Anyone using Sprite Works 2 (or any other sprite generator)?
by Ron Barbosa · in Torque X 2D · 04/19/2010 (12:48 pm) · 8 replies
Hey all...I just bought Sprite Works 2 last weekend, and I've been having varying degrees of success, coupled with equally varying degrees of failure. =(
I've got some issues with the app in general, but I'll keep those to myself.
My current issue is that I recently removed a placeholder animation from my prototype and replaced it with a Sprite Works rendered animation from a DTS model. This works fine on my PC and also works on my Xbox 360, but I've got a couple friends playtesting my prototype and they could not load this build.
It just doesn't even load the game screen...like it's failing while loading assets (I'm assuming). The updated graphic was the only change I included in this new build, and the previous build ran fine on their PCs.
Has anyone run into problems using assets from Sprite Works 2?
I find the assets to be heavy on empty space. The cells seem to have alot of padding. If I narrow the cells and make them rectangular instead of square, then the sprites on the output sprite sheet get skewed and appear too tall and thin. It doesn't seem to matter what value I enter into the field of view parameter either. I thought I could compensate for the skewing by widening the field of view. But it seems that widening the field of view just pushes my model further away from the camera.
If anyone is using this software with a good degree of success, please let me know what your secret is.
If anyone is using another application to do the same thing...please let me know what application you're using.
Thanks
--RB
I've got some issues with the app in general, but I'll keep those to myself.
My current issue is that I recently removed a placeholder animation from my prototype and replaced it with a Sprite Works rendered animation from a DTS model. This works fine on my PC and also works on my Xbox 360, but I've got a couple friends playtesting my prototype and they could not load this build.
It just doesn't even load the game screen...like it's failing while loading assets (I'm assuming). The updated graphic was the only change I included in this new build, and the previous build ran fine on their PCs.
Has anyone run into problems using assets from Sprite Works 2?
I find the assets to be heavy on empty space. The cells seem to have alot of padding. If I narrow the cells and make them rectangular instead of square, then the sprites on the output sprite sheet get skewed and appear too tall and thin. It doesn't seem to matter what value I enter into the field of view parameter either. I thought I could compensate for the skewing by widening the field of view. But it seems that widening the field of view just pushes my model further away from the camera.
If anyone is using this software with a good degree of success, please let me know what your secret is.
If anyone is using another application to do the same thing...please let me know what application you're using.
Thanks
--RB
#2
04/19/2010 (4:32 pm)
DXT: there is also an option to automatically convert the images to power of 2 (i.e. you can use non-power 2 images in TXB and still get DXT compression in xna later - very useful; have used it loads).
#3
I will try to muck around with the DXT options and see how much that helps.
Thanks for the tips, gents...
--RB
04/19/2010 (7:51 pm)
Out of curiosity, where does the conversion to DXT "save" size? Is in compilation? I noticed by replacing 1 placeholder graphic with this semi-final graphic, I grew the size of zip file by nearly 1MB. With the 50MB limit for $1 games, I've been a bit concerned that I can exceed that value pretty quickly.I will try to muck around with the DXT options and see how much that helps.
Thanks for the tips, gents...
--RB
#4
04/19/2010 (10:49 pm)
I believe it's only where it counts, my cc file shrank quite a bit like 2M. and I didn't even do all my graphics. Secondly look into compressing the audio files. blogs.msdn.com/mitchw/archive/2007/04/27/audio-compression-using-xact.aspx
#5
If you aren't running out of memory then you don't need to bother with DXT.
04/20/2010 (4:24 am)
DXT reduces the size of textures *in memory*. Ironically, to do that it may increase the size of the files on disk slightly - i.e. if it needs to increase the image size to the nearest power of 2.If you aren't running out of memory then you don't need to bother with DXT.
#6
The biggest cruncher is still the compressing audio. The only real caveat I can see is that using xWMA reportedly will not loop correctly, you will hear a gap between end and start. I have used XMA compression and it loops my background music seamlessly.
04/20/2010 (10:37 am)
I of course could be wrong! ;0 not the first time, I think that when I converted my textures to DXT I also cleaned out the stuff I wasn't using. I know we all have them textures etc that we ended up not using?The biggest cruncher is still the compressing audio. The only real caveat I can see is that using xWMA reportedly will not loop correctly, you will hear a gap between end and start. I have used XMA compression and it loops my background music seamlessly.
#7
I was able to get things squared away by using square sprite sheets. Bothers me a bit that this solved the problem though.
At any rate...thanks again for the feedback.
--RB
04/21/2010 (5:31 am)
Hey gents...thanks for all the feedback.I was able to get things squared away by using square sprite sheets. Bothers me a bit that this solved the problem though.
At any rate...thanks again for the feedback.
--RB
Torque 3D Owner Henry Shilling
Smokin Skull
The PNGs are converted by XNA anyway so they are not PNG when you make the build. I now like to make them DXT. Just learned how to. Select the image and in the properties open the content processor. Change Texture Format to dxt compressed. The images have to be power of 2 for this to work. However it is worth it for the good compression.