I've been taking the first steps of making a door game with my daughter, and yesterday I started exploring Sprite.js.

I ran into an immediate roadblock, and I wanted to ask about.

The Sprite.js file says you have to save the sprite in .BIN format, and it recommends PabloDraw.

I use PabloDraw on my Mac, but I had never tried .BIN format before.

Anyway, I created a simple two-state 8x9 sprite of a girl, based on artwork I found at an 8bit website, with one state showing her looking left and the
other looking right. I stacked them vertically as Sprite.js explained, then saved the file as .BIN.

But when I tried loading the code on the BBS, the sprite was not right at all. Only two or three lines of it seemed to be displaying, and they weren't in order.

When I open the BIN in PabloDraw, my two vertically-stacked sprites were split horizontally. Parts of each sprite were on the other side of the screen, with lots of black space in between. I think it was displaying the .BIN as if it were 160 columns instead of 80.

I tried upgrading PabloDraw (apparently the Mac App Store version isn't the latest), but no difference.

At that point I decided to give AcidDraw a whirl. I loaded my ANSI version and saved a .BIN. Same results on the BBS and in PabloDraw. I tried changing the screen width to 160. Same blotchy results again on the BBS, though PabloDraw correctly displayed this .BIN.

Then, reading the AcidDraw docs, I found it had a block mode. You can
highlight an area, and save just that area. So I tried that. I highlight just the blocks making up my sprites and saved them as a .BIN.

*THIS* .BIN displayed properly on the BBS. But, again, it doesn't display
right in PabloDraw. It's diced up into tiny pieces, since I guess PabloDraw thinks it's 160 characters wide instead of 9.

Is this just purely a PabloDraw issue? Is it maybe a Mac thing? What tools
have you guys used to produce sprites in Chicken Delivery, Star Trek, etc?

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Re: Sprite.js, PabloDraw. and .BIN files
By: Kirkman to All on Sun Feb 16 2014 14:31:36

*THIS* .BIN displayed properly on the BBS. But, again, it doesn't display right in PabloDraw. It's diced up into tiny pieces, since I guess PabloDraw thinks it's 160 characters wide instead of 9.

when i load a .BIN with pablodraw, im asked what width the graphic is supposed to be, so that pablodraw can correctly render it.

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when i load a .BIN with pablodraw, im asked what width the graphic is supposed to be, so that pablodraw can correctly render it.

Strange. It definitely doesn't do that on the Mac side.

Just curious: are you using the older v2 family under DOS or Windows, or are you using the v3 family?

--Josh

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Re: Re: Sprite.js, PabloDraw. and .BIN files
By: Kirkman to MCMLXXIX on Tue Feb 18 2014 11:02:21

Strange. It definitely doesn't do that on the Mac side.

Just curious: are you using the older v2 family under DOS or Windows, or are you using the v3 family?

Ah, the windows v2.08 asks for graphic width when you open a bin file, the newer v3.2.1 does not, but it appears to have some sort of metadata option with width and height properties.. you can try setting those to what you want?

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