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Author Topic:   Flippy files
Gengelbach
Knight

Posts: 55
From: Columbia, MO USA
Registered: Mar 2002

posted 25 May 2002 00:39     Click Here to See the Profile for Gengelbach   Click Here to Email Gengelbach        Reply w/Quote   
Okay, I'm trying to make a flippy file for an item that I added. I used CV5 to extract an existing flipfile, and then just edited it frame by frame to look like my new item. The bmps CV5 extracted were 64x310 pixels...when I tried to add these back into a DC6 with DC6maker3, it broke each one into 2 frames, one 64x256, one 64x54. So I took 54 blank pixels off the top of each frame.

Except that I forgot to switch my palettes back (later remedied) it looked beautiful in the game--until I noticed one li'l problem. Holding the mouse anywhere within what I presume is the 256 pixel region above the item highlights it. That is, holding the mouse over the transparent portion near the picture of the obj on the ground (which is the last frame of the flip file) would highlight it. Obviously this presents some problems.

So, anybody wanna help me with this problem? While you're at it, here are a few other oddities...
2) CV5 performs an illegal operation if I try to open the new DC6 that I created with DC6 maker
3) When opening the DC6 file with DC6 maker and using it to export the bmps, it comes up with a bunch of bmps with different resolutions from each other. When viewing with it, it's got offsets written in, that I presume have to do with the placement of these smaller bmps. By copying these offset values, I got something that almost appears to work...the error appears to be that it can't hold more than 3 characters, so when I need a negative value greater than 100...well, it doesn't work. Anybody know of any newer versions of DC6 maker, or older versions that work better?


Thanks in advance to anybody that can help.

[This message has been edited by Gengelbach (edited 25 May 2002).]

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PhrozenHeart
Forum Admin.

Posts: 557
From: Central IL
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 25 May 2002 13:40     Click Here to See the Profile for PhrozenHeart   Click Here to Email PhrozenHeart        Reply w/Quote   Visit PhrozenHeart's Homepage!
Moving this to graphics/animations

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"Seems like in death, we all become our perfect self..."

My next mod - 0% done :)

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Gengelbach
Knight

Posts: 55
From: Columbia, MO USA
Registered: Mar 2002

posted 25 May 2002 20:32     Click Here to See the Profile for Gengelbach   Click Here to Email Gengelbach        Reply w/Quote   
For the mutual enrichment of anybody reading this...

Although you can't put offsets greater than -99 into the editor, there are ways around it. I actually succeeded in making a flippy using the pictures with the height of 256 pixels, with one exception--I reduced the final picture to one without all the excess blank space. The others are so brief the extra blank space they take up won't mean anything, plus you can't pick up an item while it's still in the air.

If you're anal about file size, you could use small pictures with offsets up to the point where you need offsets more than -99, and then use a -99 offset plus some blank space at the bottom of the bmp. You could also reduce blank space to the left/right of your item and use offsets to get horizontal positioning correct.

It's a good amount of work to convert these though...if you only have a few home-made flippy files then I reccomend you don't bother, the file sizes aren't enough to be terrifically concerned about (plus I hypothesize that winzip should compress the blank spaces rather well, reducing it to essentially the same compressed size). If you're going to make a lot of flippyfiles...well, I don't know. I reccomend you get a good method for making them, so that you can make them small without too much extra work. You won't really need the extra file space unless you have a lot of flippies, but the more you have, the more time it will take to compress them all...annoying paradox.

Oh, and just for your info, my animation was 17 frames, about 17-20k with small pictures, ~220k with large pictures, and it took me about an hour to convert the entire set from large ones to small ones. It's difficult to truncate the resolution of a bmp and tell the program you want to take part of the truncation off the top, and part off the bottom...that's the real difficulty.

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Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. -Terry Pratchett, I think...

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Paul Siramy
WarLord

Posts: 186
From: Gannat, France
Registered: Mar 2002

posted 26 May 2002 02:16     Click Here to See the Profile for Paul Siramy   Click Here to Email Paul Siramy        Reply w/Quote   Visit Paul Siramy's Homepage!
I didn't answer yesterday, because I never play with flippy files, only with character select screen animations, so your problems was not really clear to me. But I can add some little infos, now that you have light the way.

DC6 format can't handle a bitmap larger than 256*256 pixels, but can have many of them. So in the case of title screen (800*600), the frames that we see are in fact sub-part of the final bitmap. In the case of animation (flippy files, or when in the characters select screen) each frame can't excess too 256*256, but the offsets are here so we can make a objet moving in an area wider than 256*256, despite the object itself can't excess 256*256.

BTW, the offsets are relative to the BOTTOM-left corner (at least for the char select screen anims, for flippy I don't know). Usefull to know when you try to place the "skill" dc6 over the "body" dc6 of a char anim.

About the blank in the bitmap : dc6 are rle compressed, that means that 256 blank pixels are coded in just 1 byte, so multiple blank lines won't really count in the final size of the file.

Now, where I'm confused is when you say your original flippy was wider than 256*256, because I can't see how a dc6 can have animated frames wider than 256*256. I'm almost sure in fact that this is the area onto each frame appears which is of this size, but each frame IS less than 256*256. I'm sure cv5 produce an easy-to-view animation : it check the greater "box" it needs, then extract each frame, using the offsets to paste the frame at the good place. So I think your first mistake was trying to make animations with frames wider than 256*256 (ok that's exactly what you're saying in your precedent post, but I didn't see it yesterday).

It's easy to make a program that can make dc6 with such big animations. As long as the tiniest "box" of a frame don't excess 256*256 pixels, the animation can be made with the help of offsets.

And at last : in the file, offsets are 4 bytes size, that means they can range from -2147483648 to 2147483647. Now, what size are they in the memory of D2, after it have loading them, is another question, it need some tests.

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DT1 Tools Viewer, extractor, maker, dumper
modified DC6CON Remove 800*600 limit, up to 1024 frames
DS1 pcx maker Big pcx preview of a ds1
DS1 Editor WYSIWYG editor, in progress
D2 palettes for psp d2-act0.pal help making dc6 items
D2 char selection anims Made by my own prog
MPQ list file As complete as I could

[This message has been edited by Paul Siramy (edited 26 May 2002).]

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