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I don't know where you got the idea that rle8s store the sprite masks but this is incorrect. Just ignore the rle8s, they're not important. To add a mask to your sprite, assuming you already have some sort of mask from the same place you got the original sprite from, you'll need to spin it with SpinApp again to get the 6x6 grid and then open the rleD for your sprite in EVNEW and choose import. Select the mask radio button and find your mask image. This will be imported into the same rleD as rleDs contain both the sprite and the mask in the same resource.

I see. Thank you.

Just for clarification, Rle8s are used on Macintoshes running at a 8 bit color depth. (256 colors) EVNEW displays Rle8s incorrectly, however, and makes them look gray scale. I guess this could be confused for a mask.

Just ran across this topic, quick question. (I'm on Mac OS X) whats an efficiant way to make masks for the sprites? The way I did it in Photoshop CS took a while, not really worth explaining what I did.

How have you made your sprites? If you used a 3D program you can get it to create output with alpha masks and from there it's just a matter of selecting all of the pure white of the alpha mask and then inverting it. Otherwise, if your ship is rendered on a black background you can just use the magic wand to select all the black around it, which won't be as nice as what you might have got from an alpha mask but should be good enough.

This post has been edited by Guy : 05 March 2007 - 06:07 PM

I prefer to use the alpha channel that modeling programs make. Although sometimes it's too small and I have to shrink it in GIMP.

This post has been edited by JacaByte : 05 March 2007 - 05:22 PM

Heh, well, the thing is, I'm not using a 3D modeling program. I'd prefer it, but I have no skills modeling whatsoever. (this is my first attempt at making my own custom ship) I simply took a top-down picture of what I want the ship to be. I then edited out the background, making it black, re-sized the image, and then made the 'ship' white for the mask. What I'm asking is if there is an efficiant way to make a mask of an image in Photoshop.
Thanks for the feedback

EDIT: Oh wow, jsut saw that. I was doing the exact opposite, jeez. I was using the magic wand on the 'ship.' Heh, silly me :rolleyes:

This post has been edited by (SW) Spartan 327 : 05 March 2007 - 05:34 PM

I just happened to notice this thread, and I have a couple of n00b questions. What exactly are the masks, and also, how do you get transparacy to work in GIMP?

Wouldn't have a clue on the GIMP, but the masks are used for collision detection, and possibly also for determing if a ship is transparent or not. What they are are the ship's images, but with white wherever the ship "is", and black where it isn't.

@--kaoz--, on Mar 21 2007, 08:21 PM, said in Making New Ships:

I just happened to notice this thread, and I have a couple of n00b questions. What exactly are the masks, and also, how do you get transparacy to work in GIMP?

What do you mean? The gray and black checkered boxes are transparencies. And if you right click on a layer and select "Create a mask" it'll make black and white "layer" (technically it isn't a layer) where white is no transparency, black is full transparency, and the shades of gray are transparencies varying depending on how light or how dark they are. You'll just have to try it to see what I mean.

A note on making masks: What I used to do when I was modeling ships in Infini-D was I would make a duplicate of the file that I made the spin from, then change the texture on the ship to flat white with 100% glow and render out the spin again. I'm pretty sure you can do that in 3D Studio Max (what I use now) as well, but I haven't made any ships in a while. I think you can do that with other 3D apps as well. It gives a nice smooth edge to the mask and is very quick.

=Divals