New in version 3:
Copy and Paste!
Undo!
Shift your sprites!
Saner About screen trigger!
Ability to leave appvSPRITES in RAM upon exit!
"Lights-out" mode!
Sprite counter!
Jump multiple sprites at a time!
Fixed Readme typos!
New in version 2.1:
"New in this version:" section of the Readme
Fixed the bug with not clearing the screen
New in version 2:
Not this section
Loop through a selection of the sprites
About
Anisprite, its associated source code, and this readme Copyright 2013 Giancarlo Saraceni
All artwork produced with Anisprite is the property of its creator
Hello and welcome to Anisprite
What is this thing?
Anisprite is a spriter
A spriter?
A thing you can use to make sprites with.
No, no, no. I know what a spriter is, but aren't there almost as many of those as there are quadratic equation solvers?
It's getting pretty close.
So how is this different?
Anisprite is designed around makng animated 16x16 sprites to be used with the Axe programming language.
Ok, so how long can these animations be?
Anisprite allows for up to 64 16x16 sprites.
How do I use Anisprite?
Glad you asked! First, let's go over the interface.
The left 2/3 of the screen is devoted to the big representation of the sprite you're working with. It's at a scale of 4:1.
The actual size sprite is in the top right corner.
About halfway between the big sprite and the actual-size one there's a black pixel all by its lonesome. This indicates which sprite you're on.
On either side of that lonly pixel are a pair of black pixels, sitting there, waiting. Why are they there? What is their purpose? You'll find out in a minute.
In the large sprite, there's a box. This box is the cursor.
Just below halfway down the screen, on the right side, is a swatch of color.
This is the color that will be used when you press Enter or 2nd.
Speaking of which, it's time to go over the controls.
The arrow keys move the cursor around.
+ and - go forward and backward one sprite. Hold [ON] to move in increments of 8 instead.
* and / do the same thing, but they copy over whatever sprite may already be in the new spot. Be careful, because once you do, you can't get that sprite back.
Press LOG to change the start sprite to the one you're currently on. The start sprite is indicated by the two pixels on either side of the Position Indicator Pixel
The top row of keys change which color you're using:
From left to right
|White|Midgrey/Light grey|Black/Dark grey|Black|Invert|
Press ENTER or 2ND to change the pixel your cursor is on to the color shown in the swatch
Press MODE to change between 3scale and 4scale
Press ALPHA to toggle the grid on and off
Hey, waitaminute! I've seen all this before! What makes Anisprite so special?
Ah! Yes. Anisprite's unique feature is its ability to animate the sprites.
Go ahead and press STO>
You should be seeing a screen that looks like this:
^
|
0
|
V
This selects the delay between each successive frame. Left and right move the arrows, and up and down increase and decrease the number in that place.
Press enter once you've got the delay you want
Now look in the top right corner. There is your sprite, animated. Anisprite loops from the Start Sprite to the sprite you're currently on.
If you want to forgo that, press x^2 instead of STO>, and Anisprite will loop though all 64 frames for you.
Press LN to stop the animation, and CLEAR to exit Anisprite.
Hey, what about all this "Verson 3" nonsense up there?
Glad you asked!
Version 3 adds a ton of features to the editing side of Anisprite to make it more powerful and easier to use!
Copy & Paste!
[)] Copies the current sprite to the clipboard, shown below the color swatch.
[(] Pastes the sprite on the clipboard over the current sprite. Note that the clipboard starts out with a pure white sprite in it.
Undo!
Made a mistake?
Hold [ON] and hit [DEL] and the sprite that was there when you first arrived will be put back!
Sprite Roll!
Need to move your sprite over one? Now, Anisprite has you covered!
Use the numpad to move the sprite on the screen over one pixel up, down, left, or right.
The row or column bumped off will appear on the other side.
Leave appvSPRITES in RAM
Hold [ON] when you exit to leave it in RAM
"Lights-out"
Press [APPS] to make the HUD disappear. Any other key will bring it back.
And the Sprite Counter is in the bottom right corner. It starts at zero.
Well, this is cool and all, but how do I use it in my Axe program?
Anisprite saves your sprites in a 4116-byte AppVar with the catchy name of SPRITES. Just absorb it into your Axe program, and you're good to go!
4116 bytes? Really?
Well, yeah. Anisprite can't tell which sprites you want to use and which you don't, so it saves all of them.
I don't really want all that data making my program all huge and all.
Well, you could copy part of SPRITES to another appvar, and absorb that.
Wait, why doesn't Anisprite export to a string?
Because that'd be friggin' huge.
Can I give this to my friends?
Sure! Just let them know who made it! (That'd be me
What if I forget who you are?
Hold [^]
