In quite a few plugs I've seen huge, oversized ship/stellar sprites (especially liked the sun in Galaxy's edge), and I am trying to include some with one I am developing. It refuses to work; It doesn't crash or anything, just replaces the sprite with random static. Anyone know the technique?
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If at first you don't succeed, use more duct tape.
First off:
In the bible, Matt Burch tells us not to make sprites larger than 640 by 480 pixels, or else we risk rendering the plugin incompatible at that resolution by overloading the offscreen buffers. This definatly applies for all versions of EV and EVO 1.0.0 through 1.0.1. I recall that someone (WickedDyno?) demonstrated that this restriction had been removed in EVO 1.0.2, but I can't substantiate that. Anyone?
Second:
Static of the nature you describe is usually caused by dimension mismatches in the spin resource. Make sure your grid is right (1x1 for a planet, 6x6 for a ship, others for asteroids, boxes, stars, etc.) and the dimensions of each frame match (the horizontal dimension of each frame must be a multiple of eight). If it looks good, make sure your PICT resource is flattened (as opposed to layered) and non-transparent. Be sure to check your masks, too.
Asside: If I recall correctly, the largest spob i've ever seen demonstrated was on the order of 1152 pixels across. The largest ship was a 480 pixel wide circle. The biggest I was ever able to implement (admittedly, under EV 1.0.5, so it could well be outdated) was a ship of 176x176 pixels. 200 was the theoretical max, but 184, 192 and 200 never worked. Also, if memory serves, avoid 88 pixel wide ships like the plague.
-reg
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"Oh crap. I'm going to hell - I put the Bible next to Mein Kampf again."
-Her Holiness, Pope Jenne "Kirby" Hubbs
Riddle me this, batman. Why would you want bigger sprites than 640x480? That's HUGE! Anyway, do you really NEED that big of sprites? It would make the plug huge, and some of us still have dial-up. But, if you do make them, I guess I'll download it anywho.
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Until EVO 1.0.2 (?) the maximum ship sprite size per frame was 176x176. I was the one who made the freakin' huge 480x480 white circle (the most complex thing I could get to load, and still fit in a pict resource!) and it worked, but slowly and memory-intensively. Bombcat made the 1100-something pixel planet, which I believe is available in a plugin in the archives.
Greater numbers are both impractical, unexplored, and really unnecessary. 
Static is usually caused, as said, by an error in the entering of a sprite's size, or having it be an illegal size (one that's not divisible by 8, except that 88 is known to be an exception - 88 doesn't work).
Good luck troubleshooting!
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Thank you all; that was quite helpful. The problem was the dimensions of the frame matching, as Regulus suggested. I was planning on using quite a few though, and the memory problems have made this impractical, so no plug coming. :frown:
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If at first you don't succeed, use more duct tape.
