Too big sprites?

ModKeen mods Tiles and Sprites in all episodes of Commander Keen.
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Grandy02
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Too big sprites?

Post by Grandy02 »

Is there a frontier how big the sprites can be? I made sprite-bmps with 324 x 160 pixels. After I brang them with Modkeen into my mod, the game didn't work.
KeenRush
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Post by KeenRush »

Whoaly garg!! IIRC if the size gets over 40 pixels it starts to cause problems already then. No wonder sprites wider than the screen didn't work. :) There is simply not enough memory I think. Not even nearly.
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levellord
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Post by levellord »

There are 2 problems with overlarge sprites; 1.) The game will run out of memory. This often occurs when you have a lot of only just too big sprites, and occurs in my Spleen birthday mod, where the overlarge boss can cause problems.

The other problem is when one sprite is mis-sized [say 17 pixels wide] or is very large. Then memory works, but the format of the graphics file in Keen is disrupted. The game doesn't know whats what and makes your sprites look like 'static boxes' This will occur if you use 2 fullscreen bitmaps in Keen2 [say the title screen and the APOGEE sign] Then all you can do is shrink one of your sprites to fit.
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Post by Stealthy71088 »

Back when I was working on Pyramid, I tried to turn the butler bot into a mummy, trying to create the sprite so that it got bigger as it went through its phases. However when i tested it, it was mean to me and slowly walked down a flight of floors that were not supposed to serve as stairs to uncertain doom. I know what caused it- messin around with da purdy pink boxes. Is there anyway to do this without making it so keen can jump through half the sprite, due to tiny purdy pink boxes?
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levellord
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Post by levellord »

In the purdy pink boxes there is a grey area. The sprite cannot affect [push, kill] Keen in this area. If you make a sprite with the same size pink boxes but larger and larger bits of grey, Keen can jump through more and more of the sprite. This works only for the grey being on the top or sides, varying amounts of grey on the bottom will make the sprite sink through the floor. Varying amounts of grey on the sides mean that sometimes a sprite can walk through 1 tile walls.
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grelphy
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Post by grelphy »

Since none of what LL wrote made any sense to me, I'm rewriting it. (Sorry, LL.)

The pink box is the clipping rectangle of whatever sprite you're editing. If you superimpose it over the graphics of the sprite, you can see exactly how far into (or over, or under, or whatever) the sprite Keen, his shots and floors and walls can go without actually hitting it.

Changing the size of the clipping rectangle from frame to frame of a sprite usually results in odd effects such a sprites falling through floors or walking through walls. If, for example, you have a sprite where the clipping rectangle moves up and down, the sprite itself stays at the same location. When the clipping rectangle moves up, the sprite starts falling; when it moves back down, it becomes embedded in the floor. Invisible stair one complete.

AFAIK, when you change the size of the actual graphic for the sprite, it expands in-game from the top right.
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levellord
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Post by levellord »

OK, what I was saying, was pretty much what grelphy was saying, except that sprites can walk through walls if you're not careful. And;

1.) All clipping rectangles should be the same size for a sprite

2.) The amount of grey on the bottom of therectangle should stay the same for the same sprite

3.) To make a sprite smaller and not hurt Keen, make the amount of grey on top of the rectangle larger.
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