The new SP-Studio

The SP-Studio stopped running in January 2021 because Flash was not supported anymore, but because of your generous donations and the help of a very talented and friendly developer it was possible to save my beloved website. You can now see a complete rework which will not rely on Flash anymore. This took a lot of time and I needed help with the coding, but it worked out in the end! Lars Gerrit Kliesing / LGK (lgk.io/site/home) is responsible for the programming in the coding language React, and he does an amazing job. On this page I collect all important things about the new SP-Studio in one place. And as always I am happy about your feedback! 🙂

Features

The new SP-Studio

  • It works everywhere! The new SP-Studio will run in every browser – even on mobile devices. The new mobile design is optimized in such a way that it feels like using an app. And you can also save it as a Progressive Web App to your home screen to make it work offline. No app store is needed for this.
  • Improved UI! The look of the new SP-Studio will depend on the size of your screen. The new user interface is optimized for touch control on smartphones and tablets, but you can still use the mouse on your computer and have a great experience. On phones and tablets a vertical layout will be the standard, but on big screens it will still be a horizontal layout and you will see more items / options at the same time to access them faster without scrolling. There are no screenshots of the desktop version on this page yet.
  • The old items will reapear – with improvements! I make sure the items you love from the old SP-Studio show up in the new one as well. 1500 items for launch day! The rest (mainly objects) will follow shortly after in January. I looked through all of them and made improvements on my old drawings to make them look better in HD resolution. And there will even be several complete redrawings and even new items on launch day!
  • More item categories! The category system was improved to make it more intuitive and in order. Some new sub-categories have been added to split up bigger categories from the past (like backgrounds).
  • More freedom with colors! You can select up to two custom colors now for every item and WAY more items will offer custom colors! The new color palette also marks the current color and will offer some new colors. Recommended skin colors will be on top of it. It will remember the last hair or skin color you picked.
  • Easier access to item options! There is a list now for all the items currently used in your picture. You can access the item options by using this list… or by just clicking on the item in your picture… or by clicking on it in the item categories after including it. Choose the method which feels most comfortable for you. Thumbnails of items which are already part of your picture will be marked with a little symbol. Oh, and if you hover over an item in your picture it will change its color so you know where you are clicking.
  • The new LOCK function! While usually items in one category automatically replace each other a locked item is not replaced anymore. If you select something else from the same category it will be placed in addition to the first item. This means now you can combine anything in any way you want: You can wear any shirt on any other shirt, combine different necklaces or have more than one character in one picture.
  • All the old item options will work on launch day! I wasn’t sure if it would be possible to include all old item options in time, but Lars really did it! This includes moving, rotating, flipping, deleting and recoloring of items.
  • Now you can move an item with buttons! Drag and drop is no good way to move an item on a touch screen, so we changed this to four buttons with arrows.
  • Names for all items! Now every item has a name assigned to it which will show up in the item options. It might help you if you have bad eye sight or wonder about the origins of a costume. Screen readers can also read them out loud.
  • Multi language support! It’s possible now to have different languages. For launch the new SP-Studio will be available with English and German text.
  • Save PNG files with transparency: You will be able to save your pictures as png files (800x800px). NEW: Transparency will be possible! So you can export your character without a background to easily paste it onto your own background image.
  • Continue editing your picture later! Next to the save button you will find a button to export the URL. This works like a safe file and lets you return to the current state of your SP-Studio picture later. You can also send the URLs to another computer to continue editing your picture there. If you allow cookies the SP-Studio even saves the current state of your picture automatically, so nothing is lost when your computer crashes or you accidently close the browser window.
  • Website improvements! The whole website will get a make-over to make it fit the new design. A better “F.A.Q.” (help) page, improved “About” Page… and I want to keep the old SP-Studio archived as long as Flash will run.
  • Less bugs! Several bugs known from the old SP-Studio are fixed now. A closed beta test will start around December 1st to eliminate possible new bugs.

Thanks a lot to everybody who supports the SP-Studio! You helped this project to survive. And of course I want to thank Lars for his wonderful work on the coding, and Kai for his initial help. Since I am no actual programmer I could not have done this on my own.