******************* *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