Suggestion: Centering/alignment of sprite in sprite editor

[GarageGothic]

Maybe this has been discussed before, but I didn't see it in the suggestions list:

Yesterday I was playing around with one of the Scumm game ripping tools, looking at all the MI2 and IFOA sprites, and I noticed how each animation frame was cropped closely around the actual sprite area. And each frame was relative to a set of coordinates instead of being centered or aligned to a corner. That seems SO much easier, not to mention more efficient, than having a huge blank area around each animation frame, in case another frame in the sequence should need that space. In other words, why center the character in the artwork instead of doing it when importing?

If you're familiar with the editart program for Duke3d and the other Build engine games, I think that's an example of a good interface for such a fuction. It also allows you to check animations within the editor, which of course would be necessary for correct positioning.

[scotch]

CJ has probably thought about it, but you can usually crop animations quite tightly and still make them centered,  and having a large area of one colour such as the tranparent colour means it will compress very well and probably not make a lerge difference to the file size.

Personally I think having to specify coordinates would just be extra hassle for little gain, unless it was really simple and straightforward to do in the editor..

Although if character sprites did have this then I guess we'd be one step closer to being able to have a seperate head and body sprite like many classic adventure games had for talking and walking at the same time among other things.

[Pumaman]

A similar thing was actually suggested recently - placing an X 'axis' spot on frames in a view, in order to centre the graphics wherever you want.

A partial solution is the SetCharacterViewEx in the latest beta, which allows you to align sprites to their left/right side instead of centre should you so wish, but I appreciate this is not a complete solution.

I shall continue to look into it.

If you're familiar with the editart program for Duke3d and the other Build engine games, I think that's an example of a good interface for such a fuction.

Hehe aw man, Duke was such a classic game. I don't actually remember Build having this feature, but I'll take your word for it

[Crash]

The Click & Play type game creators do this nicely, with the choice between a crosshair that you drag wherever you want the hotspot to be or entering the co-ordinates.

It could be done like the inventory hotspots, defaulting to the bottom centre and you can change it only if you need to.

[GarageGothic]

I don't actually remember Build having this feature, but I'll take your word for it

CJ, it wasn't in the Build editor itself, it was a function of the editart.exe program which you used to add/change textures and sprites for the game.

I will try to explain how it worked: There was a cross in the middle of the screen. By default, the sprite was centered to this cross. However, by using the arrow keys, the sprite would move up and down and sideways, while the cross stayed put. So you could actually center the sprite at a coordinate which was actually far outside the sprite itself (great for stuff being thrown etc., MI2 uses it all the time). The Scumm costume ripper (don't remember the name) has a similar interface, but just for viewing I think, not for editing anything.

Edit: A good example, although not the best since the centering coordinate is still within the sprite area itself (but off-center in horizontal as well as vertical direction) would be a character swinging on a rope (or a whip if you're doing an Indy game )

but you can usually crop animations quite tightly and still make them centered,  and having a large area of one colour such as the tranparent colour means it will compress very well and probably not make a lerge difference to the file size.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't large areas cause slowdowns (at walkbehinds and such), even if they're transparent?

Although if character sprites did have this then I guess we'd be one step closer to being able to have a seperate head and body sprite like many classic adventure games had for talking and walking at the same time among other things.

That WOULD be sweet. Although this probably would mean a total recoding of the "follow" fuction (or a similar function for the head to stay on the body). It would probably make it much easier to do transparent ground shadows for the characters as well.

[scotch]

No, you're probably right, although the transparent areas don't involve actually drawing anything they probably do slow it down still..
I just thought that the effort of it all for the speed gain probably wouldn't be worth it, but I can see it bringing in other possibilities so I like the idea