Does it my foot! How on Earth is that dismissing your reply? Unbelievable - is this vanity or are you deliberately trying to provoke me?

I didn't say you were dismissive of that, I said you'd completely ignored it.

There could be any number of reasons why I didn't directly reply to you. Whilst I appreciated help how you claim to take this as dismissiveness doesn't say a lot for you I'm afraid. I'm sorry if you were offended but I was looking for a solution and Jeffrey seemed to have helped me to nail it.

Certainly. Perhaps you just missed my post entirely. Can I suggest that in future if you ask questions you look more carefully at what people say to see if they give you the answers? Because this was the most charitable explanation I could come up with (and the view I decided to take), and I would/do find it embarrassing if I [were to] do that.

Andrew, you're just impossible to talk to now. We've had long (and to me at least, interesting) discussions about various things in the past. For instance in the Exile maps thread. Must you mire everything up in acrimony?

My post above was a serious attempt to wind this argument up and get back to talking about interesting, games-type stuff. The offer is still open, if you want to, but I don't think I'll be arguing at length with you like this in future.

Regarding the programming you brought that up out following a discussion that I was being dismissive of your ideas. And I've said why I might not have replied to it. It's got NOTHING to do with the current thread so you're really clutching at straws, indeed anything, to pick fault as you have been right from the beginning. This thread is not about getting answers so much as getting views.

You can't expect really to wind an argument up by saying in effect 'but you're still wrong' when the other party thinks their actions were reasonable and justified.

Anyway I've made my intentions clear and attempted to explain any previous issues there may have been so yes please should we get back to the topic?

[Edited by andreww at 10:05, 31/1/2003]

No you were being unreasonable I thought which is why this argument arose.

Regarding the programming you brought that up out following a discussion that I was being dismissive of your ideas. And I've said why I might not have replied to it. It's got NOTHING to do with the current thread so you're really clutching at straws, indeed anything, to pick fault as you have been right from the beginning. This thread is not about getting answers so much as getting views.

<snip stuff that doesn't help>

Anyway I've made my intentions clear and attempted to explain any previous issues there may have been so yes please should we get back to the topic?

I don't know what you mean about the timing of editing my post? According to my web browser I did this before you posted your last reply.

Good that's sorted out then!

[Edited by andreww at 13:09, 31/1/2003]

I don't know what you mean about the timing of editing my post? According to my web browser I did this before you posted your last reply.

Normally I use Paint for the simple animations that I have made for games but it is very difficult and time consuming.

I have some Ideas that might be possible - but I don't know how hard it would be to make.

There could be a main window with a working area for a frame of the animation and it could be set up so that you could put another frame (eg the previous frame) below the current one and vary the opacity of the current frame with a slider, making it very easy to see what has changed between the 2 frames. Also, in addition to the normal drawing/painting tools, there could be a choice to draw (onto the current frame) what is on the frame below (previous frame), instead of drawing a colour. Also it might be set up to offset the frame below by a few pixels. There would also need to be a facility to play through the animation so you could see what you have done so far.

I probably haven't explained what I mean very well but what do you think? Were you thinking of something different?

Andrew: What sorts of features would you want the animation software to have? I am also very keen for some good animation software for RISC OS but I have never done any graphics work on other platforms to know what sort of features are available.

Normally I use Paint for the simple animations that I have made for games but it is very difficult and time consuming.

There could be a main window with a working area for a frame of the animation and it could be set up so that you could put another frame (eg the previous frame) below the current one and vary the opacity of the current frame with a slider, making it very easy to see what has changed between the 2 frames.

This is an interesting idea, but it would be tricky to implement, and possibly quite slow unless well optimised. You'd need to work in a deep colour depth mode for this to work. But having a button to toggle between two images would be essential, I'd imagine. At the moment I do this in Paint by lining them up in a corner then pressing the window back buttons repeatedly. This works but it is trickier than it need be.

What did anyone think of my idea of having the different sprite's data displayed as a quadrant of each pixel when zoomed in?

Also, in addition to the normal drawing/painting tools, there could be a choice to draw (onto the current frame) what is on the frame below (previous frame), instead of drawing a colour. Also it might be set up to offset the frame below by a few pixels.

Anyway, there's The Complete Animator (Iota) <http://www.iota.co.uk/products/tca/>, which costs money but has a demo version, and EasyAnim (Alpha) <http://www.alpha-programming.co.uk/software/package.php?os=riscos&package=easyanim>.

Even if they're not right they might be a source of ideas for ways to/not to do things.

Update:
The demo of TCA mentioned above is actually the Windows version, sorry if anyone tried downloading it (although it's only been 10 minutes since I posted so probably not!)

[Edited by bmsh at 18:13, 31/1/2003]

When I started on my second game I was trying to manipulate limbs of 3D characters using TopModel and the solution there would be for skeletal animation software like professionals use and you see in 3D graphics mags. Just even basic programs would be a step up than what we have.
Processing large numbers of frames can be done with some effort in Composition and then convert to GIF to test so there's less of a problem there although an animation program that let you drop in a directory of sprites or a series of sprites onto a window would be ideal. I think I asked somebody at the time if something like this could be possible.

However I think if I were to restart the project I'd go back to 2D overhead view graphics but with more detail and better animation and moe animation. In retrospect I really wish I'd done this as I might have finished the project. There must be ways of compensating for lack of great artistic ability as well but I'd have to look into this unless other people know of any such features.

There are a couple of animation apps already out there, although I've not used them at all so couldn't say if they're exactly what you want here.
Anyway, there's The Complete Animator (Iota) <
>, which costs money but has a demo version, and EasyAnim (Alpha) <
&package=easyanim>
.
Even if they're not right they might be a source of ideas for ways to/not to do things.
Update:
The demo of TCA mentioned above is actually the Windows version, sorry if anyone tried downloading it (although it's only been 10 minutes since I posted so probably not!)

Thanks Ben, I've just downloaded that to have a look at.