*******************
*Sprite Editor 1.2*
*******************


I. Introduction
***************
Sprite Editor (SE) is a little tool 
for making animated sprites with some 
new features. Main of them are: 26 
positions, independent colors for 
each position, integrated editor & 
animator, nice design :) and 
(hopefuly) easy manipulation. You can 
quess why did I do it... Hm, why. 
Some months ago (october 2000) I 
became an idea to make a cool game 
for our little Atari, but I needed 
some tool just for making animated 
sprites. I found only one: Sprite 
I_don't_know_what :) by 
Lufa/Satantronic which was ...uhm... 
very primitive (sorry ;-) So I 
started with coding THIS :) SE is 
ofcoz freeware!

II. Function overview
*********************

Editor:

1,2,3,4 - Set sprite
--------------------
No comment :)

5,6,7,8 - Set color
-------------------
UP/DOWN - select shade of sprite
LEFT/RIGHT - select the color of 
sprite
RETURN - confirm colors

Arrows - Move cursor
--------------------
No comment :)

CONTROL+Arrows - Move sprite
----------------------------
Hold CONTROL and move cursor - you 
will move (rotate) the whole sprite

SHIFT+Arrows - (Un)draw line
----------------------------
Hold SHIFT and move the cursor - you 
will draw a line

SPACE - (Un)draw point
----------------------
No comment :)

H - Horizontal mirror
---------------------
Mirrors the actual sprite by X-Axis. 
It's depend on 'Big Windows' settings 
(look at 'B' key)

V - Vertical mirror
-------------------
Mirrors the actual sprite by Y-Axis

I - Invert
----------
Inverts the actual sprite - $10 or 
$20 bytes long (look at 'B' key)

INSERT - Copy
-------------
Copy the complete position ($20 
bytes) incl. colors to the another 
one

DEL - Erase sprite
------------------
Erase the actual sprite - $10 or $20 
bytes (look at 'B' key)

CLEAR - Erase position
----------------------
Erase the complete position ($20 
bytes). The colors will be preserved

SHIFT+CLEAR - Erase all
-----------------------
Erase all positions and set the 
color of actual sprite to all 
positions

P - Position select
-------------------
You can enter A-Z, 26 positions at 
all...

B - Big windows toggle
----------------------
You can change the actual size of 
sprite - $10 (16) or $20 (32) bytes. 
So you can edit bigger sprites than 
can be on the screen (using 
CONTROL+UP/DOWN)

W - 2 windows toggle
--------------------
Here you can set 2 windows - it's 
useful when you need wider sprite 
than 8 bits. Of course you can have 
max. of 2 sprites in one window

TAB - Next window
-----------------
Works only if 2 windows are active. 
In the 1st window you can use sprite 
1 or 2, in 2nd window sprite 3 or 4

M - Animator
------------
Exit to the Animator (the data & 
flags will be not changed... of 
course :)

ESC - Quit to DOS
-----------------
No comment :)

CTRL+D - Change actual device
-----------------------------
You can type whole name of device 
(e.g. D1) or just first letter and 
press RETURN if number is OK

CTRL+L - Load
-------------
SE looks for PM.DAT and COL.DAT files 
in actual directory and loads them

CTRL+S - Save
-------------
Saves actual players and colors. In 
fact it's simple memory dump from 
$3800 to $44ff (PM.DAT) and from 
$3400 to $3467 (COL.DAT)

Note: sometimes, bcoz of bad 
synchronisation may be fonts and DLI 
after i/o operations corrupted. 
Simply go to Animator and back to 
Editor (M key) and nice design is 
back :-) I'm very sorry for this, but 
it's harder to fix it as you could 
think :-)


Animator:

Animator is 2nd part of my work. It's 
simplier than Editor, because it was 
coded during 3-4 days. Very nice 
feature is 'parallel' running - you 
can change speed, size, definition, 
etc during playing animation! I was 
very suprised when I found it ;-)

D - Define animation
--------------------
Now you can enter letters which 
represent the position. Maximum is 
80, you can use DELETE. After typing 
press RETURN

R - Run animation
-----------------
Pressing 'R' you stop/run playing the 
animation. If you have set 2 windows, 
it will be detected and sprites 1/2 
will be played next to 3/4 

S - Speed option
----------------
1 = positions are changed each 
Vertical Blank
2 = positions are changed each second 
Vertical Blank
3 = positions are changed each fourth 
Vertical Blank
4 = positions are changed each eighth 
Vertical Blank

Z - Size of sprites
-------------------
It can be normal, double or quad

C - Size correction
-------------------
ON = corrects the shape of pixels (to 
be squares)
OFF = classic Atari representation: 1 
pixel is 1 scan line wide

O - Collisions
--------------
ON = result of collision of sprite 1 
and 2 or sprite 3 and 4 is 3rd color
OFF = no collisions, sprite 1 has got 
the highest priority, sprite 4 the 
lowest

M - Editor
----------
Exit to the Editor, animation is 
stopped

ESC - Quit to DOS
-----------------
No comment :)


III. Hardware requirements
**************************
Nothing special - each 8-bit Atari 
(PAL/NTSC) with 48 kB of memory. 
Tested also under Atari800Win 
emulator...


IV. Sprites & colors in the memory
**********************************
$3800: sprite 1, position A
$3820: sprite 2, position A
$3840: sprite 3, position A
$3860: sprite 4, position A
$3880: sprite 1, position B ... etc 
to $44FF

$3400: color of sprite 1, position A
$3401: color of sprite 2, position A
$3402: color of sprite 3, position A
$3403: color of sprite 4, position A
$3404: color of sprite 1, position B 
... etc to $3467

It's very simple to make any routine 
for replaying... if you have any 
problems, contact me, OK?


V. Future plans
***************
Game for Atari XE/F030 - with IMO 
very original idea, but it will be 
very hard to code... Probably for 320 
kB and probably after Falcon 
version...
Demo/intro/anything_for_the_scene for 
Atari XE/F030, especially Falcon !!!

VI. Contact
***********
Bug reports, improvements, ideas, 
money :) send to:

Smail: Miro Kropacek
       Budatinska 23
       Bratislava
       851 05
       Slovakia
       Europe ;-)

Email: mk20432@decef.elf.stuba.sk or
       mikro@atlantis.sk (only in 
       emergency :)


VII. Greetings
**************
Big hello goes to:

XI, Dodo, Lufa, Jookie of Satantronic
Jiri Bernasek aka BEWESOFT
Zdenek Burian of FLOP
Radek Sterba aka RASTER
Tiger of New Generation
BLB of Cobra
Lewis of Aids
Vasco of Tristesse
Dely of Atari Area
Mad Butcher of F2
and all others who keep our Atari 
scene alive...

VIII. History
*************
v1.0 [07/2001] - first official 
release

v1.1 [3.8.2001] - sprite animator 
fixed; options like size or 
correction are now unchanged after 
switching to editor

v1.2 [6.8.2002] - added save/load 
function. I was too lazy, but Raster 
and Mad Butcher kicked me to do it:-) 
Btw look at release date - 1 year 
after 1.1 version (in fact I didn't 
do ANYTHING on little XE... well, 
Falcon rulez more than XE :-)

I hope, you'll enjoy this little tool 
and wait for my next productions !

MiKRO, 6.8.2002, Bratislava/Slovakia