XNA Essentials

Hi,

In Chapter 11, a good 2D game example is provided.

Could you please say how the spritesheets were made ? Which editor was used ?

As an exercise, I'd like to make my own spritesheets (or modify those provided).

Thanks !

Kent

Your welcome :)

I don't recall the exact steps I took to create these, but I used a copy of Poser 5 I had from years before and created the animation.  Then I believe I had to export it as an .avi file.  I then found a utility to extract the frames from the avi into individual images.  (Or maybe Poser allowed me to generated numbered images - I don't remember.)  Finally, I took the individual images and using Paint.NET I copied and pasted them into a large image.  I turned on grids to line up the individual images on the larger canvas inside of the paint program.

Hope this helps,

Chad

Thanks for the reply.

Just looked at Poser: $250/$500 for a license. That's kinda out - if I want to try this, then give it to students to try. Would you do this (create Sprite Sheets) any differently today - or if you were on a budget ? Certainly Paint (for free !) fits in someplace. There do seem to be some inexpensive tools - Paint.Net, MilkShape 3D, Allegro - any thoughts on using these (or any other "budget" tools) for Sprite Sheets ?

Thanks very much !

Yes - thanks !

Instead of manually creating your spritesheets you could definitely use this sample code:

http://creators.xna.com/en-US/sample/spritesheet

Make sure to look at all of the samples of the creators club site.  They have tons of great stuff!

Nick Gravelyn has also done a great App called Spritesheet Packer found here:

http://spritesheetpacker.codeplex.com/

Obviously the spites thmeselves can be drawn in Paint.NET etc, but packing them into a Sprite Sheet you can use Nicks tool. I even think there is is an API that can be used, when dealing with the Mapping Files it creates.

Had a quick look - seems very interesting - thanks !

Good idea - thanks !