(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/004462.html")This topic(/url) asks if there is a windows version of EnRleD/8, and to the best of my search function knowledge, no one has answered his 4 month old question. I myself would like to create sprites on a PC, but other than getting an emulator or mailing a bunch of .movs to my mac-enabled friends, I'm at a loss. Any help would be appreciated.

------------------
Hail to the Mage King! May the Wind of the Falcon guide you. (url="http://"http://members.tripod.com/lunarproductions/tc.html") Phoenix (/url)

(This message has been edited by liquid_doom (edited 12-08-2003).)

There is still no EnRLE like program for Windows - Unless EVNEW has that capacity. But you can still make sprites. You just have to go about it the long way by taking a still shot of each frame of rotation (usually 36). Then place each still on a 6x6 grid with the ship moving clockwise as you look left to right, top to bottom. Then save the whole thing as a PICT. In the shan you can choose to use either PICTs or RLEs - choose PICT.

------------------
((Ż'ˇ.¸(Ż'ˇ.¸Ť•-KAME-•ť¸.ˇ'´Ż)¸.ˇ'´Ż))
I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
(url="http://"http://www.0three0.net/l-1551/")L 1551(/url) - The official site of RONIN and The Way and the ten thousand things

Quote

Originally posted by Kame:
There is still no EnRLE like program for Windows - Unless EVNEW has that capacity. But you can still make sprites. You just have to go about it the long way by taking a still shot of each frame of rotation (usually 36). Then place each still on a 6x6 grid with the ship moving clockwise as you look left to right, top to bottom. Then save the whole thing as a PICT. In the shan you can choose to use either PICTs or RLEs - choose PICT.

Yes, EVNEW can. But I have heard about problems with the RLE editors in EVNEW.

I believe I've also heard of problems with using PICT resources instead of RLEs, but I could be wrong.

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)

Nova definitely doesn't like PICT sprites. 'Nuff said.

------------------
(url="http://"http://www.mazca.com/")Mazca(/url) , Moderator, (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=9&SUBMIT;=Go&urgaylol;=yes")EV Developer's Corner(/url)
look through a faithless eye - are you afraid to die?

I'm assuming the EnRLE function is part of the normal import from a .mov? Or is there a seperate app connected with EVNEW, or (much more likely) am I being very, very dense?

------------------
Hail to the Mage King! May the Wind of the Falcon guide you. (url="http://"http://members.tripod.com/lunarproductions/tc.html") Phoenix (/url)

Quote

Originally posted by liquid_doom:
**I'm assuming the EnRLE function is part of the normal import from a .mov? Or is there a seperate app connected with EVNEW, or (much more likely) am I being very, very dense?

**

On a Macintosh, you would run the movie through m2s, which converts the movie into a sprite. Afterwards, you would run the resulting image through EnRLE, which would convert the picture to an RLE image. As far as I know, there is no equivalent of these applications for windows, even though such applications could definitely be written.

------------------
Eat blazing electric death!

EVNEW has built in RLE support, but you must have the frames and masks stored in image file(s), not movies. The frames of a sprite can be imported from any image file that QuickTime can read.

------------------
Get (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")EVNEW(/url) - the free, open-source plugin EVN Editor for Windows!

Hmm, so, no, there isn't a quick and dirty way of making sprites from .movs on a PC yet. Oh well, time to get those 108 .picts done... Thanks for your help, everyone who posted.

------------------
Hail to the Mage King! May the Wind of the Falcon guide you. (url="http://"http://members.tripod.com/lunarproductions/tc.html") Phoenix (/url)

As far as I know I am the only one reporting a problem with EVNews ability to import graphics into a RLE resource. With Aprosenf help we found the problem was not with EVNew but with an admin account in my windows 2000 setup. So I can gladly report that EVNew works just fine and that was not the issue.

Also for whatever it may be worth in pasting pics together for a grid image all you need is to use the grid/snap to grid features in Photoshop. You may also have those features in PSP or other graphics proggies as well but as I don't use those I can't say for sure. However things are not as bleak as has been suggested to make the needed images.

------------------
Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

The only problem with RLE's in EVNEW is it's inabilty to store RLE8's in their correct format (Aprosenf even states this in the ReadMe file of EVNEW). It stores the frames in grayscale.

This imposes no problems if you are making a plug for Windows because Windows only uses the RLED resource, but what happens if you convert the plug-in into a Mac plug-in, so that MacUsers can use it? Do you have to "re-make" the plug on a Mac machine importing the RLE8 from there?

On a Mac the RLE8 resource is only used if the users computer is set to use 8-bit colour rather than 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit. So if most Mac Users don't use 8-bit then it doesn't really matter...

...SO HOW MANY MAC USERS USE 8-BIT?

I ask because I making a Defiant class starship for a possible TC (TNG/DS9/VOY era, but based on StarFleet Adventures by Uncle Twitchy). It has the 4 pulse phasers, a warp core (no need to refuel), ablative armour, bubble shield effect, cloaking device, 2 torpedo lanchers, with shield and armour atributes more aplicable to StarTrek. I thought that maybe some Mac users would like to try it.

------------------

Quote

Originally posted by FunkMaster:
**The only problem with RLE's in EVNEW is it's inabilty to store RLE8's in their correct format (Aprosenf even states this in the ReadMe file of EVNEW). It stores the frames in grayscale.

This imposes no problems if you are making a plug for Windows because Windows only uses the RLED resource, but what happens if you convert the plug-in into a Mac plug-in, so that MacUsers can use it? Do you have to "re-make" the plug on a Mac machine importing the RLE8 from there?

On a Mac the RLE8 resource is only used if the users computer is set to use 8-bit colour rather than 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit. So if most Mac Users don't use 8-bit then it doesn't really matter...

...SO HOW MANY MAC USERS USE 8-BIT?

I ask because I making a Defiant class starship for a possible TC (TNG/DS9/VOY era, but based on StarFleet Adventures by Uncle Twitchy). It has the 4 pulse phasers, a warp core (no need to refuel), ablative armour, bubble shield effect, cloaking device, 2 torpedo lanchers, with shield and armour atributes more aplicable to StarTrek. I thought that maybe some Mac users would like to try it.

**

Not only does it store it in grayscale, i belive the grayscale will be interpreted as random colors on a mac. There's got to be some way to get the color information to fix this...
-Az

------------------
It is here. EVNEW Public Beta (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by FunkMaster:
**On a Mac the RLE8 resource is only used if the users computer is set to use 8-bit colour rather than 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit. So if most Mac Users don't use 8-bit then it doesn't really matter...

...SO HOW MANY MAC USERS USE 8-BIT?**

It does matter. If someone played an old game, such as Swoop or EV, it automatically sets your monitor to 256 colors, or 8-bit. Many of these games do not automatically set it back, and if you try to play EVN, it will use 8-bit. And the old games are just an exaple of a reason you might have it set to 8-bit. Thus, unless Aprosenf fixes that, you will indeed have to do it on a Mac.

Also, ALL CAPS don't get your point across. Caps can be handy for emphasising a word or two in a way that cannot be portrayed by bold or itallics , but if you do entire sentence in it, it's annoying. And the moderators hate it. Especially in message titles. Please refrain from doing this again. In this case, if you seriously think emphasis was necessary, which it wasn't, it would have been better to post it in itallics.

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url)

(This message has been edited by orcaloverbri9 (edited 12-13-2003).)

FunkMaster while I can't answer the question of how many mac users still use 8-bit graphics, I doubt that many do though anymore. I have to wonder just how well things like sheild bubbles would even work in that case. With the limits on the palette at 8-bit transperancies and such would become much more complex to handle well. You may want to look into that further and I hope that gives you a productive area to research.

I am making a plug on a PC and likely won't really care that much if folks with really old hardware can run it due to the extra work that would have to be done to make things backwards compatible to the old stuff. Especially when I am not going to be able to make it work or chack it on my machine. If I can't offer tech support on a feature directly then I see no reason to include the feature.

Just my silly two cents worth.

------------------
Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Tiresmoke:
**FunkMaster while I can't answer the question of how many mac users still use 8-bit graphics, I doubt that many do though anymore. I have to wonder just how well things like sheild bubbles would even work in that case. With the limits on the palette at 8-bit transperancies and such would become much more complex to handle well. You may want to look into that further and I hope that gives you a productive area to research.

I am making a plug on a PC and likely won't really care that much if folks with really old hardware can run it due to the extra work that would have to be done to make things backwards compatible to the old stuff. Especially when I am not going to be able to make it work or chack it on my machine. If I can't offer tech support on a feature directly then I see no reason to include the feature.

Just my silly two cents worth.**

Sorry, but not making it backwardly compatible is a terrible mistake. Unless you have rlë8 resources, anyone unfortunate enough to have their monitor set to 8-bit would have EVN suddenly crash on them at startup because it doesn't have an rlë8 resource to look for. If you seriously have no way of doing rlë8s, send the files to someone to compile the resource for you.

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url)

Nope. I will not really want to bother some other developer to do the work for me. I will certainly post a warning in the docs not to use it with a MAC set to 8 bit color mode. There does have to come a time though when people stop developing for 8 to 10 year old systems. The fact that RLE8 does not work with PC editing for this game is all the incentive I need to not support that old equipment. I am sure now that editing plugs on PC's is able to be done and this limitation is in effect that there will be other PC owners doing the same.

However when the plug is done and if a MAC owner wanted to take the time on their own to do the 8 bit resources then I won't stand in their way but personally I feel that it is a limited need item that someones hard work would likely be wasted to do so.

------------------
Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

The reason that EVNEW can't work with rle8 resources is because there is simply no pallette data. The rle8 format doesn't include a pallette with the resources, and all pixel values stored internally are just indexes. From what I've found, none of the resources in all of the Nova data files contain any pallette data either, at least not on Windows. With no pallettes, all it can do is change the pallette indexes into meaningless RGB. I don't know how the Mac utility EnRLE works, so unless the Sutherlands would like to enlighten me, it's not likely that EVNEW will support rle8s.

------------------
Get (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")EVNEW(/url) - the free, open-source plugin EVN Editor for Windows!

Quote

Originally posted by Tiresmoke:
**Nope. I will not really want to bother some other developer to do the work for me. I will certainly post a warning in the docs not to use it with a MAC set to 8 bit color mode. There does have to come a time though when people stop developing for 8 to 10 year old systems. The fact that RLE8 does not work with PC editing for this game is all the incentive I need to not support that old equipment. I am sure now that editing plugs on PC's is able to be done and this limitation is in effect that there will be other PC owners doing the same.

However when the plug is done and if a MAC owner wanted to take the time on their own to do the 8 bit resources then I won't stand in their way but personally I feel that it is a limited need item that someones hard work would likely be wasted to do so.**

Belive me, it's not that hard. I think you overestimate the amount of work it would take. In fact, I'll volunteer. If you ever finish it, send the files over to me and I'll do it for you. They can be 16-bit. I can always convert them to 8-bit.

Aprosenf: is it really that hard to get a pallette? Or am I acting stupid and not understanding the difficulty of creating/using pallettes?

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url)

I am getting 2 different answers on this:

Some people say that EVNEW can't handle rle8 shizzles, and some say that they can.

All I know is that I have some serious sprite problems with EVNEW. It is a b*tch to import sprites into EVNEW. I am trying to import a ship, but EVNEW just randomly changes the colors of my sprites, and in some cases, randomly changes sprites (though, I am not sure if that is an EVNEW problem, or because my computer is heavily diseased).

I have no idea why this happens.

------------------
ATTs Official Newb.
Dammit. (url="http://"mailto:lotsofblackflags@yahoo.com")mailto:lotsofblackflags@yahoo.com(/url)lotsofblackflags@yahoo.com

Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
Belive me, it's not that hard. I think you overestimate the amount of work it would take. In fact, I'll volunteer. If you ever finish it, send the files over to me and I'll do it for you. They can be 16-bit. I can always convert them to 8-bit.

Could I send you my plug too, when it's done? That way, I'll also get to test it on a Mac machine. I don't think that Windows developers should only develop for Windows. After all EVNOVA is a Mac game. For 9 years Windows users were begging for Escape Velocity to be made for Windows and now that it's done it's only fair to try and give something back.

Quote

Originally posted by lotsofblackflags:
Some people say that EVNEW can't handle rle8 shizzles, and some say that they can.

EVNEW can import rel8's. Only it stores them in greyscale and weird. This doesn't matter if you are using Windows but for EVNOVA to work on a Mac it MUST have rel8 resources , even if they are in greyscale and weird. Without them the game will not load correctly. This only imposes a problem if the Mac User has their display settings set to 8-bit. The game will still work, but the graphics will be horrible.

------------------

Quote

Originally posted by FunkMaster:
< snip>

Sure, you can send me your graphics. The reson most of us are here are to be helped and to help, and I'm here for both, whether the person on the other end uses Windows or not (Mazca ;)).

Oh, and this doesn't really matter, but why do people censor words that are allowed? If it's not allowed it'll be replaced with four stars, and people will catch your drift. It's annoying to read @ss and b*tch instead of ass and bitch. Meh.

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url)

(This message has been edited by orcaloverbri9 (edited 12-14-2003).)