HOW DO I MAKE GRAPHICS: Strata3d: Sprites

How to render sprites in Strata 3d

Set up a one second animation and set the frame rate to 36 frames per second
Move the time bar to one quarter second, rotate your ship a quarter of the way.
Move the time bar to half a second, rotate your ship the next quarter
Move the time bar to 3/4 seconds, rotate your ship the next quarter
Move the time bar to 1 second (ie, the 37th frame), rotate your ship to the beginning position.
Press command R for render, and now render frames 1 to 36. Your ship should now rotate smoothly around.

Use DrRalphs movies to sprites utility to convert the quick time movie into sprites.

EV and EVO: Then check the masks and reduce to 256 colours.
EV Nova: Use the ENRLE utility available on the addons page to convert your sprites into RLES. To do this you need to first create a Spin. Instructions are with the utility.

Then you're done.

(This message has been edited by Martin Turner (edited 11-03-2003).)

Thanks for telling us how to do it w/ Movies to sprites, but what about Pics2Sprites? Could someone tell me?

What about the speedup/slowdown factor? In StrataProStudio, doing that would equal a sprite that turned at unequal speeds.

Oddly enough, Bryce 3D is useable for sprites (as well as planets and backgrounds). Set up an animation similar to above -- using the top camera works well -- and render as a PICT sequence. Unfortunately, Bryce renders at 16-bit color depth; I had to downsample the PICTs before converting to PICs file (with GraphicConverter), then running Matt Burch's Pic2Sprite.

where can i get DrRalphs movies to sprites utility?

edit: never mind. i got it

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(This message has been edited by HandsofDeath (edited 06-17-2003).)

Note, the movie to sprite conversion uses the quicktime toolbox routine 'GetNextInterestingTime'. While this works with 99 percent of plain vanilla movies, it is possible to make weird ones that don't. If you are using a movie, try to keep it as simply constructed as possible.

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