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Hey guys, could u help me?
I read the I_Box2D.java

if (!(slot.getAttachment() instanceof Box2dAttachment)) continue; <

---

 this line
   Box2dAttachment attachment = (Box2dAttachment)slot.getAttachment();
   PolygonShape boxPoly = new PolygonShape();
   boxPoly.setAsBox(attachment.getWidth() / 2 * attachment.getScaleX(),
   attachment.getHeight() / 2 * attachment.getScaleY(), vector.set(attachment.getX(), attachment.getY()),
   attachment.getRotation() * MathUtils.degRad);

I was trying to find Box2DAttachment in spine library in cocos2d-x and didn't find any clue.
Is there a way where I could get its length and width?

attachment.getWidth()
attachment.getHeight()
attachment.getRotation()

Really? nobody can help me for this?
Fine.
This is my limit.
I'd purchase R.U.B.E.
This forum sucks.

gOzaru a écrit

Really? nobody can help me for this?
Fine.
This is my limit.
I'd purchase R.U.B.E.
This forum sucks.

Thanks.

Mitch a écrit

Thanks.

This is the first time I saw user like u.
I intended to buy Spine pro after I know how to implement Box2D in cocos2d-x.
But if I don't know how, or no body guide me; why should I buy this software?

The example I used I got from the one in internet which had bounding box in it.
but sadly, this forum is really in desperation. No body help me at all.
Not even a single guide what to do about the bounding box.

Last Post (in Months) is how long ago their last post was. My guess is that the company is on vacation this month (or are considering some issue). Mitch is by far the most helpful person in the runtimes section. Sheado has the box2d answers you are looking for, but hasn't made a post in 3 1/2 months. BinaryCats can tell you why the line doesn't work. Heck, I can tell you exactly what that line means and why it doesn't work for Cocos2d-x, but I digress...

Your problem aside, now I'm wondering what exactly are the conversion metrics? I mean, you intend to buy Spine, but your determination (utility function) is hinged on a specific feature. How many people come to look at Spine, ask a few questions, and then never buy?

Without sales data, my guess would be between 3-4 questions before purchase. Lots of people ask a question or two, never get answered and storm off. Then there are guys like this who bought 5 licenses without a single question.

The combined haul of the first 2 kickstarters was 105K. After taxes and fees, I'm betting that amount is closer to 65K. At a burn rate of 2500/month I'd say that's roughly 26 months or 2 years and 2 months. The first kickstarter was in Feb 2013, so really that target estimate of depletion is around April 2015.

Now, the kickstarter is not the only source of income. Heck, I bought a license and then backed the second kickstarter. There have obviously been sales since.

Assuming that you want to sustain a burn rate of $2k/month (after tax), how many sales do you need?

For Spine Essential @ $89, you need 28 sales per month. Assuming 5 questions before purchase that's $13/question needing 140 questions answered per month. Nate answers questions @ around 6/day, and the other 3 top posters answer around 2 per day. By himself, Nate would need the whole month to answer posts. The top 3 contributors combined cut Nate's work in half!

For Spine Pro, you only need 9 sales per month. Professional users tend to ask fewer questions. Let's say they ask an median of 3 questions before a sale. That's $96/question needing 26 questions per month answered.

80% less work for the same money. Pareto principle.

Spine Enterprise would only need 3 sales every 2 months. Those customers could email Nate directly and ask for whatever feature they wanted. I personally would send them my phone number and answer their questions in person.

From my perspective, Essential users tend to use free game engines and professionals use either something proprietary (which probably means they wrote it themselves) or they have converted to Unity. The proprietary guys are smart enough to write a game engine and are smart enough to answer any of their own questions. Thanks to guys like Mitch, Unity just works.

So what is the strategy here?

Essential licenses are what I call long tail sales. There are more of them, but they don't quite pack the punch that Professional Licenses do. However, places like Amazon.com have made entire businesses out of long tails. The trick to long tail sales is to create a self perpetuating community (e.g. stack overflow) that operates on social currency (e.g. stack overflow) to answer the majority of small questions and act as your sales team. If my sales data said the people buying weren't strongly correlated with the people asking questions then I'd probably lock forum posting down to licensed only.

What if you cut essential licenses? I don't know the sales data, but it's possible to simply drop the essential license and cull out the people who ask many questions and who don't buy. Price them out. This would be a good strategy leading up to to another kickstarter campaign as you could offer professional licenses @ $145 (50% off). This alone gives a transactional utility.

Dropping essential also means retiring support for free engines. One could simply maintain and update language runtimes (and Unity) instead of every engine on the face of the planet. If you use a free engine, you are less likely to buy professional license (or are smart enough to write your own interface).

What would I do?

Hire Mitch give him the difference between professional license and unity license. Fire essential give it the boot. Raise the price of Unity integration. Drop support for all engines, only support language runtimes { C, C#, Java }. Run a kickstarter for $15K with goals such that $145 gives you professional, $100 gives you educational and $289 gives you professional + unity. Like a giant sales groupon.

After kickstarter, lock down forum post privileges to paid only. Make a landing page that most questions are already answered, just do a search.

Why? Use the Pareto principle to figure out what 20% of your effort is giving you %80 of the money and grow that part of your business to make up the difference. Also, at some point Spine will be 'finished' and needs to be set on a back burner to pursue the next venture.

Too Evil?

The other thing I would consider is to stop all production of Spine and leave it to generate a slow monthly income without any further involvement. In that case I would probably shutdown the forums and turn them into a knowledge base and move all future questions to stack overflow.

BYOB (Bring your own brain).

Why? Diminishing returns.

gOzaru a écrit

This is the first time I saw user like u.

Agreed.
I never saw such support and passion from a person, for something he isn't actually an official employee of.
Until today, when I saw this overview of spines employees, I thought Mitch works also for esoteric software o.0.

Keep up the good work Mitch.

Your logic fails to consider people like myself:

I bought Spine Pro (and love it), but I wouldn't have even considered Spine Pro if there hadn't been a cheaper, lower-risk Essential build to allow me to "test the waters" if I wasn't sold on the project.

However, as it so happened, Mitch's videos overwhelming impressed me and convinced me of the worth of Spine as a product. I was extremely happy with the quality of the editor AND its nigh seamless integration into Unity. But I would have stuck with Spriter (to my detriment) if I had only seen the $300 package for Spine.

Xelnath a écrit

Your logic fails to consider people like myself:

I bought Spine Pro (and love it), but I wouldn't have even considered Spine Pro if there hadn't been a cheaper, lower-risk Essential build to allow me to "test the waters" if I wasn't sold on the project.

However, as it so happened, Mitch's videos overwhelming impressed me and convinced me of the worth of Spine as a product. I was extremely happy with the quality of the editor AND its nigh seamless integration into Unity. But I would have stuck with Spriter (to my detriment) if I had only seen the $300 package for Spine.

True. Consumer psychology shows that having 3 options does tend to help move product. Have you ever wondered why there are 3 versions of gasoline? Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely has some great examples.

What I'm suggesting is to make the $300 option the cheap option. A new midgrade option with Unity features and the Enterprise level.

Then, use a sale promotion (like kickstarter or a site sale) to reduce the $289 option to $145 for a limited time. That adds something that Richard Thaler calls 'transactional utility' (as opposed to acquired utility).

There is a trial option for the editor which should answer a lot of questions people have.

I totally agree that Mitch adds value. Pharan probably does too, but I hang out in the Runtimes forums. If you were going to distill the forums down to a knowledge base, I would probably license/buy his videos as a part of the training materials.

Looking over your posts, I would say your primary interface has been with Mitch.

BTW, I supported the Spriter kickstarter and was directed to Spine by the guy I work for. After purchasing a license I supported the second kickstarter. When it comes down to the end of the day, we should all want Spine to be profitable and continue development.

Ha, that's quite the analysis. 🙂 There are a number of assumptions that are quite off, but it's interesting. We won't be making the proposed changes I'm afraid.

I am currently on vacation. I live abroad and only get to see my family once per year. Unfortunately while I am away, Shiu has had some health problems, bad enough to spend some time in the hospital. He is going to be ok and is recovering now though.

gOzaru, the Box2D code you've linked is from spine-libgdx, which uses libgdx and Java. It isn't directly compatible for use with cocos2d-x. You can port the code and the ideas though. I'm sorry we don't currently have a complete cocos2d-x sample that uses Spine and Box2D.

While I rankle a bit at the implication that I was psychologically manipulated into picking up Pro, James, I know you are coming from a good place and intentions - and may even be right.

I think the key point that I want to make here is that Mitch sold me on the product LONG BEFORE I ever interfaced with him. Ease of use, knowledge of real-world pipeline dynamics and great tool craftsmanship - that's the package that sold me on Spine. These evaluations were far, far more important than the cost to me. (Though I wouldn't buy Spine for $1000, simply because the resistance would be too high, though in retrospect I believe it has that much value... assuming we ship)

Nate a écrit

There are a number of assumptions that are quite off, but it's interesting.

As soon as I started guessing at numbers I knew I was in a rabbit hole. I'm still a firm believer in Pareto as a business strategy evaluation tool. 8)

Xelnath a écrit

While I rankle a bit at the implication that I was psychologically manipulated into picking up Pro, James, I know you are coming from a good place and intentions - and may even be right.

Well, the problem is that they aren't using psychology to manipulate you. They are too nice. 😉

Xelnath a écrit

Though I wouldn't buy Spine for $1000, simply because the resistance would be too high, though in retrospect I believe it has that much value... assuming we ship

This is a fine example of the endowment effect [Misbehaving: R. Thaler]. Although if one day you find yourself interested in behavioral/consumer psychology I'd recommend starting with Predictably Irrational.

Good luck with your game!

Thank you for the suggestion. May I offer "Secrets of Consulting" in return. It may help you in the future with your pitching.

gotta beat shiu's post count while he's incapacitated.

Xelnath a écrit

Thank you for the suggestion. May I offer "Secrets of Consulting" in return. It may help you in the future with your pitching.

Hahahaha. Yes, thanks. I'm more of a "Science of Influence" kinda guy, but my reading list is kinda low so I'll give it a go.

Pharan a écrit

gotta beat shiu's post count while he's incapacitated.

LOL

Pharan a écrit

gotta beat shiu's post count while he's incapacitated.

Way a poke a guy in the eye when he's down.