OK, so I have this very large ship that has very visible engine flames coming out of the rear. Obviously, I have rendered these flames as a separate element to be used in the shän's "engine glow" fields. Now, when this ship turns, say, left, I'd like the right set of flames to burn brighter than the left set.

To do this I included two additional permutations of the flame image, for banking left and banking right. Now I would obviously check the bit specifying that additional graphic sets are used for left- and right-banking images. HOWEVER, there is no change to the base sprite set. This is a very large ship, so it would be a huge memory and disk space hit if I had to include three sets of the same base sprites. Is Nova smart enough to know what to do if I only have one set of base sprites but three sets of engine-glow sprites?

(Does everybody understand what I'm saying?)

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Tim Morgan, Bitwise Baron
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(This message has been edited by Syzygy (edited 05-21-2002).)

Quote

Originally posted by Syzygy:
**

snip

(Does everybody understand what I'm saying?)

**

I get what you're saying, but I seem to remember that the bible says the number of sets has to be the same all over, thus you would probably need to have the base-set three times. But why don't you try to do it, and see what happens.

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The answer is, obviously, 42!

The bible states that you need to have the same number of sets for each layer. If you have three glow sets, then you need three base sets, and three light sets, etc. If you're going to have three glow sets, might as well make banking sprites for the base that actually do something. By that I mean that your large ship is not going to bank by its main engines alone. You'd might as well place thrusters all over the ship that burn for the banking sprites. That way, the engines don't need to be activated for the player to see the banking sprites, and it gives a reason for rendering a longer animation ;).

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

Or you could just rerender the engine glows, where when the glows start banking you increase the glow intensity on the side you want. For instance, when it starts banking to the left, make the right engine glow about 50% (or however much you want) more then the left engine glow. That way you wouldn't have to render three sets of sprites.

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and it's not three individual sprite sets. All three (or whatever number), sets are on one sprite. Thus, the sprite takes one rotation, banks left, and banks right, all on one sprite. Now that I think about it, though, in Nova, not many of the large ships actually have banking sprites. Probably the largest banking ship is the Dragon. After that, the ships don't have banking sprites. But as I said, the EVN bible states that the glow and running light (and probably the weapon and shield as well) sprites have to have the same number of frames as the base layer.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

Quote

Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix:
**hat way, the engines don't need to be activated for the player to see the banking sprites, and it gives a reason for rendering a longer animation;).
**

As a side note, you can set bits 0 and 1 in the shän's flag field to draw the engine sprites as the ship turns, regardless of whether or not it's thrusting.

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Tim Morgan, Bitwise Baron
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Quote

Originally posted by Syzygy:
**As a side note, you can set bits 0 and 1 in the shän's flag field to draw the engine sprites as the ship turns, regardless of whether or not it's thrusting.

**

Yea, but that's not as realistic... ok. Not realistic at all. Why would the ship be thrusting when it's not moving anywere? It's potentially confusing for the player who'll be used to nova's glows going off when the ship is under power.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

Use the Starbridge sprites as an example of how it should work. Instead of sprites where the engine modules have moved up/down, have your glow brighter/darker.

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Quote

Originally posted by mrxak:
**Use the Starbridge sprites as an example of how it should work. Instead of sprites where the engine modules have moved up/down, have your glow brighter/darker.

**

Exactly. The starbridge has vectored-thrust engines, and has three base sets (straight, bank left, bank right), and the glows have three sets as well (straight, bank left, bank right). As I said before. The glows, lights, and weapons have to have the same number of sets as the base set. The alternating sprites are the only exception.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."