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Text File | 1993-03-16 | 20.4 KB | 566 lines

│ │ ┌──┐ └──┤ │ 's ──┘ └──┘ Sprite Editor 1.0 Copyright 1993 by Curtis Keisler TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3. DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4. GETTING STARTED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 5. SCREEN LAYOUT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 6. HOW TO USE THE PROGRAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 7. THE PALETTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 8. THE DRAWING PRIMITIVES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 8.1 Draw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 8.2 Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 8.3 Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 8.4 Rectangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 8.5 Solid Circles and Rectangles . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 8.6 Paint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 9. SPRITE POSITIONING FEATURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 9.1. Up, Down, Left, Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 9.2. Rotate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 9.3. X-flip, Y-flip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 9.4. Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 9.5. Tile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 9.6. Undo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 10. SAVING, LOADING AND SOURCING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 10.1 Pascal, C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 10.2 Clear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 10.3 Save, Load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 11. QUIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 12. GENERAL INFORMATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 13. REGISTRATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 i 1. INTRODUCTION yc's Sprite Editor is a tool that aids the gaming programmer in designing sprites used video games for the IBM PC compatible. It lets you create 32x32x256 color sprites for use in C and Pascal programs (assembler too!). The requirements are a SVGA graphics adapter capable of 640x480x256 color in either Vesa, Trident or Video7 mode, a Microsoft compatible mouse, at least 512k memory and a little disk space for storing sprite files and/or source code. I wrote this program to help me in creating sprites for several games that I am writing. I thought that it would be nice to provide this tool to other game designers faced with the same task. This program has a surprisingly high level of functionality. It provides simple drawing primitives such as bit level manipulation, line drawing, circles, rectangles, filled circles, filled rectangles, flood filling, x and/or y axis mirroring, 90 degree rotations, and a tiled view. It also has an undo feature, saving, loading, and C and Pascal "const" source output. 2. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Borland International for providing such great programming environments. This program was written using Borland Pascal 7.0. I also use their C++ compiler and I highly recommend ANYTHING that Borland produces. Thanks to Steve Holley for requesting of me to write this program in the first place. Thanks to Michael Day of Knight Software, P.O. Box 22902, Milwaukie, OR 97222, CIS [70007,4645] or [73577,2225] for developing the 640x480x256 BGI's that I used to write this program. BGI256 V3.00 as of 22 Dec 1992 is Copyright (c) 1991,1992 by Knight Software. 3. DISCLAIMER If this program kills your computer its not my fault. By running this program on your computer you are willingly releasing me, the author, from any responsibility for loss. 4. GETTING STARTED If you have a Vesa compatible SVGA card all you need to do is type "sprited". For Trident or Video7 compatibility, type "sprited TRIDENT" or "sprited VIDEO7" respectively. 1 5. SCREEN LAYOUT ┌───────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐ │ │ ╔═══════════════╗ ╔═════╗│ │ │ ╚═══════════════╝ ╠═════╣│ │ │ ╠═════╣│ │ │ ┌───┐ ╠═════╣│ │ │ │ 3 │ ╠═════╣│ │ 1 │ └───┘ ╠═════╣│ │ │ ╠═════╣│ │ │ ╠═════╣│ │ │ 4┌────────┐ ╚═════╝│ │ │ └────────┘ 5 │ │ │ ╔═════╗ ╔═════╗ ╔═════╗│ ├───────────────────────┤ ╠═════╣ ╠═════╣ ╠═════╣│ │ │ ╠═════╣ ╠═════╣ ╠═════╣│ │ │ ╠═════╣ ╠═════╣ ╠═════╣│ │ │ ╠═════╣ ╠═════╣ ╠═════╣│ │ 2 │ ╚═════╝ ╠═════╣ ╠═════╣│ │┌──────────┐┌─────────┐│ ╠═════╣ ╠═════╣│ │└──────────┘└─────────┘│ ╚═════╝ ╚═════╝│ └───────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘ (1) This area contains a zoomed version of the sprite. This area is where ALL of the editing takes place. (2) This area contains the color palette. This is the resident palette so no special provisions are necessary for re- displaying the sprite in your programs, i.e. you don't need to load and save palettes! (3) This area shows the actual size of the sprite and reflects exactly what is represented in area 1. (4) This area displays in text the current editing mode. This describes the action that will be taken if the mouse is clicked inside of area 1, the sprite editing area. (5) This area contains the buttons that represent various actions that can be performed on the sprite. 6. HOW TO USE THE PROGRAM Options are made by positioning the mouse cursor on one of the graphic buttons on the screen, pressing the left button on the mouse and then releasing the left mouse button while the graphic button on the screen is depressed. The only time keyboard interaction is required is when a filename is needed to write source code to disk and to save or retrieve a sprite. 2 7. THE PALETTE The palette area contains three different components. At the top of the palette area you will see three collections of color blocks. The first row of colors is the standard 16 colors (0-15). The second row of colors is the 16 shades of gray (16-31). The rest of the area is the full spectrum with varying hues, saturation and intensities (32-248). Beneath the color blocks to the left is a rectangle containing the foreground color. The rectangle to the right of the foreground color is the background color. To change the foreground color, position the mouse pointer on the color you desire and press the left mouse button. The same can be done for the background color using the right mouse button. 8. THE DRAWING PRIMITIVES The drawing primitive buttons are located near the top right side of the screen. If you initiate a primitive using the left mouse button, it will be drawn in the current foreground color. If you initiate a primitive using the right mouse button, it will be drawn in the current background color. The following is a description of the drawing primitives and the functions that they perform. 8.1 Draw This button places you in draw mode. It allows you to manipulate the sprite one pixel at a time. To draw on the sprite, place the mouse cursor in area 1, the zoomed sprite area, and hold down a mouse button. As you move the mouse cursor within the editing area, pixels will be placed on the sprite in the relevant color (left button is the foreground color, right button is the background color). 8.2 Line This button places you in line draw mode. It allows you to draw lines within the sprite. To draw a line on the sprite, place the mouse cursor in area 1 where you want to start the line. Then, while pressing a mouse button move the cursor to where you want the line to be drawn and release the button. As you move the mouse while holding down a mouse button, the line will be redrawn to show you what a line to the current position would look like. This is known as "rubber banding" and is used where appropriate. 3 8.3 Circle This button places you in circle mode. It allows you to draw circles within the sprite. To draw a circle on the sprite, place the mouse cursor in area 1 where you want the circle to be centered. While pressing a mouse button, move the mouse cursor away from the center point to expand the radius of the circle or toward the center to contract the radius. When you have the desired radius release the mouse button. 8.4 Rectangle This button places you in rectangle mode. It allows you to draw rectangles within the sprite. To draw a rectangle on the sprite, place the mouse cursor in area 1 where you want one of the corners of the rectangle to be drawn. While pressing a mouse button, move the cursor to where you want to place the opposite corner of the rectangle. When you have the rectangle in the desired location release the mouse button. 8.5 Solid Circles and Rectangles These buttons function just like the "hollow" version buttons except the inside of the primitive is solid. 8.6 Paint This button places you in paint mode. It allows you to "seed fill" an area of the sprite. To paint an area, position the mouse cursor INSIDE of the area to be filled and click the appropriate mouse button. Every pixel that is the same color as the color of the pixel on which you clicked will be painted in the appropriate color up to the point where the area clicked on meets another color. i.e. this works like PC Paintbrush's paint. 9. SPRITE POSITIONING FEATURES Near the middle, bottom-half of the screen you will see a few buttons devoted to manipulating the position of the ENTIRE sprite. The following is a description of each of these buttons and what they do: 9.1. Up, Down, Left, Right These buttons rotate with wrap around the entire sprite in the direction indicated on the button. This is good for centering a sprite or for making several positional changes required in animation. 4 9.2. Rotate This button rotates the sprite 90 degrees clockwise. 9.3. X-flip, Y-flip This button mirrors the sprite in the respective cartesian axis with the origin being in the center of the sprite. 9.4. Grid This button toggles a grid on and off. The sprite grid can be useful for placing pixels when a reference is needed for counting. 9.5. Tile This button toggles the tile mode on and off. Some sprites will be used to tile a background. The tile feature places the sprite in a 3 by 3 matrix so that you can get an idea of how the sprite will look when tiled with itself. 9.6. Undo Hey, we all make mistakes. This key will undo the last destructive action performed on the sprite. That means you can't undo a rotate (you wouldn't need to undo a rotate anyway). But, lets say you painted a sprite and it goofed up the sprite. Just press undo, immediately afterwards, and the sprite will be restored. 5 10. SAVING, LOADING AND SOURCING The following is a description of what the rest of the buttons do: 10.1 Pascal, C These buttons will write out a "const" declaration, in the respective programming language, that contains data that can be directly used with a Borland Language's PutImage. The following is the format of the source output for the languages respectively: Pascal Source Const { test.pas } Image: Array[1..1028] Of Byte = ( 31,0,31,0, 0,0,0, ... ...,0,0,0 ); C Source /* test.c */ const unsigned char image[1028]={31,0,31,0, 0,0,0,... ...,0,0,0 }; Sprites written out as source CANNOT be loaded from the source. You must use the load and save buttons described below. When you press the "Pascal" or "C" buttons, a simple dialog box appears in the middle of the screen prompting you for a file name. You can edit the filename using common editing keys like [Backspace], the left and right arrows, [Delete], [Home], [End] and [Ctrl][Backspace] to clear the line out. Just enter the filename you wish to name the source as and press enter. You can also click on the "Ok" button to write the source or the "Cancel" button to abort. If a disk error occurs, a dialog box will appear stating the problem and wait for you to press return or click on the "Ok" button. 10.2 Clear This button clears the sprite to the current background color. If you press this button by accident don't panic, just press the "Undo" button. 6 10.3 Save, Load These buttons allow you to save and load, to and from disk the sprites that you have created. When you press the "Save" or "Load" buttons, a simple dialog box appears in the middle of the screen prompting you for a file name. You can edit the filename using common editing keys like [Backspace], the left and right arrows, [Delete], [Home], [End] and [Ctrl][Backspace] to clear the line out. If you are saving the sprite, just enter the filename you wish to name the sprite. If you are loading a sprite, just enter the filename of the sprite to be loaded. Then press [Enter]. You can also click on the "Ok" button to continue or the "Cancel" button to abort. If a disk error occurs, a dialog box will appear stating the problem and wait for you to press return or click on the "Ok" button. The format in which the sprites are saved is very simple. It is just the raw data that is represented in the source output. So, if you wanted to store sprites on disk for using with Borland's BGI PutImage function instead of storing the sprite in the executable, all you need to do is allocate the memory, open the file, read in the sprite and use the variable in the PutImage function. Its just that simple! 11. QUIT This button exits the program. Be sure that you have saved your work before exiting. 12. GENERAL INFORMATION I threw this program together in one weekend, including the GUI, and the SVGA mouse driver, so I would not be surprised if you found a bug or two in it. If you find that the program does not function properly, please let me know. I am a regular user of CompuServe and you can send e-mail to me there at 76424,1521. Also, if you have any comments or suggestions, especially negative ones, please feel free to relay them to me on either CompuServe or at the address supplied below. 7 13. REGISTRATION If you find yourself using this program often then you need to register it. You can register this program by sending $10.00 to: Curtis Keisler c/o Sprite Editor Rt. 2 Box 251-K Williston, SC 29853 Also, I would like it if you would drop me a suggestion or two along with this filled out form, especially if you are NOT in the USA and even if you don't register! (Please print) Name ____________________________________________________________ Address _________________________________________________________ City ____________________________________________________________ State ___________________________________________________________ Zip _____________________________________________________________ Country _________________________________________________________ Where you obtained this program _________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Comments _______________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Product Qty Total ______________________ ____ __________ yc's Sprite Editor 1.0 ____ @ $10.00 per copy = __________ Have a nice day! 8