Category : Miscellaneous Language Source Code
Archive   : STK100.ZIP
Filename : SPRED.DOC

**********************************************************************
This file is part of

STK -- The sprite toolkit -- version 1.0

Copyright (C) Jari Karjala 1990

The sprite toolkit (STK) is a FreeWare toolkit for creating high
resolution sprite graphics with PCompatible hardware. This toolkit
is provided as is without any warranty or such thing. See the file
COPYING for further information.

**********************************************************************



SPRED -- Sprite editor for the sprite toolkit -- version 1.0, Oct 20, 1990



Intro
-----

The sprite shape and mask bitmaps can be designed very easily
with the SPRED program. This program allows you to draw the
bitmaps of a sprite on screen by using a mouse, and manipulate
the bitmaps in various ways, for example invert, flip and
rotate. It is also possible to generate automatically the
mask bitmap from the shape bitmap.



Requirements & Starting SPRED
-----------------------------

The SPRED needs about 120 kBytes memory, a EGA/VGA/Hercules
graphics adapter, and a mouse with a Microsoft compatible mouse
driver.

The SPRED has the following commandline usage:

SPRED [-WxH] file[.ext] [...]

The file is the name(s) of the sprite map(s) file to edit,
default extension is SMP. If you have a file without any
extension, use a dot in the end of the name, eg foo. , to
prevent SPRED from inserting the SMP extension.

The optional parameter WxH defines the Width and the Height of
the sprite in pixels. If no WxH parameter were given, the size
of the sprite in the given file is used. The largest size
allowed is 120x80. In practice, anything larger than 80x64 is
too hard to draw with the SPRED. Fortunately, SPRED can read X
bitmaps and it is not hard to write converters for other bitmap
formats, either (see the file format description below).

The SPRED will now load the file (if it exists) and then draw
the main display.



How to use SPRED
----------------

The main display contains the shape and mask bitmaps of the
sprite in normal size, and the bitmap which you are editing (the
shape bitmap by default) is shown in fatbits mode. At the
bottom of the screen there are command buttons. Most commands
affect only to the bitmap shown in the fatbits display (the
active bitmap).

You can edit the bitmap in the fatbits display by the mouse. The
left button sets bit on, the right button sets it off, and the
middle button (or both buttons in two-button mouse) toggles the
state of the bit. If you click the normal size shape or mask
bitmap, the fatbits display will change to that bitmap.

The command buttons have the following functions (shortcut key
is given in brackets):


Clear Clear the active bitmap. [Alt-C]
Load Load the sprite maps from a file (merge it into
current map). Note, that the bitmap size cannot be
changed. [Alt-L]
Next Sprite Load the next sprite. [Alt-N]
Prev Sprite Load the previous sprite. [Alt-P]
Save Save the sprite maps into a file. [Alt-S]
Save & Exit Save the sprite maps and exit SPRED. [Alt-X]
Quit Quit with no questions asked. [Alt-Q]

Invert Invert the active map. [i]
Make fatter Change the background bits which have a
heighbour bit in foreground color into
foreground color. Try it, it is harder to
explain than use! [f]
Make thinner The above idea reversed. (Especially useful when
creating masks.) [t]
Overlay Overlay the inactive bitmap over the active map
in the fatbits display. Choose the shape or mask
bitmap to overwrite the overlay. [o]
Shape->Mask Copy shape bitmap to mask bitmap, invert it and
set the mask bitmap as active bitmap. [none]
Mask->Shape Copy mask bitmap to shape bitmap, invert it and
set the shape bitmap as active bitmap. [none]

Horiz Flip Flip the active bitmap horizontally. [h]
Vert Flip Flip the active bitmap vertically. [v]
Horiz Mirror Flip the active bitmap horizontally, OR over old image. [none]
Vert Mirror Flip the active bitmap vertically, OR over old image. [none]
Rotate 90deg Rotate the active bitmap 90 degrees
anticlockwise. [none]
Rotate Rotate the active bitmap given angle (in
degrees) anticlockwise. [r]

(The empty buttons are reserved for future expansion...)



The SPRED file format
---------------------

The sprite bitmap files are ASCII files, which are ready to be
#included into your programs. It is easy to write a program to
convert these into binary files which can be read at runtime, if
you do not want to include them into your executable code or
distribute the sprite maps in ASCII format.

The ASCII fileformat is quite similar to the X Window System
bitmap-file format, and the SPRED can read X bitmaps. The X
bitmaps, however, have a reversed bit order within bytes and
they do not have mask bitmaps. If you load an X bitmap and then
save it, the SPRED will convert the file into SMP format. The
SMP files have a string "/* SMP" in the beginning of the first
line. If this string is not found the file is assumed to be an X
bitmap.


**********************************************************************

If you have any comments, suggestions, bug reports (and fixes
since I gave you the source!), let me know. I would also like to
hear about the programs you create with the aid of the Sprite
Toolkit.

Jari Karjala
Veropellontie 11
00780 Helsinki
Finland

FUNET: [email protected]