Ambrosia Garden Archive
    • NovaTools shän problems


      (And the barrage of questions continues...)

      OK, I'm using the shän editor in NovaTools to make a shän for a ship. This ship's sprites are 150x150. It has 48 sprites per set, and there are four sets to make the complete animation. Thus, the final image is 1200x3600.

      When I edit the image in the shän editor, however, it throws out every 7th and 8th frame. It acts as if the entire last two columns of my PICT have been deleted. (The PICT is indeed intact; I checked.) Thus, when the ship rotates, there's a jump as it skips the two frames, HOWEVER, the frame counter in the bottom right does not reflect this. In addition, this means that I am left with the last set being completely blank.

      Any suggestions or insight?

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      Tim Morgan, Bitwise Baron
      (url="http://"http://lightningbolt.pair.com")Lightning Bolt Software(/url)
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    • 150x150 and it's 1200 pixels wide. That means that they're tiled 8 wide? While any format should work, why don't you drop it into sprites (by w00tware), which'll render them 6 wide. I made a sprite with 64 frames in a set, and tiled it 6 wide. I haven't had any problems with it. That's gotta be the problem. Nova/NovaTools does not like having a format that's more than 6 frames wide.

      Any other suggestions? After you figure out the problems with your sprite (it's probably just how you formatted them), remember to run it through EnRLE. It'll reduce the memory requirements of your plug.

      Matrix

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

    • yeah...it has to be 6 tiles long.

      CeRD

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    • Quote

      Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix:
      **150x150 and it's 1200 pixels wide. That means that they're tiled 8 wide? While any format should work, why don't you drop it into sprites (by w00tware), which'll render them 6 wide. I made a sprite with 64 frames in a set, and tiled it 6 wide. I haven't had any problems with it. That's gotta be the problem. Nova/NovaTools does not like having a format that's more than 6 frames wide.
      **

      Heh. I did drop it into sprites (easiest way through Infini-D). This means I'll have to drop a couple of my images into GraphicConverter and roll up my sleeves...

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      Tim Morgan, Bitwise Baron
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    • Six is a good number. Let it be your friend.

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    • Quote

      Originally posted by Syzygy:
      **Heh. I did drop it into sprites (easiest way through Infini-D). This means I'll have to drop a couple of my images into GraphicConverter and roll up my sleeves...

      **

      Then there's no reason why it shouldn't be six wide. Did you specify that you didn't want 6 wide? I'm sure that 6 wide is the default. If it IS six wide, then you have some numbers wrong there, my friend. 150 pixels wide, tiled 8 wide will give you a value of 1200 pixels wide. Have four sets, height should be 150x6x4 = 3600 that's right. You've arrayed your frames 8x6 (8 wide and 6 tall). Your numbers should look more like 900 x 4800. Run it through sprites again. There's no way that you should be getting a sprite that's 8 frames wide.

      Matrix

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

    • Quote

      Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix:
      **Then there's no reason why it shouldn't be six wide. Did you specify that you didn't want 6 wide? I'm sure that 6 wide is the default. If it IS six wide, then you have some numbers wrong there, my friend. 150 pixels wide, tiled 8 wide will give you a value of 1200 pixels wide. Have four sets, height should be 150x6x4 = 3600 that's right. You've arrayed your frames 8x6 (8 wide and 6 tall). Your numbers should look more like 900 x 4800. Run it through sprites again. There's no way that you should be getting a sprite that's 8 frames wide.
      **

      OK, next time I'm in OS X I'll check my settings, but I can tell you I ran this ship through Sprites just like the other 40 ships. It;s 1200x3600, arranged 8 horizontal by 6 vertical, with four sets, each set 150x150. The numbers add up; the only oddity is the 8-horizontal arrangement.

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      Tim Morgan, Bitwise Baron
      (url="http://"http://lightningbolt.pair.com")Lightning Bolt Software(/url)
      Visit my site, (url="http://"http://home.jps.net/~ltningbolt/evo-tips")All the EV Override Tips You Could Possibly Want(/url).
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    • Yea, that's strange. I'm running 9.1, and when I ran my 72 frame set, it arrayed it correctly, so I don't know what the heck is going on for you.

      Matrix

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

    • Have you tried rendering it the other way, 6 across, 8 down?

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    • Ive not actuall started inputing all my sprites yet, but im sure when i do, ill have these problems. Ive got a few large ships Im going to do, with really slow turn rates, so naturally im going to have alot more than the normal 36 sprites for one complete rotation. Of course, this will make the tile alot bigger, will that be an issue?

      l e g i o n

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    • Got it to work with 6 across. It seems NovaTools has problems with an image this big -- I had to "pretend" that the ship only had 3 sets right up until I dragged the file to EnRLE, just before which I reset it to 4.

      So my message to all developers is: if there are graphical problems with the NovaTools editors, it may be a software problem and not a PICT problem.

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      Tim Morgan, Bitwise Baron
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      Visit my site, (url="http://"http://home.jps.net/~ltningbolt/evo-tips")All the EV Override Tips You Could Possibly Want(/url).
      Current EV Projects: Forgotten Legacy, EVN Annotated Templates

    • I may be wrong, as I have done no sprite editing in Nova, but in the old EV, I could swear that you had to have a pict which contained a square number of sprites. Try making it six or eight square.

      Oh, and six is not the maximum, as many big ships in Nova have 64 turning frames, which means eight square.

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    • I'm also having a problem with shäns, for some reason when I open Nova, my ships don't look like they should. It's like the shäns aren't even there. My graphics are in PICT and I set the shäns for PICT, but my they still look like the Nova ships.

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