The last couple of weeks I have been working hard to improve the SP-Studio front page. Though I liked the plain look of it I noticed most visitors don’t use the menu to access the other parts of this website. They did not even read the news. That’s why I installed a new blog software (WordPress) and included the News in the front page. You can easily access them now by just scrolling down. The sidebar shows information about the SP-Studio community like current contests. And you can see random pictures from fans displayed there as well. Your feedback is what keeps me coming back for more updates, so I hope the new look will not only help you to stay up to date, but also encourages you to write more comments :).

But the News aren’t the only part of the website that has changed. Please have a look at this: THE NEW HELP / F.A.Q. PAGE

It is not only more comfortable to read now, but I also included more answers to your questions. For example there are tutorials about how you can combine two characters in one picture, improve the quality of the image files or use your own background. Please tell me if something is missing.

I guess that’s all for now. There are still some errors I have to fix and I need to transfer the comments for old blog entries, but I am glad it looks good so far and the new blog is working. Remember to update your RSS Feed because the URL has changed.

In a month like this it’s the perfect time for a look behind the scenes. And that’s what this text is about – I hope some of you find it interesting and the others are not too bored because of it ;). I will answer question about how the SP-Studio is made. But let’s first have a look at what this website looked like 10 years ago. Do you remember this? It was before the age of YouTube, Facebook and World of Warcraft… a really long time ago. Click on the image on the right to play with the first SP-Studio:

When I started to work on it I was still at school and had no experience with coding. I used Macromedia Flash to draw small animations for my South Park fanpage, but creating an interactive tool was something new for me. So I did it as simple as possible. I created a layer for every category (like in Photoshop or Gimp). When you click on a button the item was loaded into this layer. So it was not complicated in the beginning, I just had to learn a few things about Actionscript (that’s how you code in Flash). Here is a screenshot of what working on the SP-Studio looked like back then. You can see the timeline on top of the actual working area. This timeline contains the layers and every layer contains frames. When you jump from one category to anther a different frame shows up. I still use the same software, Flash. But the SP-Studio has become WAY more complex over the years.

The most important things about a character creator like the SP-Studio is the fact, that the items have to appear in the right order. In the SP-Studio every category of items has its own level (levels work like layers). The number of the level tells Flash if it is shown on top or under another item. Items within the same level replace each other. That is why it is more work to include objects for the “stuff” category – usually every “stuff” item needs its own level, because you should be able to include more than one of them. To keep track of which numbers I have already used and which item appears in front of the others I use a very long list ;).

Another important thing is that you take care of the position of the items. If a hat is only 1 pixel aside from where it should be it might not fit some of the hair-styles. A question I read a lot is: Do you draw everything yourself? Yes, I draw everything in Flash, using only my mouse. I added a picture I created some time ago about how I draw a hair-style. Nothing special, but you can see my favorites drawing tools. It is basicaly the same like drawing in Paint or Photoshop, but Flash is a software for vector graphics. Vector Graphics look cleaner than pixel graphics and by using them I can keep the loading time short for my visitors. It is a comfortable way to work because I can do everything with this single software: I draw, create buttons, code and publish in Flash. Some of my visitors asked me to do a HTML5 version of the SP-Studio, but even if I knew how to do this it would be way too much work. Right now I have no plans to give up on Flash.
This was my little insight look. See you in a couple of days with the big anniversary update!

I created a Google+ page for the SP-Studio. Click on the Logo if you want to take a look:

You can support SP-Studio.de by sharing the link. And of course you will be informed about every new update there. I created albums with the best pictures from the community contests and with examples for every update I’ll make.
Google+ is rather new, so those of you who prefer Facebook can follow the SP-Studio there by clicking the Like button on the front page. 50.000 fans like the SP-Studio so far at Facebook, which is a great success, considering I never begged for it ;). Thanks a lot for your support!
If you don’t like Facebook and Google+ you can still follow SP_Studio at Twitter or subscribe to the RSS News Feed. So there are plenty of possibilities to stay up up date, give me feedback and support this project by sharing the news and pictures with your friends. But with all this new social media stuff I stopped sending E-Mail newsletters. Sorry, it was just too much work and not many people used them anymore. So please decide for another way if you want to be informed about my updates.

After 3 days of being busy I am finished with all the updates I wanted to include.
The SP-Studio community is back! No beta anymore :). Those are the main changes:

• Sub-menu! Direct access to new comments / pictures, top rated wishes, your favs and the search.
• Private Messages! Now members can write PMs. Just click on the “PN” button next to a nickname.
• Who is online? On bottom of the main page there are statistics now. You can see who is online.
• Favorites! This feature is now easier to use. Use the star button on top of a picture to “fav” it.
• Report files! Use the “report” button next to a picture if something is wrong with it.
• File replacement! Now we can replace pictures with updatet versions, comments & ratings stay.
• Social Sharing! Pictures can be easily shared at Facebook and Twitter now.
• BB-Code Buttons! They help you to add URLs, bold text or other things to your comments.
• And more… The albums are sorted in a different way now, so the user galleries are on top. I cleaned up the wish voting area, deleted eome declined and not so intersting wishes. There are several small changes made to the design. When you click on an image now the name of the upload is shown too. You can look for uploads from certain dates now. I made new pictures for the wish voting area and wrote a help text about how the SP-Studio community works.

I made some minor changes to the main menu of this website too, because some people didn’t know what “home” and “F.A.Q.” mean.
Please refresh the main page of the Community! Otherwise it might not load correctly.