[Tutorial] Extremely Basic Sprites

Dr. Trowel

I just made a bunch of revisions to the tutorial at the top of this thread. "Extremely Basic Sprites" have never been so complicated. :rolleyes:

Ravenheart

Good stuff, one problem though. I did all of your instructions for a simple sprite, and now i just get a white brick when i open up the game

Help?

Ravenheart

I have a question.

I have followed all your instructions perfectly (well, i'm using MC) to make a simple sprite. Everything is supposed to work as planned, but the sprite has just ended up as a white rectangle with the same dimensions as my picture. I am assuming it is something to do with the way i masked it or saved it.

Could you help?

Ravenheart

Woops, my previous post didn't show up before so i posted again. It seems that there is no delete option..

Dr. Trowel

EVN 1.0.9 broke my tutorial. After making the sprite and its mask, it now seems to be mandatory to convert it to the RLEd format. Luckily, MissionComputer has improved since I wrote my instructions, and is up to the task. You can also use w00tware's "EnRLE."

Edit: Also, since I wrote I've discovered that (at least as of 1.0.8) the frames in your rotation sequence determine the angles at which non-turreted beam weapons can fire, so you probably will want to avoid attaching your one-frame replacement sprites to ships with such weapons. (In other words, if you replace the Manta with a non-rotating cut-out of the word "death," it isn't going to pose nearly as much of a threat.)

This post has been edited by Dr. Trowel : 07 January 2006 - 04:38 PM

Ravenheart

Dr. Trowel, on Jan 7 2006, 08:30 PM, said:

EVN 1.0.9 broke my tutorial. After making the sprite and its mask, it now seems to be mandatory to convert it to the RLEd format. Luckily, MissionComputer has improved since I wrote my instructions, and is up to the task. You can also use w00tware's "EnRLE."

Edit: Also, since I wrote I've discovered that (at least as of 1.0.8) the frames in your rotation sequence determine the angles at which non-turreted beam weapons can fire, so you probably will want to avoid attaching your one-frame replacement sprites to ships with such weapons. (In other words, if you replace the Manta with a non-rotating cut-out of the word "death," it isn't going to pose nearly as much of a threat.)
View Post

Thanks, how do i convert a PICT into an rleD then?

orcaloverbri9

Take PICT and mask. Make spin with them. Run them through EnRLE.

Alternatively, take PICT and mask. Open Make RLE from within MC. Open PICT and mask. Make RLE.

Ravenheart

orcaloverbri9, on Jan 8 2006, 05:07 PM, said:

Take PICT and mask. Make spin with them. Run them through EnRLE.

Alternatively, take PICT and mask. Open Make RLE from within MC. Open PICT and mask. Make RLE.
View Post

Thanks orca, should it be an rleD or rle8, or both?

Also, when i convert anything through EnRLE they just arrive as a spin resource, not the rleD/rle8 resource required.

This post has been edited by Ravenheart : 08 January 2006 - 08:09 PM

Dr. Trowel

Ravenheart, on Jan 8 2006, 06:53 PM, said:

Thanks orca, should it be an rleD or rle8, or both?

Also, when i convert anything through EnRLE they just arrive as a spin resource, not the rleD/rle8 resource required.
View Post

rlëD is essential. rlë8 is only used if you run the game in just 256 colors, which almost nobody does anymore. You might want to go ahead an do both, though -- at least one quite experienced developer reports that his plugs fail if rlë8s are absent, even if they aren't used.

It's been a while since I used EnRLE, but I'm guessing you did in fact create the rlëD/rlë8 files -- they're just invisible. If I remember correctly, EnRLE takes the name of your spin/shan resource as the name of its output file, appending the resource type as an extension -- "yourspin.rlëD", for instance. If your spin/shan isn't named (use "Get Info" in either MC or NovaTools to name it), you get a file named just ".rlëD" or ". rlë8", and since OS X hides all files with periods at the start of their names, you think nothing was created! If I'm right about this (confirmations, anyone?), you may want to use Tinker Tool or some similar utility to make invisible files visible temporarily so you can clean up the mess.

This post has been edited by Dr. Trowel : 09 January 2006 - 12:18 AM

orcaloverbri9

Yep. Unnamed spins cause it to create ".rle8" and ".rleD" files, which are hidden by the OS.

You don't need TinkerTool. It wouldn't work, anyhow, since it hides files starting with "." regardless of whether or not the visible bit is actually set. Just open Terminal and type "cd ". Then drag the folder where the file with the PICTs was into the Terminal window and press return. Type "mv .rlëX <insert desired filename, easiest to just use one word, such as rleX>", where X is obviously either 8 or D, then press return and check again.

This post has been edited by orcaloverbri9 : 09 January 2006 - 12:35 AM

Edwards

I personally have all my invisible files (both UNIX- and Finder-invisible) visible in Finder full-time. It's amazing what you can do with the right tools. As that script can also set Finder back to not seeing invisible files, it is much easier (and possibly safer) than going through Terminal.

Edwards

Ravenheart

This is getting rather complex, i'm not getting anything.

A clear, detailed set of instructions concerning the transition from a PICT file into an rleD resource (that is visible) would be much appreciated.

rmx256

1 Render base set- what you see on screen
2 Render mask- what makes what you see on screen visible. You need this is your ship has black parts especially and you don't mean them to be transparent. It should be all white. Process it in Photoshop or GKON to make it 1-bit (black and white).

Save both of these groups to seperate folders.

3 Use a tool like P2S, available at that link, to make your sprites. This will take multple seperate images and turn it into one large image containing the actual sprite. Do this for the mask images as well.
4 Use MissionComputer (faster than EnRLE) to convert the pict-based sprites into rle8/rleDs. Copy/paste them into your plug and you're gold.

There are other methods but this is about it.

Ravenheart

rmx256, on Jan 9 2006, 11:20 AM, said:

1 Render base set- what you see on screen
2 Render mask- what makes what you see on screen visible. You need this is your ship has black parts especially and you don't mean them to be transparent. It should be all white. Process it in Photoshop or GKON to make it 1-bit (black and white).

Save both of these groups to seperate folders.

3 Use a tool like P2S, available at that link, to make your sprites. This will take multple seperate images and turn it into one large image containing the actual sprite. Do this for the mask images as well.
4 Use MissionComputer (faster than EnRLE) to convert the pict-based sprites into rle8/rleDs. Copy/paste them into your plug and you're gold.
There are other methods but this is about it.
View Post

In number 3, by this point i should have two PICTs - 1. One for the ship and 2. One for the mask right? What do you mean by multiple pictures - do i need more than two?

rmx256

At the end of step three you will have taken multiple images and 'tiled' them into one large image which contains, as subseets in a gridlike pattern, the images rendered in steps one and two. This large image can then be en-rle'd.

Dr. Trowel

Ravenheart, on Jan 9 2006, 08:07 AM, said:

In number 3, by this point i should have two PICTs - 1. One for the ship and 2. One for the mask right? What do you mean by multiple pictures - do i need more than two?
View Post

rmx256's step 3 (using P2S) isn't necessary if you are following the directions in the first post in this thread, and therefore are making a one-frame sprite that doesn't rotate.

What p2s does is produce the grids of frames that you need for rotating sprites. Say you (or Hamster) had made 36 numbered files, each showing shady tradesman's avatar rotated a different amount. You could then use p2s to produce a PICT looking like this:

Posted Image

You could then feed that, a similar mask PICT made by combining 36 black-and-white numbered files, and a spin or shan into EnRLE or MissionComputer to make RLE resources to put into your plug.

Regardless of whether you have a single- or multiple-frame PICT sprite, NovaTools is (in my opinion) better than MC for beginners when you are filling in the blanks in spin/shan resources, since it has a nice graphical interface with a live preview that uses your PICTs to show you what you've done right or wrong, right there in the same dialog window. Once you've made the spin or shan, though, rmx256's tip that MC is faster than EnRLE for creating RLEs is probably a good one -- have you tried that?

This post has been edited by Dr. Trowel : 09 January 2006 - 11:12 AM

rmx256

NovaTools is in many ways better than MC- but MissionComputer is the OSX to the System 9 of NovaTools and therefore is the future so I used relevant material
Personally I don't use P2S at all (tycho has written some nice stuff ) and a lot of other steps in between these ones. I was just trying to make a simple step by step guidelet in the vein of that which was requested.

Trying to boost the karma back up...

Ravenheart

Dr. Trowel, on Jan 9 2006, 02:49 PM, said:

<snip>
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No, i have tried using ResEdit and NovaTools on several occasions, the shan does not show up on the right hand bar when making a new resource and several other problems spring up. I find MC a much more user-friendly editor.

So, i have an IDA Frigate (a new one ;)) that i would like to have rotating about a point. There are about 30 angles i need to do (either me or Gimp somehow mucked up several frames), i have drawn around half of those and don't particularily want to do the rest. Do you think taking one angle and somehow duplicating it at different angles would work? If so, how would i integrate it into the plug-in?

rmx256

Do you think taking one angle and somehow duplicating it at different angles would work? If so, how would i integrate it into the plug-in?

You'll find the results very unsatisfactory if you do that, I think, and they won't look too good against the rest of the stock ships. An IDA Frigate tye ship is an ideal one to learn 3D on- not a lot of different stuff and the textures are easy enough to pull off (for a sprite-sized view at least, though the large shipyard view would be somewhat trickier). I'd reccomend getting a free 3D program and doing them right (no rudeness intended)- you'll be much happier with the results.

Ravenheart

rmx256, on Jan 9 2006, 10:12 PM, said:

Do you think taking one angle and somehow duplicating it at different angles would work? If so, how would i integrate it into the plug-in?

You'll find the results very unsatisfactory if you do that, I think, and they won't look too good against the rest of the stock ships. An IDA Frigate tye ship is an ideal one to learn 3D on- not a lot of different stuff and the textures are easy enough to pull off (for a sprite-sized view at least, though the large shipyard view would be somewhat trickier). I'd reccomend getting a free 3D program and doing them right (no rudeness intended)- you'll be much happier with the results.
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I have some pretty basic 3D skills, the shipyard picture was done pretty easily through Gimp. Actually: CALLING TO ANY 3D MODELLERS UP FOR A CHALLENGE

If anybody is up to it, a 3D model of the IDA Frigate would be very nice indeed. If possible, could you include the rleD resource and any other necessary files to get the graphic into the game?

Thanks alot, Ravenheart.