flipnote.js

flipnote.js

Enables browser-based playback of the proprietary animation formats used by Flipnote Studio and Flipnote Studio 3D, powered by WebGL.

I hope that maybe in the long term it will serve some use in archiving Flipnote animations, epecially given that the online services for both applications have been closed down.

Features

• Perfect image and audio playback for animation files from Flipnote Studio (.ppm) and Flipnote Studio 3D (.kwz)
• Full file parser implementations with metadata, frames, audio, etc
• Player API based on the HTML5 Video and Audio APIs
• Crisp upscaling/downscaling using sharp-bilinear shaders
• Built-in GIF and WAV converters
• Zero dependencies, only ~12kB when minified & gzipped :^)

Demo

Check out Flipnote Player for a live demo. :)

Installation

Install from NPM

$ npm install flipnote.js --save

Then if you are using a module bundler like Webpack or Rollup, import flipnote.js into your project:

// Using ES6 module syntax
import flipnote from "flipnote.js";

// Using CommonJS
var flipnote = require("flipnote.js");

Or use the jsDelivr CDN

Drop this script into the of your page's HTML:

When you manually include the library like this, flipnote.js will be made globally available on window.flipnote

Or download and host yourself

Development version Uncompressed, with source comments included. Intended for debugging.

Production version Minified and optimized version.

Player setup

To create a new player, we need to make a HTML canvas element with a unique identifier (an id attribute works well!) to act as a display for the player.

Make sure that your canvas dimensions match the 3:4 aspect ratio used by Flipnotes.

<canvas id="player-canvas" width="512" height="384"></canvas>

Then we can use some JavaScript to create a new instance of flipnote.player, and tell it to use the container element we just made by providing a matching CSS selector, and the canvas' width and height.

Please note that this javascript must be placed after the <canvas> element in your HTML

var player = new flipnote.player("#player-canvas", 512, 384);

After the player has been created, then a Flipnote can be loaded from a URL:

// create a player (as in the previous step)
var player = new flipnote.player("#player-canvas", 512, 384);
player.open("www.example.com/path/to/demo.ppm");

Player API

Constructor

Arguments:

• {String | HTMLCanvasElement} canvas

• {Number} width

• {Number} height

Properties

type

Flipnote type; either "KWZ" for 3DS notes or "PPM" for DSi notes.

note

The underlying Flipnote parser object that the player is using.

duration

Get the Flipnote duration in seconds.

framerate

Get the Flipnote framerate as frames per second.

currentFrame

Get/set the index of the current frame being shown. When set to a new value the player will automatically jump to that frame.

currentTime

Get/set the current playback prosition in seconds, modelled after the HTMLMediaElement property of the same name. When set to a new value the player will automatically jump to that time.

progress

Get/set the playback progress as a percentage out of 100.

volume

Get/set the Flipnote audio volume. This should be a value between 0 and 1.

muted

Get/set whether the Flipnotes' audio should be muted.

loop

Get/set whether the Flipnote should loop back to the start when it reaches the end.

meta

An object containing details about the Flipnote, such as the author, timestamp, etc. This will be slightly different depending on the Flipnote type

layerVisibility

An object containing the visibility status for each layer, e.g. { 1: true, 2: true, 3: true }

Methods

play

Begin Flipnote playback.

pause

Pause Flipnote playback.

on

Register an event callback. See Events for all event types.

Arguments:

• {String} eventType
• {Function} callback

Example:

player.on("playback:start", function() {
  // do something...
})

off

Remove an event callback that was registered with on

Arguments:

• {String} eventType
• {Function} callback

setFrame

Jump to a specified frame in the Flipnote.

Arguments:

• {Number} index - frame index

nextFrame

Jump to the next frame in the Flipnote. If loop is true and the Flipnote is on its last frame, it will jump to the first frame.

prevFrame

Jump to the previous frame in the Flipnote. If loop is true and the Flipnote is on its first frame, it will jump to the last frame.

firstFrame

Jump to the first frame in the Flipnote.

lastFrame

Jump to the last frame in the Flipnote.

thumbnailFrame

Jump to the frame being used as the Flipnote's thumbnail.

setLayerVisibility

Enable/disable layer visibility.

Arguments

• {Number} layer - Layer (either 1, 2, or 3)
• {Boolean} isVisible - Set to false to hide layer

resize

Resize the player canvas.

Arguments:

• {Number} width - New player width in pixels
• {Number} height - New player height in pixels

forceUpdate

Force the player to refresh.

clearEvents

Wipes all of the event listeners currently added to the player object.

Events

load

Emitted when the player has finished loading a KWZ / PPM file.

error

Emitted if the player detected an error when playing the Flipnote file.

progress

Emitted whenever currentTime updates.

frame:update

Emitted whenever the current frame changes.

playback:start

Emitted whenever playback begins.

playback:stop

Emitted whenever playback is paused/stopped.

playback:end

Emitted whenever the Flipnote playback has finished (and loop=false).

playback:loop

Emitted whenever the Flipnote is about to enter another playback loop (and loop=true).

Authors

• James Daniel

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details.

Building

Install dependencies:

npm install

Produce build files:

npm run build

Run development server:

npm start

Acknowledgments

• Flipnote.js implementation: Jaames.
• KWZ format reverse-engineering: Kinnay, Khangaroo, MrNbaYoh, Shutterbug, Jaames.
• PPM format reverse-engineering & documentaion: bricklife, mirai-iro, harimau_tigris, steven, yellows8 and PBSDS, Jaames.
• Identifying the PPM sound codec: Midmad from Hatena Haiku (no longer active) and WDLMaster from the HCS forum.
• PBSDS for creating Hatena Tools, and for giving me some notes regarding areas where the documentation fell short.
• Stichting Mathematisch Centrum for writing this ADPCM to PCM converter in C which I semi-ported to JS to handle audio.
• Libretro for their pixel art shaders, used as reference for the sharp-bilinear implementation
• Austin Burk and JoshuaDoes for helping to debug my Python3 PPM parser (which I used as a reference for the JS decoder).
• Lauren Kelly for performing packet captures of Flipnote Hatena before it shut down, without them reverse-engineering the app in general would have been a huge pain.
• Nintendo for creating the Flipnote Studio application.
• Hatena for creating Flipnote Hatena, the now-defunct online service for sharing Flipnote Studio creations.