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From: poe@daimi.aau.dk (Peter rb{k)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Calling Graphics files from C as sprite data
Keywords: amiga
Message-ID: <1990Jul27.212151.22962@daimi.aau.dk>
Date: 27 Jul 90 21:21:51 GMT
References: <1221@surf.sics.bu.oz>
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Organization: DAIMI: Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Denmark
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goose@surf.sics.bu.oz (Ralph Schwarten) writes:

[I wanted to mail this, but the mailer couldn't find the above address]

>Could someone help me please with C, sprites(animobs,bobs etc) on the
>amiga ?

>I come from a UNIX/C enviroment but have always owned an Amiga 1000.
>I recently bought some more ram and a hard disk so that I can at last
>use my 1000 for something other than playing games.
>Can anyone give me some tips or point me in the direction for some good
>documentation on calling graphics file data (i.e. dpaint iff files)from

There are IFF-ILBM readers on some of the fishdisks, and there's source
for one in BASIC amongst the example-programs on the BASIC disk that comes
with the Amiga (or at least there was with my A500). It's pretty easy to
convert that code to C I think.

When the data is loaded into memory it shouldn't be that hard to printf() it
to a C-file that you can #include in your program.

>C and
>converting it into playing field data and sprite, bob, and animob data.
>I know that the  C struct for a sprite requires that this data be in hex
>I have a friend who is a very good artist but not a programmer at all.
>He will do the art and hopefully I can call it from  the code.

Sprite data are stored in a different way than normal bitplanes, with
a word for each of the 2 bitplanes just after each other. This is
explained in the RKMs
Apart from this it should be no problem to read in a 2 bitplane ILBM picture
16x<height> pixels and convert it to spritedata.

>We are hopefully going to do a surfing game,  if we can't get this
>sprite stuff sorted out, we may have to use vectors exclusively.(we
>wanted to have a choice of views.. 1) from the beach using sprites and
>2) a surfer's eye view using vectors)  I know that most commercial games
>designers draw up all of their sprites on templates and some how call
>them from C.  However this game will only be a bit of fun for us and
>will be released into the public domain.

>All help, contacts, books, code snippets, routines, suggestions will be
>greatly appreciated !!!

The RKM:Libraries & Devices explain the bobs and animobs pretty well.

PS. There might very well be a program that converts ILBMs to C structs on
one of the fishdiscs..
Actually on disk 237 there's ilbm.library which provides some of the things
you might need.

>Thanks in advance
>goose@hal.nmg.bu.oz.au
>Ralph Schwarten
>Dept. Computing and Information Technology.
>Bond University
>Gold Coast
>Australia

  - Peter (poe@daimi.aau.dk)

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