My request would be:

  • Would it be possible to include a feature to export gradient data in future?
  • If not, would it be possible to provide me with info on how to extract this info from the .PMP file? (I totally understand if the devs do not want to divulge info about the .PMP file structure).

Thanks!

#2

Hi, you can try using the LBM file format. Those contain the gradient and cycling information.
But I think you have to tick the ‘Inculde effects’ option when exporting.
A dev friend got to import images and their color cycling animation in Unity, just from LBM files.
Also, the file structure should be easier to find than the PMP’s.
Good luck

#3

It’s just a zipped file with various text and binary files inside. You should be able to find the info you’re looking for in one of those files.

The ideal solution for your workflow would be to create a manipulation plugin (via DDE), which would grant you access to the project’s data directly from PMNG — but unfortunately it doesn’t seem there are any interfaces to the gradients right now:

https://cosmigo.github.io/pmotion-assets/DDE-Plugin.html

Maybe if the DDE interface could expose gradient info in the future it would nice.