This is in response to my other thread where i asked do Indie Game Developers needed better tools?

Now i would like to know specifically: which tools do you need? Which tools are supposed to do what you need but don't do it right?

I'm asking because there are so many tools out there ... asset pipelines, terrain editors, complete engines or engine components, converters, asset managers, and so on and so forth. Yet a lot of developers still spend time developing their own tools, or simply work with barebone tools, if any. So what tools would you use for your project(s) - if they existed? I'm kind of hoping that from demand (by simply expressing the need) comes execution.

The answer is - it depends, mainly on the type of game. 2D games needs different tools than 3D games. RPGs need different tools than a platformer. Etc.

Of course but i like to hear more specific answers. ;)

I could use an animation exporter for Cinema4D, or an animation editor which takes in textured FBX-files and allows me to edit animations only :3
Is this a sort of answer you're searching for?

In fact, this is why I didn't start developing my game since over a year :O because I'm in the middle of coding an animation editor. This makes me sad right now..

Yes, exactly something like that. So if i understand correctly you want to animate characters by hand? What's the reason to not doing this in the modelling program directly? What exactly do you need to edit that isn't supported by C4D or other 3D modelling tools?

I think the most tools available are good enough to set up your basic needs.

You can create 2D graphics and animations with a ton of available programs (PaintShop, Photoshop, Illustrator etc..)
For 3D modeling you have the 3D packages (3DS Max, Milkshape, Cinema etc..)
The available Game engines are also growing with each day, for 2D and 3D (http://www.ziggyware.com/viewTag.php?tag=30)

If you want to have specific tools, only a tool which is specifically created for your project will mostly suffice, otherwise if the tool is generic, they will have limits and doesn't fit your needs.

So I don't think I really need a tool ;-) or at least no tools which is not specifically created for a specific project..
And when I am in need of a tool for my project, I will create one which will get the job done..

steffenj:

Yes, exactly something like that. So if i understand correctly you want to animate characters by hand? What's the reason to not doing this in the modelling program directly? What exactly do you need to edit that isn't supported by C4D or other 3D modelling tools?

Basically I only need an FBX exporter in C4D which also exports animation sets, and an FBX importer for XNA.
I would love to create animations in C4D because I'm really used to it, but there is simply no way to export animations for XNA. The handling of my editor is also like in C4D in terms of camera movement.

Some might think this is a little crazy (and it probably is), but I think a really useful might be a toolkit or framework for making tools. 

The idea came to me when I was working on a menu editor, and I was pulling out pieces from my map editor and model viewer.  You could probably develop a bunch of reusable components that facilitate things like Undo/Redo, setting up a control and GraphicsDevice for rendering, handling dynamic loading of content, dragging things around, etc.  I never thought about it enough to lay out details, but I feel like it's something that's doable.  I think in a lot of cases it would be more useful than trying to take some map editor and hack it up to fit your project's needs (or starting one from scratch).

I'd like an animation editor where I can put together a collection of png files, varry the speed of the animation, view the animation and export a list of those files and the speed as either text or XML. That's not very complex and maybe there is something like that, I haven't looked too much into it. But I might write one myself (expecially usefull because I'm collaborating with an artist on one of my next two games and he doesn't have any programming experience yet I want him to be able to update animations without always having to go through me).

I've got James's XNA book and he's got an example of something pretty close to that in there already, so I'll probably start there if I do.

MJP:

a toolkit or framework for making tools

I think that already exists. It's called "WinForms" :-)

I'd like a tool that diagnoses and removes any bug in any third-party code I'm using -- XNA framework, 3ds Max, exporters, importers, etc. I'm capable of fixing my own bugs, but when there are bugs on the outside getting in my way, that's a lot harder.

If you can't do that, then at least a completely bug free 3ds Max exporter and XNA importer would be great! Right now, kW X-port is the least buggy I've found, but there is a bug in XNA where animations shorter than 1 second are padded to 1 second, and I have this one skinned mesh where parts of the shoes get split off for no reason I can understand. FBX or COLLADA do much worse on that same mesh, so kW is still ahead, but a robust, bug free path would be even better!

It is super hard to get 3D models into XNA!!! some help there would be most appreciated.

***Edit: 3D models created in free or opensource modelling tools. In doing tutorials I have used models that import correctly into XNA without any extra effort, all textures included and mapped and all animations working as advertised.  However in my futile attempts at modelling it requires some real extra effort to get models to display correctly in XNA.  I would think there is NO other issue facing more indie developers.  With low/no budgets high end modelling tools are definitely out of the question.  Without art assets i'd say most rookie developers are going to be dissapointed with their results and find other platforms/frameworks.

jwatte:

I'd like a tool that diagnoses and removes any bug in any third-party code I'm using

I think that already exists. It's called "Source Code" ;-)

I'm saying that because without the sources it's wishful thinking to be able to diagnose or even repair bugs in 3rd party apps. The best you can do is write workarounds unless you want to indulge in tedious and dangerous disassembling or hex editing. And any workaround will likely get in your way once you update the 3rd party API. More often than not you leave the workaround in because you either forgot, or you think the bug is still there but has been fixed. Worse yet, it's not seldom the case that a programmer thinks the bug is in the 3rd party app when in truth it isn't. I fell into that trap before and i'm sure any other programmer has at least once, too. In my book you're not an adult programmer yet unless you've set yourself up for failure even though you had the best intents. ;)

About the toolkit: it's certainly possible with plugins to make tools more modular and i've actually worked with such a tool (a terrain editor with game entity management and a cutscene tool, among others). But it was far from being "generic" and very much tied in with the game we were making. The plugins were merely a convenience because not everyone working with the tool needed every feature (for example the cutscene editor), so things could be slimmed down, or malfunctioning plugins would simply get unloaded instead of crashing the whole application and it helped structure the source code more cleanly. In reality none of this really mattered though. And it's a whole lot more complicated to make this work in the first place and the colleague who came up with that technology had worked for us as an intern on the previous tool, so he knew how the tool worked and what was needed, then he came back to write his study thesis on the topic of a plugin-based game editor so basically we got it for free even though it took a very long time to get it started. (unreasonably long sentence ends here, now following up with conclusion) It sounds great on paper and it worked well from a technical perspective but the benefits internally for designers were almost negligible.

DigitalDaimyo:

It is super hard to get 3D models into XNA!!! some help there would be most appreciated.

I would have to agree with DigitalDaimyo. Difficult one to create a tool for though as there are sooo many free modelling programs and all seem to export .fbx or .x that little bit differently. I recently went down the Blender/Python > .fbx > XNAnimation/XNA path and man did I have some headaches and I still experience odd behaviour for no apparent reason every now and again, silly bone hierarchy and bone weight data ! - But I tell you what... the day it worked for the first time I honestly felt like I had found a cure for Cancer ! Definately wish it were easier - But then again once you have it going - no need to worry about it again, right?!