Makespr.exe

[Immortal Wombat]

[stankarp]

The mystery deepens.

I ran gu20.txt (renamed to 02) and it created a spr which i put in the game and it crashed as soons as I tried to move it or attack with it? exactly as described in above posts.

I changed frame number to 0 in the movement sequence and it ran but again the game crashed when I used the unit.

I tried changing another number for frames from 1 to 0 in attack sequence and makespr does not work, coming up with line 35 error described above.

I cant work out why this is happening.

In summary,
1) i can make a working sprite with either cow.txt or gu0002.txt which does not crash the game (but these sprites do not have full movement or attack sequences).
2) I can run makespr with gu20.txt as is or changing only 1 number, ie, frame number for movement from 1 to 0, but the completed sprite crashes the game.
3) if I change any more numbers at all in gu02.txt, makespr comes up with the line 35 error.

HELP PLEASE

I have attached the frames in a zip file. As far as I know wirtually all of them have been used in one or other sprites without a problem. EG all the death ones ran in cow.txt as did the movement ones. The first 4 attack frames ran in gu0002.txt.

[stankarp]

Sorry, zip file attached.

[stankarp]

Dont know what happened, I have uploaded it twice and its not there.

Can the moderator attack please, file spear.zip or spear1.zip?

[Martin GĂĽhmann]

All the animations should start with the frame number zero otherwise the game searches for taht frame and rashes if it does not find it. For attachments: Here on Apolyton is a limit of file size for attachments of 500000 bytes alternativly you can use the 'Poly upload service. For attachments you should make sure that you really attached them.

-Martin

[Immortal Wombat]

ok, I got your email with the attached frames, double-checked the script file, am now running a bug-free script. I commented out the victory shadow files that you included in the zip, and tried to make a shadow-free sprite (perfectly possible) rather than a semi-shadowed sprite (questionable) and yes, something in either the death or attack animations crashes the game.

Which is odd, because usually a game-crashing type error will mean the sprite should fail to compile in the first place.

I also substituted a copy of GU02VA5.9 in for 5.8 which was looking a bit weird. That doesn't appear to be the problem, the game crashes regardless.

What I did notice was odd is that the sprite compiler has only 10 dots following the Victory[] line, when the script dictates it should have 10*5 = 50 dots (=50 frames)

Oh hold on. Real-time posting here. Martin, didn't you find that sprites didn't like having the alpha channel touching the edge of the image?
If so, your problem is with GU02VA4.10.tif

edit: no, that doesn't solve it either.

Have you tried it with shadows?

[stankarp]

I noticed that the compiler did not make all the death animations, only 1 sequence.

I am using a sprite in my game made with the cow.txt which as movement and death animations but no attack animation. I tried to cut and paste an attack sequence but it wont work. The compiler works but the unit crashes the game.

The shadow files are in the folder but I dont know how the compiler uses them but the finished sprite has a shadow under it.

I know the first 4 frames of the attack animation are ok because I used IW's gu0002.txt posted above and made a sprite that does not crash the game. It used 1 movement and 4 attack/death frames.

How about trying to copy and paste an attack sequence into the cow sprite?

I was beginning to think that my computer was corrupted or the notepad was not working properly. But I used it last night to cut and paste .txt files to add advances and buildings to the game and they work fine.

[Immortal Wombat]

So somewhere in the latter half of the attack animation is the problem?
I'll have a look tonight and see if I can figure it out.

[stankarp]

Thanks IW,

I made a Phalanx over the last two days, and had trouble with a VA frame and eventually, I cut it out and renumbered another one and it ran.

I noticed I need to be more precise about the placement of the figure in the screen because it doesnt sit so well in the square, but I am learning from experience. I sharpened each frame once and that made a big difference to the brightness of the unit.

What about just reusing the first 4 frames of the attack animation a few times and see if that helps although when I MOVE the unit it also crashes the game.

If you can sort it out I can churn out a few sprites for everyone quickly including brushing up the heavy spearman.

Thanks again to everyone for their help. I am sure we are almost there

[stankarp]

Like IW, I assumed that if a .tiff frame went through the makespr utility it must be OK. However, I was thinking that there are only two common things that related to the problem of the game crashing with the completed spr file, one was the altered text file and the second was the attack animation frames. Seeing that the attack frames went through the utility, it followed that the problem was in the text file.

I was thinking and decided to try something. I knew the movement animations worked so I moved all the attack animations, copied the movement animations, renamed them as attack animations and put them back in the folder and ran the utility. Hey presto, the sprite was made , I put it in the game and it worked, although the spearman just charges the enemy, not thrust his spear. Nevermind, now I know I need to check all the animation frames. Obviously, there is an error after frame 4 of the attack sequence 4 that manages to go through the utility but then crashes the game.

Thank god I eventually found it. I was beginning to go bonkers. Should have 3 new sprites available within the next week. Heavy Spearman, Phalanx and war chariot.

Thanks for everyones help.

[Immortal Wombat]

yay!

[stankarp]

The problem turned out to be GU02AA2.5.tif, after all that.

The following lessons have been learned about making sprites.
1) Most importantly, dont assume a frame is OK if it goes through the makespr utility. i have now had at least 3 instances where a frame crashed the game after makepsr had created a sprite.

2) I think the best thing to do is to have a set of frames from one sprite known to be working, then as you make each new frame, save it as the appropriate one in the existing folder of working frames. This also saves time in typing out the numbers. Every 10 frames or so, run the utility and make a sprite and run it in a game to make sure. That way you can quickly narrow down the problem if the game crashes. Dont assume that when checking a frame, that it is ok, I did that many times and it appears that some .flic frames just dont seem to convert properly. I cannot think of any other explanation.

3) the picture should be about 85-90% of the height of the frame, ie, 85-95 % of 72 pixels, mainly to the top of the frame, ie have a gap at the bottom of at least 6-7 pixels. this will sit much better on the game screen, not appear to be down a bit in the next square.

4) The picture should be as close to centre as possible, except for movement animation no 5. For some unknown reason this always set to the left for me and with experience, I now have this frame with the picture sitting to the right as far as practicable, if not for the movement frames, for frame no 0 which is the one used as the idle frame.

I have attackhed (I hope) zip file, Hvy Spearman which includes the necessary TGA files.

Special thanks to Immortal Wombat for making it possible.

[stankarp]

PLEASE NOTE.

FURTHER TESTING INDICATED A PORBLEM WITH THE SPEARMAN SPRITE SO I HAVE REMOVED IT FROM POST.

It will be posted again when full testing is complete.

There was a problem with a frame that led to an opaque flash when executing an on screen special attack in direction number 5. Have fixed now but will post theis sprite and 2 more shortly, both undergoing final testing.

[The Big Mc]

stankarp

I few hints on making spr file in psp

One if you are assigning a mask to more then one image the

Ctrl y command will automatically assign a mask to every picture you clicked on ones the first mask is done with

Second
Use

Ctrl z

To undo your last action useful after a mask has been saved to the alpha channel to instantly get the black background back.