"Imager" Sprites

[Justintime9]

I've been using sprites for a bit now, but only the little circular lamp flares. Recently I decided I wanted one of those flares that make it look like light is shining straight down (or up, like the ones in Bevin under the clock). I found the image cyan used, and took a look back at this tutorial: http://www.guildofwriters.com/wiki/Making_Sprites.

The problem is, this kind of sprite is a bit different than the easier lamp flares that always face the camera. It has to face the camera at all time, but rotate on the X-axis so that the top of it is always at the lamp that's creating the glare. Looking at the list of sprite types, I decided that "Imager" seemed the right kind. When I originally created it, I made the normals side face down like a regular lamp flare, but that didn't seem to work when exported.

Then I rotated it so that the normals are on the X-axis. Now when exported, it looks great from certain angles, and rotates to face the camera, until I get to the opposite side of it, then it completely disappears. Since this is my first time using this type of sprite, I may have made a mistake somewhere. Anyone know what I did wrong, or what might fix this?

Here's how they look when faced from the right side:

[diafero]

Did you have a look at the sprite gallery age? As far as I remember, the .blend file for it is available for download somewhere.

[Justintime9]

ah, that might help. Any idea where I might find it?

[ddb174]

It was released at some point, as the author (tikibear) intended for people to learn from it. I've re-uploaded it here: http://www.the-deep-island.de/uru-ages/sources/scSpriteGallery--2009Feb4.blend I hope you find it useful!

(Edit: fixed url.)

[Justintime9]

Awesome, that helped alot. My problem was that I didn't make it twosided, and put "00000004" instead of "00000824". My only question now, is how does one figure out the right number for their sprite? I initially chose "00000004" becase it was said to be the Imager sprite type, but that still had problems. "00000824" doesn't appear on the list in the tutorial. Is there some way of determining EXACTLY what number would be best for your sprite?

btw, someone should put that blendfile in the wiki tutorial, as it's a great example of how to get sprites working.

[Shoggoth]

The flags are additive. 00000800 and 00000020 are both necessary according to the wiki, so you put both of them: 00000820. The last digit determines the mode.

[Justintime9]

ah, so that flag is:

Object has Bounding Box associated

Needs to be on ALWAYS if off, the VFM won't work

Select mode 3 (Imager Mode)

therefore since Imager mode is the last digit, it sets it to that mode. How would I know that it "has a bounding box associated", or "needs to be ALWAYS on"? First of all, What specifically needs to be always on, and second of all, what does it mean it "has a bounding box associated?

[Shoggoth]

That I don't know. Just looking at the wiki, it seems like whoever wrote it doesn't really know either. I assume we're pulling these flags off of code that somebody else wrote, so the exact function isn't clear. For whatever reason, by my understanding, every sprite seems to need a prefix of "0000082," with the last digit being the only variable. An associated bounding box usually determines the collider boundaries, but I don't know why this is necessary or even if that's how it's being used here. Since PyPRP determines collision in a different manner with all other objects (using Blender's "bounds" menu) I'm inclined to suspect there's a different reason (also because objects for which sprites are used usually don't have collision enabled anyway).

Does anybody else here know the answer?

[Justintime9]

that seems about right. I think the thing about 0000082 being the prefix was what I was looking for. I think I understand pretty well now

Btw, as a side note, in the sprites tutorial, the "Easy Sprite Texture" section doesn't seem to work right. Either it's out of date, or a mistake was made somewhere, but it doesn't fade into transparency as it should.

here's what it should look like:



here's how it came out when I followed the directions in the tutorial:



(ignore the color difference.) someone probably forgot a mention a crucial step in the process.

[D'Lanor]

The tutorial is quite recent and correct. Did you set "Map To" to "Alpha"?