"Imager" Sprites

[Justintime9]

yeah, as far as I know I followed the directions perfectly.

Edit: Ok, I decided to go through the process again to be sure I followed the tutorial correctly.
First I created a plane in a new blendfile. I then added a material, and gave it the exact color that the material in the tutorial had. From that point on, I followed the "Easy Sprite Texture" section of the tutorial EXACTLY, step by step. I did nothing more and nothing less than what was written there. Here's what the preview in the material buttons looked like when I was finished:

[Shoggoth]

I can confirm this in Blender 2.48a. Just tried it out myself. What version of Blender was the tutorial written for? Is it possible that some of the default settings are different now?

EDIT: Go to the "Mirror Trans" tab and click "Ray Transp." Seems to work.

[D'Lanor]

Never mind Bender's preview. The question is... did it export correctly?

But I'll give you the instructions to get a similar preview. In "Map Input" if Orco still is selected, hit the UV button (this should be standard procedure actually). And to get the same preview look in Blender you need to press the ZTransp button (yes, Ray Transp does it too), but whether you need that in Uru depends on the relation of your sprite to other transparent objects in your age.

[Justintime9]

that was it. I checked "Ztransp" and "UV" and after exporting it looks fine. Someone should add that to the wiki .

[GPNMilano]

For the record, sprites can now also be done using alcscript. The correct script for this sprite being:

Code: Select all

ObjectName:
    sprite:
        flags:
          - facecam
          - pivotY
          - maxbounds
        scale: 1,1,1
        offset: 0,0,0

[boblishman]

For the record, sprites can now also be done using alcscript. The correct script for this sprite being:

which sprite ? ... (there are 2 in this thread) ... is this for the original sprite at the begining of the thread .... or the "simple lamp flare" discussed later on ?

[D'Lanor]

If I read the PyPRP 1.6.0 source code well that should be:

Code: Select all

ObjectName:
    visual:
        sprite:
            flags:
              - facecam
              - pivotY
              - maxbounds

And scale cannot be set. It always defaults to the values Chloe gives. Maybe she speaks of her own contrib?

As for what those flags do... the source code doesn't give any clues. Sorry. Perhaps someone who knows can add this to the wiki?

[GPNMilano]

For the record, sprites can now also be done using alcscript. The correct script for this sprite being:

which sprite ? ... (there are 2 in this thread) ... is this for the original sprite at the begining of the thread .... or the "simple lamp flare" discusses later on ?

I was referring to the sprite in the topic name, as that is the topic at hand. The imager sprite's like those scene in the pubs. For the simple lamp flare sprite the alcscript would be:

Code: Select all

ObjectName:
    visual:
        sprite:
            flags:
              - facecam
              - pivotface
             

Alternatively, Cyan also used the maxbounds flag on a few normal sprites. I don't see a discernible visual difference when using it though on a normal sprite.

The "Imager" type of sprite is known as a billboard. And this covers a wide range of sprites not just Imager types. While a "Sprite" in itself is a general term for any sprite that doesn't fall into the above category of Billboards. Another Oddity of the Cyan naming convention when naming the plasma objects exported by their plugin. If you look at places like Bevin and the City you'll find that the two types of sprites are seperated by different names. Billboards and Sprite and then a number after each that coincides with whatever number was given to that particular sprite.

The flags for sprites, that can be set in alcscript are :

Code: Select all

pivotface   
pivotfavory 
pivoty
pivottumble
scale
facecam
facelist
faceplay
faceobj
offset
offsetlocal
maxbounds


The majority of these flags are never used in even Cyan ages. The most heavily used are facecam, pivoty, pivotface, pivotfavory and maxbounds.

Following is my own speculation and interpretation of how the flags work:
The face flags probably deal with the how the sprite faces something, in all cases it faces the camera (at least in cyan ages), so we use the "facecam" flag. The pivot flags dealing with how the sprite pivots as it moves with the camera. pivotface is that it pivots along the object center of the sprite, always facing the camera if that flag is set. pivoty meaning that it pivots along the y axis specifically. pivotfavory is that it pivots similar to a pivotface, but it usually favors the y axis. As for the rest: absolutely no clue.