This new version of Axe is officially epic!

Now, to just figure out how to animate those sprites in the new format...

Question regarding Tangent, Is it set to automatically draw to the screen by default unlike the rest of the drawing commands? And if it is, why so?

I see, but why the tangent function in Axe in particular? I think I am misunderstanding what's the goal of tangent totally.

Is Tangent() used to display sprites larger than 8x8? If so, then if TI sets tangent to display to the screen by default, why doesn't this happen with your 8x8 routine? Texas Instruments definitively makes no sense at all... (like how stuff drawn on the home screen seems to update without DispGraph)

The Tangent() command uses an OS bcall which is much slower than the 8x8 sprite drawing routines, but its still fast enough for most things and more convenient than drawing a bunch of 8x8s and it takes up hardly any memory in the program.  Because its an OS routine, they decide how the flags affect it so I really can't do anything about that other than tell you to change the flags with the Fix commands.

Also, I know it clips the sprites, but the documentation for that command (_DisplayImage) says that you cannot draw the image totally off the screen for some reason.  I don't know if that means it will corrupt ram or something so use with caution if you draw completely off screen.

Oh another thing, I should mention.  It uses Pt-Off() logic to draw the sprite.  That is, it erases behind it as it draws.

The Tangent() command uses an OS bcall which is much slower than the 8x8 sprite drawing routines, but its still fast enough for most things and more convenient than drawing a bunch of 8x8s and it takes up hardly any memory in the program.  Because its an OS routine, they decide how the flags affect it so I really can't do anything about that other than tell you to change the flags with the Fix commands.

Also, I know it clips the sprites, but the documentation for that command (_DisplayImage) says that you cannot draw the image totally off the screen for some reason.  I don't know if that means it will corrupt ram or something so use with caution if you draw completely off screen.

Oh another thing, I should mention.  It uses Pt-Off() logic to draw the sprite.  That is, it erases behind it as it draws.

mhmm I see. Thanks for the info. Would it be slower to use a Tangent() with 16x16 sprites than a for() loop with 4 8x8 Pt-Off() sprites?

Quote from: Quigibo on June 17, 2010, 05:09:17 am

The Tangent() command uses an OS bcall which is much slower than the 8x8 sprite drawing routines, but its still fast enough for most things and more convenient than drawing a bunch of 8x8s and it takes up hardly any memory in the program.  Because its an OS routine, they decide how the flags affect it so I really can't do anything about that other than tell you to change the flags with the Fix commands.

Also, I know it clips the sprites, but the documentation for that command (_DisplayImage) says that you cannot draw the image totally off the screen for some reason.  I don't know if that means it will corrupt ram or something so use with caution if you draw completely off screen.

Oh another thing, I should mention.  It uses Pt-Off() logic to draw the sprite.  That is, it erases behind it as it draws.

mhmm I see. Thanks for the info. Would it be slower to use a Tangent() with 16x16 sprites than a for() loop with 4 8x8 Pt-Off() sprites?

It probably would be slower -- this is TI-OS we're talking about.

Also, I know it clips the sprites, but the documentation for that command (_DisplayImage) says that you cannot draw the image totally off the screen for some reason.  I don't know if that means it will corrupt ram or something so use with caution if you draw completely off screen.

As I recall, the RAM, or at the very least the screen RAM, is corrupted.  Incidentally, does it take a lot of memory to write an any-size sprite routine?  I know it's not true when there's no clipping, but I don't know when there's clipping involved.