AMOS Sprite X V1.32 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Introduction ------------ This editor is designed for drawing AMOS Bobs, Sprites and Icons & Sprites. All the functions in this editor refer to sprites, bobs and icons. The only difference in AMOS being in the way the bitplanes are stored, and that sprites are only up to 16 colours. So all references in this document are to images rather than sprites/bobs/icons. Sprite X is almost completely icon driven, except for some keyboard controls for advanced functions. Any images designed in Sprite X are stored in a bank, ready to use a BOBs by AMOS. To use them as Icons, use the SWAP button on the top line of icons, to swap them into the icon bank, and then hit the SAVE as ICONS button. Controls -------- The Icons are split into 6 rows of icons in the icon window (the top half of the screen) and the edit window has 2 edit boxes. The zoomed view of the sprite in the left edit box, and the actual image in the right box. To the right of these boxes is the colour palette. Drawing ------- To draw an image simply use the mouse to draw in the zoomed edit box with either the left or right mouse buttons. To change colours, click with either the left or right mouse button on the palette. This system enables you to have 2 colours to draw with at the same time. If you draw with both buttons held down, the colour drawn will randomise between the 2 colours. Drawing Icons (3rd and 4th rows down) ------------------------------------- Plot Draws single points at the mouse position. Draw As plot, but while the button is held down the points are connected. Line Use the left button to select the start point, drag the line to the required length/angle and then the line is used as a brush. Airbrush The airbrush randomly places points around the cursor. When selected, click the left button and drag to size. The airbrush flow rate is set in the NICENESS option page. Box As with Line, use the left button to drag the box to size, and then it is used as a brush. Bar Filled box (see box). Ellipse See Box Text Allows you to use the currently defined font to add text to a sprite. Use the keyboard to enter text, Backspace is used to change it. Fill Fills in shapes. If the left button is pressed, it fills in until it reaches a different colour (a normal flood fill). If the right button is pressed, it fills until it reaches the same colour as you are filling with (or the edge of the sprite). The Bar and Fill functions use the currently defined fill patterns. With Box,Bar,Ellipse,Line,Text and Airbrush, clicking the right button allows you to resize the brush. Cut/Paste --------- The 2 icons to the top left of the screen allow you to cut out an area from the zoomed sprite, and then paste it elsewhere in the sprite. When Cut is selected, click on the zoomed area and drag the cut area to size. The program will then use this cut area as a brush. Clicking on Paste will allow you to go back to using this brush while you are in the editor. The next icon to the right lets you set the transparency of the brush. When transparent, all areas of the brush in colour zero will become transparent. The next batch of icons allow you to change the handle of the brush. Hot-Spot -------- Below the Cut/Paste icons are the hot spot controls. In Amos the hot spot is used when calculating where on the screen the sprite is to be placed. If the hot spot is at the centre of the sprite and the sprite is placed at co-ordinates 23,40, then the centre of the sprite will be at 23,40. The first 7 hot spot icons place it in preset positions (TL,TM,TR,BL,BM,BR,Centre), the 8th one allows you to position the hot spot anywhere on the sprite. Whenever the cursor is over the hot spot icons, or when you are in hot spot place mode, the current hot spot will be hilighted. Image Sizing ------------- To the top right of the screen are 4 icons which allow you to change the format of the sprite. The first, with the inscription "See as Sprite" shows you the image, as it would be displayed by the SPRITE command. (Sprites are faster, but limited to 16 colours and have other screen limitations. See the AMOS newsletter for details). The other 3 icons are: Scrunch The image is moved as far to the top left of the sprite as it will go. Optimise Does a scrunch, and then shrinks the sprite size to the minimum required for the image (saves memory). Re-Size Brings up a cursor pad, which then allows you to change the size of the sprite. Click with the right button to get out of this mode. The size of the sprite can also be changed by clicking on the display area with the left mouse button then press the right button when the sprite is the required size. Note: If a sprite is within 32 pixels size in both dimensions, it will be displayed in full at x4 magnification. Above this size, a window of 32x32 pixels will be displayed at x4. The displayed area can be changed with the cursor keys. The area you are editing is shown by the two marker bars on the sprite display area. Other Editing functions ----------------------- To the right of the draw icons are several usefull functions for changing the image: The Flip and rotate functions will automatically move the hotspot, so that it is effectively on the same spot. CLR Clears the image to the current fill pattern/colours. H/V Flip Flips the image over horizontally or vertically. Rotate There are 2 (smaller) buttons for rotate. The first (showing an arrow turning 90 degrees, will rotate the image around 90 degrees clockwise. The second activates the Rotator window, which allows you to rotate an image any number of times, through any angle (down to a 10th of a degree accuracy). The rotator has 3 options. The Number of rotations, the angle to rotate, and the IN 360 button. If you set the number of rotations you want, and then click on the IN 360 button, the Rotator will automatically calculate the angle required to rotate the image the correct number of rotations in 360 degrees. Clicking on O.K will start the Rotator going. The images will be calculated and put into the bank automatically. Scroll Allows you to scroll the image around within the edit window (right button exits) Zoom Lets you reduce or enlarge the image. In this mode, clicking on the display box with the left button re-sizes the image. Clicking with the right button fixes it at this size. Select any other drawing mode to finish REZ Enables you to change the screen resolution and number of colours to work in. The editor currently supports these resolution/colour sets: Low Rez: 4,8,16,32 & 64(EHB) modes Hi Rez : 4,8 & 16 Modes Putting Images into the bank ----------------------------- The series of icons at the bottom of the screen let you move sprites to and from the sprite bank. To the left of these is the RGB button, which allows you to change the values of the colours being used. After the RGB button, the grabber icons go in this order: Insert Sprite Creates a space and then puts the sprite into the bank Put Sprite Puts the current image directly into the sprite bank, overwriting the sprite that was there previously Get Sprite Gets a sprite from the bank and lets you edit it Delete Sprite Removes a sprite from the sprite bank (No Undo!) Erase Bank Deletes ALL of the sprites in the bank (No Undo!) To view the images in the bank, there are 5 icons on the bottom right of the icon window. There are 4 arrow buttons to allow you to move between the images, and an icon with the current image number in it. While the cursor is over any of these icons, holding the right mouse button down will display the current image in the display window. It will not overwrite the image you are editing. To go to view mode, click on the numbered icon. This will enable you to see 3 images at once. To exit this mode simply move the cursor off the bottom of the icon area. Disk and Special functions (The top row) ---------------------------------------- Going from the left, the icons are: LOAD SPRITE/ICON bank. Loads in a sprite/bob bank (bank 1) or an icon bank (bank 2) replacing the current bank. SAVE SPRITE bank. Saves the current sprite/bob bank (bank 1) to disk. APPEND SPRITE/ICON bank. Loads in a sprite/bob or icon bank and adds it to the end of the current one. GRABBER X This takes you to the new Grabber X image grabber menu. SWAP This swaps banks 1 (Bobs/Sprites) and 2 (Icons) over, so that you can edit icons. SAVE ICONS This saves Bank 2 (Icons) to disk. SPRITE/BOB colour toggle If you are working in 16 colours or less, this will exchange the top and bottom set of 16 colours, so that you can work on a sprite using the correct colours. ANIM X This calls up the new Animator X animation tester menu. GRABBER X --------- Grabber X is a development of the original Sprite Grabber, first supplied as a seperate program, and then included in Sprite X V1.0. Grabber X has had a few modifications, and now has an extra function (Line Grab). For those of you who haven`t use the sprite grabber before, Grabber X is for grabbing images from IFF or AMOS packed (.abk) pictures to be used as bobs or icons. This is done by loading in the picture, clicking on the scissors (cut) button, and then marking the area to cut. For most images, it is best to mark an area in excess of the area you want, and then optimise it in the main menu. For some images (ones too big to be edited for instance), you can use the arrow keys to fine tune the grabbing area. If you press the up/down arrow keys, you can control the icon bar up and down the screen (so that you can view and grab different areas). Clicking on the Cut icon will grab a single image and store it in the sprite bank at the current location (changed by the arrow buttons). Clicking on the Cut Line icon will allow you to grab a whole row of images in one go. This is especially useful when using Sprite X in conjunction with CTEXT, as you can grab most of an alphabet on one line ! The only rule with this function is that the images must have at least a one pixel gap between them. You simply move the box over the area you want to grab and Grabber X will grab the whole area and split it horizontally into seperate images. ANIM X ------ The ANIM X animation tester is designed to enable you to test out your bobs to make sure that they will animate correctly. Basically, you can animate up to 16 bobs over 51 frames. To use ANIM X, you control the Frame Number, Bob Number and Image number for each bob with the 3 controllers at the top of the screen. The Button at the bottom left, allows you to load in a background screen to animate the bobs over, and there are 4 more control buttons: Wipe: Clears all the animation, so you can restart. INS: Inserts a gap in the animation, so that you can insert a frame. ---> <--- (Ping Pong): Plays the animation to the last frame, and then plays it backwards to the first. ---> (Play) : Plays the animation to the last frame, and then jumps back to the first Clicking on either the Ping Pong or Play buttons will also stop the animation. As with Grabber X, the control bar can be moved up and down with the cursor keys. Other Icons ----------- UNDO Undoes the last bit of drawing/zooming/rotating/flipping etc. QUIT Exits the program. NICENESS Allows you to change the border colours of the edit window, and "ping" sound and volume when you click on an icon. The niceness box also lets you change the airbrush flow speed and set the Autoscrunch mode, which automatically optimises any image as soon as you get it from a bank. Keyboard Shortcuts ------------------ As with the STOS sprite editor, the AMOS sprite editor uses the cursor keys to store images in the bank. By pressing the cursor keys with the shift key held down, you can do the following: Shift Up Store the image in the current location in the bank (The same as the PUT button) Shift Down Get the current image from the bank (As the GET button). Shift Left Store the image in the current location, then get the previous image from the bank. Shift Right Store the image in the current location, then get the next image from the bank. The function keys give you fast access to the next 10 images in the bank. They are offset from the image you are working on. So if the image pointer was at image 5 in the bank, F1 would access image 5, F2 image 6 etc. to F10 which would access image 14. To store an image in the bank, press shift and a function key. To retrieve it press the function key on its own. This makes it easier to work on an animation sequence. Advanced features ----------------- There are other keypresses for advanced features. These are: Key Effect "L" Load a Bob/Icon Bank (same as the button) "S" Save the Bob/Sprite Bank (as the button) "A" Append a Bob/Icon bank to the end of the current one "M" Make a list of all the sprite banks in the current directory. Once this is done, any time you select load, the next sprite bank name will already be selected, so that you don`t have to wait for the file selector to finish listing the disk. "I" Makes a list of all the Icon banks in the current directory. Works the same way as above. "Z" Optimise everything ! This goes through the entire bank, and optimises all the images in it. "X" Switches auto scrunch mode on/off. "C" Goes through the bank and exchanges all occurences of the Left colour to the Right colour. Credits ------- Programming: Aaron Fothergill Graphics : Adam Fothergill Fast Zoom routine by Francois Lionett Copyright Notice ---------------- SpriteX is a modified version of the AMOS Sprite Editor. All the modifications are (c) Shadow Software 1991 and the AMOS Sprite Editor is (c) Mandarin/Jawx 1990. This disk is provided as Licenseware and must not be copied in any form. If the disk did not have the official Deja Vu Licensed Software label on it when you purchased it, you have been duped into buying illegal pirated software. If so, contact Deja Vu Software on 0942 495261. You can of course make a backup of the disk (and move the files onto your work disks) as long as you do not distribute any copies of the disk or the files to anyone else.