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Sprites Alive Manual - Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

1. NOTE The default setting is the standard Amstrad screen DGET d x y This is a command that will get the drawing into the computers memory d is the drawing number x and y are the drawing dimensions To get a drawing into memory the drawing must be put into the top left hand corner of the screen You can do this by either defining characters and printing them in the top left hand corner or by using the PLOT command to put the character into the top left hand side You should then use the DGET command to store the drawing The x and y values should be the width and height of the drawing in pixels In order to conserve as much memory as possible the top of the drawing should be touching the top of the screen and the left hand edge of the drawing should be touching the left hand edge of the screen The rest of the screen should be completely clear of any graphics It is very i of mportant that there are no graphics to the right hand edge f the drawing you are going to store If you are using the sprite designer program which we strongly recommend you will not need to use this command NOTE he correct mode must be set ie MODE 0 or MODE 1 Also the size of the screen must be set to its default size ie SCREEN You can define from drawing 0 up to drawing 63 The maximum size of a drawing is 32 x 32 pixels Please remember that the x and y dimensions need to be
2. If you select N the full grid will be redrawn and you will return to the design grid It you select Y the grid will be redrawn with the new coordinates and you will return to the design screen USEFUL TIP When you are going to reduce the siz of the grid if you move the x y cursors to the squares you want to reduce the drawing to by noting the x y coordinates at the bottom of the screen you should save yourself counting the squares by hand 7 MOVEMENT Pressing f7 will allow the user to manipulate the drawings You may make a mirror image of the drawing or invert the drawing After pressing f7 the user will be asked PLEASE MAKE YOUR SELECTION M MIRROR IMAGE I INVERT THE DRAWING f you do not wish to do either of these options pressing ESC will return you to the design grid H Pressing M will produce a mirror image of the drawing This is useful if used along with the copy command You only need to design a drawing for one direction If you then copy the drawing to a free area and press f7 the drawing will be produced to move the sprite in the opposite direction Pressing I will invert the current drawing f8 COLOUR SEARCH Pressing f8 will allow the user to replace any colour on the grid with another colour After pressing f8 the user will be told to PLACE X Y CURSORS OVER THE COLOUR YOU WISH TO CHANC PR
3. The colours you use within your program are stored in memory By doing this you can achieve professional results when putting the sprites onto the screen If you turn all the inks to black put the sprites onto the screen and then set the inks to their correct colour it will look as if the sprites have all been put onto the screen at the same time The memory block used to store the colours is 16 bytes long The memory block is updated when you load drawings into the computer using the DRAW command If you load any drawings into the computer the colours you selected using the designer program will be transferred into this memory block You can access the colours by using the COLOUR command as described below The only limitation of using this method is that you may not use flashing colours If you try to use the Amstrad INK command with more than two variables ink and colour an error message will be displayed COLOUR This command will turn all the inks on the screen to their normal colours as defined by the Amstrad INK i c command This command may be used in conjunction with either the INKBLACK command or the DRAW command When using this command in conjunction with the DRAW command it will change the inks to the colours selected by the sprite designer program INKBLACK This command will change all the colours on the screen including the border and paper to black The colours used will be reme
4. Do2 AaB tLe te BZ 63 KEB 63 Continuous movement means the sprite will not stop even if you centre the joystick The sprite will stop only when it hits a screen edge If you are not going to use the joystick you should not put sprite 0 onto the screen and you should not use the STIX command It you are not going to use the keyboard you should not put sprite 1 onto the screen and you should not use the KEB command NOTE The default settings for both the joystick and the keyboard are for them both to be disabled 18 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING THE JOYSTICK AND KEYBOARD STIXSPEED u d 1 r The STIXSPEED command informs the program of the speed that sprite 0 will move whilst under joystick control All the variables must be used ie use four values This is the case even though the joystick may only be programmed to move in two directions The values must all be positive numbers KEBSPEED u d 1 r This is identical to the STIXSPEED command except that it will control the speed of sprite 1 Example STIXSPEED 1 1 2 2 This will move sprite 0 at a speed of pixel at a time whilst moving up and down and 2 pixels whilst moving left or right Dy Ay 4252 This will allow sprite 1 to move at a speed of 2 pixels at a time whilst moving left or right and 4 pixels at a time moving top and down KEBSPE T GI
5. he RESET command will not clear the nodes from memory The ERASE command will clear the nodes as well as the drawings When you specify the filename you should not use an extension ie GAME1 nde Th xtension will be added automatically This command will load files with the extension NDE 40 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING NODES NODESPEED sp xs ys his command sets the speeds the sprites will travel around he maze sp is the number of an already defined sprite xs nd ys are the sprite speeds The speeds you specify must oth be positive numbers between 1 and 10 Oe ctH The node speeds will not be used until a sprite hits its first node Therefore if you are not going to initially SPUT a sprite directly onto a node you will also need to define the speed of the sprite with the SDIR command Once a sprite has hit a node the values used in the SDIR command will be overwritten You do not need to specify the speeds for sprite 0 and sprite 1 The speeds for these two sprites is taken from the STIXSPEED and KEBSPEED commands t Please remember the point made earlier about the speeds of the sprites make sure the speeds defined will not allow the sprites to skip over nodes unless you specifically want them to NODEATTR sp at 4 his command will determine how the sprites you have defined will move around the maze
6. The sprite will be removed from the screen and put back onto the screen on opposite screen boundary YEDGE s n is identical to the XEDGE command except that it determines what the sprite will do if it hits the top or bottom screen boundarys It uses the same attribute number as the XEDGE command The XEDGE and YEDGE commands can be set to different values ie The YEDGE could be set to bounce whilst the YEDGE could be set to wrap NOTE he default settings are for the general sprites is BOUNCE at all edges You may not alter the edge attributes be missiles tail later in the manual define to in more de Sprite 0 and sprite 1 may only be set to STOP or WRAP The default settings for sprite 0 and sprite 1 are for the sprites to STOP at all edges for any sprites you The missile sprites will be described If you try to set them to bounce or disapear an error message will be displayed 16 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM GETTING THE SPRITES MOVING SDIR s xs ys This command determines the speed at which the sprite will move s is the sprite number xs and ys are the sprite speeds The speed variable determines how many pixels at a time the sprite will move We do not recommend that this value goes above 8 This should be fast enough for most applications To get the sprite to move to the left then you should use a negative velocity for xs
7. If you have entered a drawing number that has already been defined an error message will be displayed YOU CANNOT OVERWRITE EXISTING DRAWINGS This is self explanatory If you do wish to overwrite a drawing you must use the copy command from within EDIT A DRAWING If you did enter an undefined drawing number the drawing will be copied t SC Pressing the ESC key will return the user to the sprites MAIN Menu OPTION 6 SPRITE INFORMATION After selecting this option the following screen will be displayed DRAWINGS DEFINED 30 DRAWING RANGI 00 43 FJ DO YOU WANT INFORMATION ON ALL DRAWINGS Y N D oO This screen tells you the user information about t drawings that are in memory at the moment See option 2 VIE HE DRAWINGS for this information Tj If you want information on all the drawings press Y If you press N you will then be asked ENTER DRAWING RANGE You must now enter the lowest drawing and the highest drawing you want information on 69 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM Then you will be asked You may select on OUTPUT TO Screen OR Printer by pressing TOV JOE eR Yy PRINT ER SEL ECTED tion you will be asked Press the AND PRESS RETURN It you selected printer the next ques DO YOU REQUIRE C
8. T In order for the program to convert the drawings into a form the main sprites program can understand the program has to erase a large chunk of itself If you answer Y to this question you will not be able to return to the designer program without reseting the computer and running the program again IMPORTANT SAVE YOUR DRAWINGS TO DISC BEFORE USING THIS OPTION It you do not want to continue with creating the sprite data pressing N will return you to the MAIN sprite menu If you want to continue press Y You will now be prompted for a filename SAVE AS FILENAME You may use any filename up to eight letters long After entering the filename press RETURN he program will prompt you to PLEASE INSERT THE DISC YOU WANT TH DRAWINGS SAVING TO AND PRESS ANY K Fl El Y You should now insert the disc on which you want the drawings storing We advise against using the system disc After pressing any key the screen will change colours a few times This is not unusual the program uses the screen as a buffer for the drawings Finally the screen will clear and display THE FILE HAS BEEN SAVED YOU MAY NOW RESET THE COMPUTER BY PRESSING SHIFT CONTROL ESC The program has now ended The drawing file that hag been created will have the format username DKW OPTION 9 END THE PROGRAM This o
9. You can move the arrow key around the screen by using the arrow keys on the right hand side of the keyboard If you select any of the options above except ESC when the arrow is pointing at an undefined drawing the computer will emit a beep and nothing will happen We will now look at the functions in more detail DELETE Pressing the D key when the arrow is pointing at a defined drawing will display the message ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE Y N If you select N this message will clear and the drawing will stay intact If you select Y the drawing will he erased from memory the colour of the particular number the arrow is pointing to will change and the description will now display NOT DEFINED RENAME Pressing the R key when the arrow is pointing at a defined drawing will display the message OLD old description NEW 68 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM You are now prompted to enter a new description for that particular drawing If you decide you want to keep the drawing description the same you may press the ESC key COPY Pressing the C key when the arrow is pointing at a defined drawing will display the following message COPY DRAWING 03 TO DRAWING You are now prompted to enter a drawing number The program will now make a copy of the first drawing you selected and copy it to the drawing number you have just entered
10. ie 45 XEDGE 2 4 YEDGE 2 4 See if you can make sprite 2 act under control of the joystick in all four directions As a hint you will need to alter the sprite number to 0 You may notice that when the sprites collide they bounce off each other This is covered on the next page SWINDOW s x1 xh yl yh This command will set up a window in which the sprite can move Each sprite can have an independent window When the SGET command is used the window is automatically set to the full size of the screen You may alter the size of the window by using this command xl is the left hand edge xh is the right hand edge yl is the bottom edge and yh is the top edge This command should be used after the SGET command The four values should be expressed in sprite coordinates 21 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM COLLISION DETECTION COLLIDE s n This command will determine what the sprite will do if it hits anything other than the screen edge s is the sprite number n is a value that will determine what the sprite will do when in collision The table below will show you how to set th correct attribute for sprite s when it is in collision NUMBER ATTRIBUT E 1 Disappear 2 Stop 3 Bounce Disappear The sprite will be remove from the screen when it hits an object other than the screen edge Stop The sprite will stop moving but stay on the screen Boun
11. NOTI The default settings for both the STIXSPEED and the KEBSPEED commands are all directions set to speed 1 IKEBDEF u d 1l r f This command will allow the user to define which keys will move sprite 1 The command accepts key numbers only This information can be found in chapter 7 page 23 of the Amstrad 6128 user manual The information is also displayed on the 6128 disc drive case You most define all the key numbers even though you may not use them all ie You may not want to have a fire button defined however you must use a key number fOr ack Example KEBDEF 58 63 60 61 18 The command on the previous page would define the keyboard as follows Up E Down X Left S Right D Fire RETURN Default setting arrow keys for direction space to fire 19 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING THE JOYSTICK AND KEYBOARD T Due to the way in which the computer tests for certain keys it will sometimes return the wrong key number This can effect the way the sprites move if you are using both sprite 0O and sprite 1 If you find the sprites are not moving in the direction you have selected or change direction of their own accord you should try altering the key numbers you selected using the KEBDEF command This problem will also occur with the READKEB and READJOY commands All the above commands deal with actually moving the spr
12. READKEB k v This command acts in exactly the same way as the READJOY command except it tests for the direction pressed on the keyboard The direction keys ar defined by the KEBDEF command 20 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM GETTING THE SPRITE MOVING MOVE s This command will move sprite s The sprite must be on the screen and either under joystick keyboard control or have been given a direction to move in with the SDIR command If the sprite is not on the screen the command will be ignored MOVE s1 s2 This command will move all the sprites that are on the screen that are within the sl s2 limits sl is the lowest sprite s2 is the highest sprite MOVEALL This command will move all the sprites on the screen Example 10 MODE 0 SET MODE TO 0 20 0 DGET 0 7 7 CLS GET DRAWING 0 30 SGET 2 0 SGET 3 0 SET UP SPRITE 2 AND 3 40 SDIR 2 1 1 SDIR 3 1 1 7 SE THE DIRECTIONS 50 SPUT 2 40 30 SPUT 3 60 70 PUT SPRITES ON SCREEN 60 MOVEALL GOTO 60 OVE THE SPRITES AND LOOP This program does not set the XEDGE and YEDGE commands as we will use the default values of bounce at screen edge Try experimenting with this program by altering screen mode or sprite speeds You could even try to alter the edge attributes by putting in a line at 45
13. is the sprite number that you know is in collision v is fhe variable that will hold the number of the sprite that has hit sprite a If v contains 255 then the sprite must have hit a piece of scenery or a sprite that does not have collision reporting turned on MOVEHIT s b This command can be used after you have just moved a sprite s is the sprite number b is the variable that has the result of the collision test in it If b 255 then the sprit was not in collision if b 0 the sprite has collided with something The advantage of using this command in preference to COLLTEST command is that this command is a great deal faster During the sprite movement routine the sprite is tested for collision automatically This routine simply checks the flag within the movement routine to see if the collision flag has been set It you move the sprite again then the collision flag will be cleared It is important that you fully understand how this command works in order to use it to its full advantage Example You move sprites 0 to 10 with the MOVE 0 10 command When sprite 0 is moved it does not hit anything therefore the collision flag is not set When sprite 1 is moved it hits sprite 0 therefore the collision flag is set for sprite 1 If you did a MOVEHIT 0 b command testing to see if sprite 0 is in collision the routine would return a value of 255 sprite not in collision This is because when sprite 0 was moved
14. is the variable that you want the sprite speed to be stored In CSPRITE s This command will clear sprite s from memory If the sprite is on the screen when this command is issued the sprite will be removed You may now if you wish use the SGET command to link this sprite to another drawing WAIT n This command will cause your program to pause n is the amount of time in 1 20th s of a second it will wait If n was 100 the program would wait for 5 seconds 27 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM ANIMATING THE DRAWINGS The user can define 16 animation sequences Th animation sequences consist of a list of drawing numbers in sequence for the eight directions that the sprite can move in The drawings to be used in animation must all have the game x and y dimensions They must also be in sequence one after another You define the drawing sequences for the sprite for the eight directions in which the sprite can move You may not want to use all directions indeed you may only want the sprite to he animated in one or two directions however you must define the sprite movement for all eight directions The sprites program will automatically select th correct drawing sequence depending on which direction the sprite is moving once the drawing sequence has been defined A number of sprites may use the same sequence of drawings therefore you may have a great deal more than 16 sprites animated on the screen at t
15. specified in pixels DO NOT use the Amstrad coordinate system Before you get any of the drawings into memory you should ensure that you have reserved enough memory with the MEMORY command It you do not reserve enough memory you may corrupt your program To calculate the amount of memory you will need please s the equation on the next page MEMORY CALCULATION OF DRAWING SIZ SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM eal If you are going to get the drawings into memory by using the DGET command you will drawings are going to take up You will need to do this in order to calculate the correct value for the MEMORY command need to know how much memory the There are two different methods of calculation depending on which screen mode you are going to use 1 DIVIDE X DIME 2 ADD 1 TO RESUL 3 MULTIPLY ANSWER BY Y DIM MODE 0 CALCULATION NSION BY 2 4 MULTIPLY RESUL ie MEM OF 3 BY INT X DISCARDING ANY FRACTION INT ENSION 2 DIMENSION 2 1 Y 2 You must do this for all the drawings you are going to DGET When you have a total for all the drawings subtract answer from 23389 to find the result you should use for the MEMORY command 1 DIVIDE X DIME 2 ADD 1 TO RESUL 3 MULTIPLY ANSWER BY Y DIM MODE 1 CALCULATION NSION BY 4 4 MULTIPLY
16. KEB n This command is identical to STIX command except that it will control sprite 1 and it will determine which way the sprite will move under control of the keyboard The sprite will move under keyboard control every time sprite 1 tries to move i e MOVEALL or MOVE 0 20 etc 17 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING THE JOYSTICK AND KEYBOARD In order to inform the program of the directions that sprite 0 and sprite 1 are allowed to move you should use the following table NUMBER DIRECTION COMMENTS 0 NO DIRECTION JOYSTICK KEYBOARD DISABLED 1 UP ALLOW SPRITE TO GO UP 2 DOWN ALLOW SPRITE TO GO DOWN 4 LEFT ALLOW SPRITE TO GO LEFT 8 RIGHT ALLOW SPRITE TO GO RIGHT 16 DIAGONAL ALLOW THE PRITE TO MOVE DIAGONALLY 32 FIRE FIRE BUTTON O 64 CONTINUOUS SPRITE WILL NEVER STOP To use this table simply decide which features you want turned on and add up the numbers to get a value This is the number you put after the STIX or KEB command Example Sprite 0 to move Left Right with fire button turned on 4 8 32 44 STIX 44 Sprite 1 to move Up Down Left and Right with no diagonal movement and no fire button 1 2 4 4 8 15 KEB 15 if you wanted the fire button turned on as well as the directions then you would use 1 2 44 8 32 47 KEB 47 If you wanted diagonal movement as well
17. RESUL ie MEM OF 3 BY INT X DISCARDING ANY FRACTION INT ENSION 4 DIMENSION 4 1 y 4 You must do this for all the drawings you are going to DGET When you have a total for all the drawings subtract answer from 23389 to find the result you should use for the MEMORY command You can test your calcula your drawings into memory type in the following line The value that is valu A 0 SM roughly the sam tions once you have DGETed all of Once all the drawings are stored EM QA PRINT A 1 printed onto the screen should be the used for the MEMORY command 10 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM LOADING DRAWINGS FROM THE SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM We strongly advise the user to design his her drawings using the sprites designer program This has a number of distinct advantages over manually getting the data from the top of the screen If however the user wants to use sprites in mode 1 he she will have to use the manual method This method is described in detail on page 9 under the heading DGET Users of the sprite designer program should follow the instructions detailed below to avoid any problems that may occur 1 Fully design your drawings and make sure they are ready to be used by your main program 2 Before you select option 8 CREATE SPRITE DATA in the sprites designer program find out how much memory the drawings take u
18. SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING NODES MAZEON This command will turn on the maze for all the sprites After you have set up the nodes and defined all their attributes and speeds and turned them on with the NODEON command they will not follow the maze until this command has been issued MAZEOFF This command will turn the maze off If you wish to turn the maze back on again you will not need to turn all the sprites back on individually simply use this command All the sprites that were turned on when this command is issued will be remembered These two commands are the master switches for file maze facility MORE NOTES ON SPRITES AND NODES Sprites can not move diagonally through the maze If a sprite has been defined to use the maze but has not hit its first node it can move diagonally Even though a sprite has been turned on with the NODEON command it will not follow the rules of the maze until it hits its first node In order for the sprites to use the maze straight away they need to he SPUTed onto a node or they should he SPUTed onto he screen with a direction set with the SDIR command so that hey hit a node ct ct It sprite 0 or sprite 1 is SPUT onto the screen and they are not on a node they can move around the screen freely until they do hit a node henever a sprite enters a node the sprite will not leave by the direction it has entered unless there is only one exit from the node ie
19. To get the sprite to move down the screen then you should use a negative velocity for ys NOTE Under normal circumstances the speed of sprite 0 and sprite 1 will be set by the STIXSPEED and KEBSPEED commands You may not set the speed of the missiles using this command The speed for missiles is set using the MISSILE command You have a number of commands which will allow you to control the sprites either by the joystick keyboard or both They range from simply reporting the position of the joystick to actually moving the sprite under joystick or keyboard control The commands in this section deal with moving the sprites in the direction of either the joystick or keyboard As you will already know sprite 0 and sprite 1 are controlled by using the joystick and keyboard The commands below and on the next page will determine how sprite 0 and sprite 1 are controlled STIX n The STIX command allows sprite 0 to move under the control of the Joystick The number after the command determines in which direction that sprite will be allowed to move This allows for the sprite to be moved only left right or left right up down but not diagonally or left right up down and diagonally This number will also determine whether or not the fire button will be activated The sprite will move under joystick control every time sprite 0 tries to move i e MOVEALL or MOVE 0 20 etc
20. You will also need to specify the direction a sprite is allowed to leave the node Whilst the node designer program will be of great use to you we suggest you sit down with a piece of graph paper and VERY carefully plan your maze You will need to take into account the width and height of the sprites that will be used within the maze ie If you have a sprite with a width of 12 pixels and you are designing a maze in mode 0 with the standard size Amstrad screen and the sprites are set to bounce at screen edge it would be no use putting a node at point 154 40 simply because the sprite would never reach that point It would have bounced when it reached 147 40 39 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING NODES You will also need to take into account the height and width of the sprites when you are designing the paths the sprites will take If the path is too narrow or low the sprite will collide with the path and get itself stuck The sprites change direction whenever the top left hand corner of the sprite has the same coordinates as the node If you have put a node at 120 40 and you have put the sprite onto the screen at 111 40 moving right with a speed of two the sprite will bypass the node moving from 119 40 to 121 40 You will need to be careful to ensure that the speed of the sprite does not allow the sprite to pass over the node This can be used to your advantage allowing certain sprites to ignore specific nodes whilst other spr
21. all the drawings you want animating press the RETURN key If you have made a mistake drawings having different x y dimensions the error screen will be displayed The error screen lists all the drawings you have selected and it will highlight any drawing with different X Y coordinates After pressing a key you will be returned to the selection menu to try again Once you have selected the drawings and there are no errors you will be presented with the animation options screen The screen looks like this SPEED OF SPRITE SELECT DIRECTION U D L R DELAY BETWEEN MOVES The speed of sprite option will determine how many pixels the sprite will move at a time To get the smoothest movement you should select 1l and press RETURN You may use any number up to a maximum of 9 If you want the sprite to be animated but not to move you should select 0 The select direction option will allow the user to determine the direction in which the sprite is to move Up Down Left or Right If you have selected the sprite to be stationary by selecting 0 at the last option you may type any direction the sprite will be stationary There is no need to press RETURN on this option The delay between moves option allows the user to select the speed between sprite movements You may use any number between 0 and 99 An average number is between 30 40 It you select 0 the sprite w
22. blocks To do this we would use the following commands SGET 0 0 SGET 2 1 FOR I 3 TO 42 SGET 1I 2 NEXT I We use the symbol because this means we aye using integer variables this will b xplained in detail later We would use sprite 0 as the bat as this is controlled by the joystick However if we wanted the bat to be controlled by the keyboard we would need to use sprite 1 The line above links the sprites to the correct drawing If we wanted to make the bat sprite 1 and the ball sprite 2 then we would have used SGET 1 0 SGET 2 1 FOR IMPORTANT You must set the relevant SCREEN before using SGET command If you wish to to use a different screen siz to the standard Amstrad screen you must change the size of the screen with the SCREEN command before issuing an SGET command failure to do this will result in the sprites behaving incorrectly SPUT s x y This command is used for putting the sprite onto the screen s is the sprite number x and y are the coordinates for the position of the sprite to go onto the screen s must be a sprite that you have defined x and y must be within the legal coordinates allowed by that screen The coordinates refer to where the top left hand edge of the sprite will go Also bear in mind that if you are putting a sprite onto the screen near the bottom or right hand edge you must take into account the height and width of t
23. in a step by step manner I will explain the basic principles to you and you can then work it out for yourselves It you are going to load drawings into the supervisor with the DRAW command you will need to make a note of the colours you have selected When you enter the Art Studio yo will need to alter the palette colours to suit the colours selected within the sprites designer program ext design your screen layout We defined a pattern and filled the screen with the pattern then we went to town with the spray can ext you will need to alter a pattern with the pattern editor to be the same size as the sprites you are going to use Once you have a pattern th sam size you should clear the pattern to ink 0 the background colour Select the Brush option and using the cursor keys cut the tracks out of your painted screen You will need to note the coordinates every time you change direction create a node Once you have finished save th screen without compression turned on You should now have a list of all the coordinates where the nodes should be The coordinates used ar th Amstrad coordinates and these will need to be converted to sprite coordinates befor ntering them into the nodes program The Art studio gives you the coordinates for the centre of the brush You will need to convert these to the top left hand corner To do this divide the size of the brush by 2 for both the x and the y Subtract the x size from the converted Art stu
24. it did not hit anything It you did a MOVEHIT 1 b command testing to see if sprite 1 was in collision the routine would return a value of 0 sprite in collision If instead of doing the MOVEHIT command after the MOVE command you did a COLLTEST 0 b command then the routine would return a value of 0 sprite in collision This is because the COLLTEST command checks the sprite after everything has moved Please not The collision reporting must be turned on In order for this routine to work 25 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM IMPORTANT NOTES Throughout the collision detection commands we have been using a variable v There is a character before this command We are using the character because that tells BASIC that we are going to pass a value from the sprites program back to your own program It is extremely important to include this character before your variable name Failure to do this could result in your program being destroyed We have used v as a variable name throughout the collision detection commands You may use any variable name We have used the character after the variable name This is because the sprite program is passing integer variables You must always use integer variables whilst either passing or receiving variables from the sprite program Therefore it is important that you understand fully how to use integer variables An important point to remember ab
25. loading a file from the updated catalogue SAVE THE DRAWINGS If the file you are going to save is not a newly designed file ie has been loaded off the disc you will have the following message displayed CURRENT FILENAME DATA1 DO YOU WISH TO SAVE TO THIS FILE Y N 66 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM If you select N you will then be asked ENTER NEW FILENAME You may now enter a filename of up to eight letters The file will now be saved to either the old filename if you selected Y as an option or saved as th new filename if you selected N as the option If there is not enough room on the disc to store the file to you will he told to insert another disc and try again ERASING THE DRAWINGS After selecting this option you will be prompted to PLEASE INSERT DISC WITH DRAWING DATA FILE YOU WOULD LIK TO ERASE AND PRESS ANY KEY a After inserting the disc with the file s you want to erase and pressing any key you will be displayed a list of the files on the disc It will look like this ERASING THE DRAWINGS DATA1 BUNE RE URN TO MENU PLEASE MAKE YOUR SELECTION You may now select one of the files by typing the relevant number If you select the option RETURN TO MENU you will be returned to the MAIN sprite program menu After sele
26. missiles should not overlap When your program is working and you start to fire the missiles you may get an error MISSILE TYPE MISMATCH This occurs when you try to fire a missile of the wrong type eg You have defined drawings 0 to 4 to fire missiles of type 0 with the MISSILE command If you issue a SHOOT 2 command and sprite 2 is using drawing 1 an error will occur because SHOOT 2 is trying to fire a type 2 missile and drawing 1 is only allowed to fire type 0 missiles BE CAREFUL 33 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING MISSILES SHOOT sp This command will allow a sprite to fire a missile whenever this command is issued sp being the sprite that will fire the missile If you have defined only a small number of sprites to be used as missiles and you have only used a small number for the delay you will find that the sprite will fire missiles in bursts This is due to the fact that only the number of missiles you have defined can be on screen at the same time If you continue to press the fire button or use the SHOOT command the action will be ignored until a missile has been removed from the screen and so freeing this missile to be used again When the missiles collide with the screen edge they disappear and can be used again If a missile collides with a piece of scenery or a sprite that does not have collision reporting turned on the missile will also disappear and can be used ag
27. perfect SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM IMPORTANT NOTES ON USING THIS PROGRAM You may use the Sprites In either Mode 0 or Mode 1 The screen PAPER should always be set to zero You may choose any colour you like for the paper colour by using the command INK 0 n If you use the PAPER command with a variable other than zero the sprites will not operate correctly hen using the sprites you MUST NOT scroll the screen If you ant to print something on the bottom line of the screen you hould use a semi colon after the information you want rinting If the screen does scroll the sprites coordinate ystem will not work correctly HOHNES When you are linking the colours to the inks with the INK i c you can not use flashing colours If you try to use flashing colours an error message will be displayed The coordinate system used within the Supervisor program is very Similar to the graphics coordinate system the Amstrad uses 0 0 being the bottom left hand edge of the screen The differences between the two systems are as follows The Amstrad system has a number of coordinates on the screen pointing to the same pixel ie Mode 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 and 3 0 are the same points on the screen he supervisor system has a different point on the screen for each individual coordinate ie Mode 0 1 0 is a different point to 0 0 This applies to both the X and Y coordinates The maximum screen coordinates for eac
28. previous page 1 2 de is th delay between firing de will contain a number this number will determine how many moves a missile must move before the next missile can be put on the screen ie If you set de to a value of 4 the missile that has most recently been fired must move 4 times before the next missile can be put on the screen This command has a number of advantages It enables the previously fired missile to move out of the way before the next missile is fired this will stop missiles from colliding with each other The other advantage is that you can alter how frequently a sprite can fire missiles throughout the game The minimum value for de is 2 and the maximum value is 63 MISSDIST di This command will determine how far all of the missiles will travel before they ar removed from the screen di should contain the number of moves a missile can make before it is removed ie If the value of di was 5 then after the fifth MOVE statement for that sprite the sprite would be removed If you do not want the sprite to be removed then simply use a value of 127 The minimum value for di is 5 and the maximum value is 127 The commands concerning missiles that have appeared so far in this manual are in the same order as they should appear in your program If you fail to put them in this order the missiles may not work correctly The order they should appear in your program is MISSTYPE MISSILE MIS
29. right bottom left and bottom right To inform the supervisor of the shape of your maze we need to specify three variables The first two variables are the x and y coordinates of the position that the sprites are allowed to change direction The third variable is a value which informs the sprites the directions they are allowed to leave from that particular node To make things a little easier for you we have written a program that will help you to define your nodes The program has its own instructions You will find the program on side one of your system disc In order to use this program to its full advantage I will now try and explain nodes in a little more detail A node is an invisible point on the screen You cannot see a node however you can see the actions of a node The demonstration program DEMO5 shows you the nodes in action In this demonstration the sprites move around the screen and seem to change direction at fixed but invisible points These points are nodes To make the game playable you will need to show the paths the sprites can take If you now look at DEMO6 we have included these paths The paths are put there to make the game playable Imagine trying to play Pacman without being able to see where you can change direction It is up to you to make these paths visible It is a very tedious job but the results are worth it As stated above you will need to specify the x and y coordinates for every node
30. strictly true there are ways to get around this Consider a platform game The character will probably need to climb up a ladder The ladder cannot be the same ink as the background colour because you would not see it It you look t the tables on the previous page you will notice that ollisions between certain ink combinations can not be etected If the main character was one off these inks and he ladder was another the character could move up the adder without the collision detection routine knowing about t However there is still one problem When two inks are rge together they form a new ink This is were the second able comes in If we set the new ink to the same colour as he main character nobody will be able to tell when the haracter moves over the ladder I am using a ladder as an example you can apply this technique to many games atts rrrtaaDa Example The main character sprite is defined in ink 1 and the ladder is defined in ink 10 A We can see from the first table that a collision cannot be detected between these two inks Looking at the second table we find that a collision between ink 1 and ink 10 A results in a change of ink the ink 11 B If we now make ink 11 the same colour as ink 1 you will not be able to detect the change in colour Taking this process one step further if you study the first table you will notice that ink 8 will not have collisions detected if it collides with inks 0 to 7 L
31. the blocks at the top of the screen are individual sprites the ball is a sprite and the bat is a sprite We could have 40 blocks at the top of the screen say four rows of ten Each of those 40 blocks is a sprite in total we have 42 sprites on the screen at the start of the game blocks bat and ball However we would only have to define 3 drawings that of the block the bat and the ball Even though we have forty blocks they are all identical so we simply link all 40 sprites to the one drawing I hope that starts to mak sense Ther is no point in storing all 40 blocks in memory because it is just a waste of memory Taking th idea on step further We have a man walking across the screen in an animated sequence That man is a single sprite However to get the animation effect we have to swap the drawings of the man everytime that he is moved This is a case of 1 sprite being linked to a number of drawings As another example consider a printing press The press has been set to produce a picture of a girl From that one drawing we can have a number of copies printed onto paper Your drawing stored in memory is the printing press and the copies on paper are your sprites We only need one drawing to produce any number of sprites from it Please remember the difference between your drawings and your actual sprites Any confusion you have will clear once you have used the program a number of times Practice does make
32. will be printed is as below DRAW 00 oI DIMENSION 32 R 32 32 x 32 DESCRIPTION MAN MAN TOTAL MEMORY 70 MEMORY 1088 1088 2176 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM This information is needed for reference when using the main sprites program The total memory value will be needed to calculate which value to use for the basic MEMORY command OPTION 7 ALTERING THE COLOURS After selecting this option you will be asked DO YOU WISH TO ALTER 0 MOD 1 MOD 0 COLOURS 1 COLOURS MODE 0 COLOURS These are the colours that you will design your drawings with MODE 1 COLOURS These are the colours for the menus and messages To select the type of colours you want to change press either NO Or TI MODE 0 COLOURS You will see displayed on the screen thr bands of colours The top two bands of colours are the 27 colours available on this computer You may only count 26 colours the background colour is also there but you can not see it The third band of colours are the colours that are currently selected for mode 0 Underneath this band of colours are the numbers 1 9 and the letters A F You can only use 16 colours in mode 0 At the top of the screen underneath the first colour is an arrow You can move this arrow from colour to colour by using the arrow keys To alter a colour move the arrow to the colour you want to selec
33. will contain the number of a sprite that was in collision When you have this number that sprite number will bc removed from the table By doing another NEXTREP v command the next sprite number will be taken from the table If the variable v contains the value 255 then that means all the sprite numbers in the table have been reported An important point to remember is that only the sprites that were in collision at the time of the REPORT command are stored in the table If you move any sprites after th REPORT command and some of th new movement causes a collision that will not be reported You can issue another REPORT command before you have removed all of the sprite numbers from the table The old sprite numbers that were in the table will be erased to make way for the new numbers An important point to remember is that this routine is quite slow You should not call it needlessly CLEAREP This command will clear the report table If a _ NEXTREP command is issued after this command the variable will contain 255 ie no more sprites in collision 24 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM COLLISION DETECTION HIT s Qv This command will allow the user to find out which sprite has hit another sprite ie You may know sprite 4 is in collision but there is no way to find out which sprite that it has collided with By using this command you will be able to find out
34. 0 0 0 0 0 x 0 x 0 0 0 0 0 6 X X 0 0 0 0 0 0 xX X 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 xX 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 X X X X X X X X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 xX 0 X 0 X 0 X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 A X X 0 0 xX X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 B xX 0 0 0 X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X X X X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 D xX 0 X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 E xX X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 F xX 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 When the sprites overlap each other their colour will change The following table will show the colour the sprite will change to We will describe on the next page the advantages of using these tables 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F Q x lt 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B D E F Ion A 0 3 2 5 4 g 6 9 8 B A D C F H 23 gt 22 3 0 1 6 7 4 5 A B 8 9 E F Cc D Buss So 2 1 0 7 6 5 6 B A 9 8 F E D C 4 4 5 6 T 0 1 2 4 C D E F 8 9 A B Soor 45 4 7 6 1 0 3 2 D C F E 9 8 B A 6 p 6 yi 4 5 2 3 0 1 E F C D A B 8 9 Toe od 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 EF E D C B gt A 9 8 Sr 8 9 A B C D E F 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 8 B A D C F E 1 0 3 2 5 4 7 6 ANE sk pB 8 9 E F C D 2 3 0 1 6 7 4 5 B B A 9 8 E E D C 3 2 a 0 7 6 5 4 Gos D E F 8 9 A B 4 5 6 7 0 jl 2 3 D3 D C F E 9 8 B A 5 4 7 6 1 0 3 2 F C D A B 8 9 6 7 4 5 2 3 0 1 Fo F E D C Be A 9 8 7 6 9 4 3 2 l 0 48 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM APPENDIX IIT ADVANCED USER NOTES We have stated throughout that once a sprite collides with another sprite they both change direction This is not
35. 0 going up in steps of 10 If the computer displays BREAK IN LINE 60 the error could be in line 60 or it could be the last command on the previous line ie 50 26 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM MISCELLANEOUS COMMANDS SXPOS s Qx This command will tell th user th X coordinate of a particular sprite s is the number of the sprite x is the variable that you want the sprite X coordinate to be stored in SYPOS s Qy This command will tell th user th Y coordinate of a particular sprite s is the number of the sprite y is the variable that you want the sprite Y coordinate to be stored in SDRAW s d This command will tell the user the drawing number that the sprite currently is s is the number of the sprite d is the variable that you want the drawing number to be stored ans SMEM m This command will tell the user the amount of memory that the drawings have taken up in memory This value should always he higher than the HIMEM value m is the variable that you want the memory information stored in XDIR s x This command will tell the user the speed at which the sprite is moving on the horizontal plane s is the number of the sprite x is the variable that you want the sprite speed to be stored in YDIR s Qy This command will tell the user the speed at which the sprite is moving on the vertical plane y is the number of the sprite Qy
36. 32 Define how far a missile will travel ISSHIT 34 Report collided missiles ISSILE 31 Define a missile for a drawing ISSTYPE 30 link drawing to missile type 52 s D Z J S pe Ea lt T D HE Z 2 a A oo0oo0oo0oo0oo0oork j mA ve ia ZAHE ny nOODrPp TA U T T J n U PRITE 1 x w at a PO A m i i i E HAOUAAQPE T NERY EEN R A NNNNNNNNNNWND TOQ vo S T R I R QUENCE O U SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM BRIEF DESCRIPTION ove a sprite ove all the sprites Check for collision of the last sprite that was moved Report next sprite ill collision Load nodes into memory Alter leaving directions of node Set attributes fur sprite Turn a sprite off to use nodes Turn a sprite on to use nodes Set speed of sprites in maze Determine chaselfl sprit Test a direction from the keyboard est a direction from the joystick urn collision reporting off Turn collision reporting on Cheek all sprites for collision and store result in a list Clear sprite variables Set sound attributes for sprite Put a drawing onto the screen Alter the shape of the screen Define the speed of a sprite Report the drawing a sprite is using Define an animation sequence Link a sprite to a drawing Fire a missile from a sprite Rep
37. 768 32767 Please see your Amstrad user manual for a full description of this command As stated above you must use all 8 variables If you do not require a certain function you should use a value of zero To define the amplitude and tone envelopes you should use the standard Amstrad commands ENV and ENT Once you have defined the sounds with the above commands you will need to link them to the sprites and their actions SATTR sp ac sn You can get the sprites to issue a sound whenever one of the following situations occur Fire a missile Explode Bounce at window edge Bounce with anything else BWwWNHE sp is the number of an already defined sprite ac is the action 1 4 above when the sprite will issue a sound sn is the number of a sound you have created with the SOUND command eg SATTR 0 1 2 Issue sound 2 when sprite 0 fires a missile 38 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING NODES In certain games Pacman etc the sprites are only allowed to move within the confines of a maze There are a number of commands built into the supervisor that will allow the user to simulate this type of game To create a maze for the sprites we have to define a number of nodes A node is the point within a maze which will allow the sprites to change direction To demonstrate this consider a large square on the screen The square has four corners therefore there will need to he four nodes top left top
38. 90 SPUT 2 75 95 EXPLODE 2 A B C D 100 WEND SPUTALL GOTO 30 36 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM MORE MISCELLANEOUS COMMANDS FRAME This command will wait until the frame flyback interrupt occurs before allowing the propram to continue It is useful for slowing down graphics if they are moving too fast It can also make the graphics in certain circumstances appear to move more smoothly although I find it doesn t really make all that much difference STUCK s Qv This command will tell the user if a particular sprite has become stuck to another sprite or a piece of scenery This can occur during animation and is described in the animation section If a sprite has become stuck you should SPUT it off the screen alter the coordinates and SPUT it back onto the screen s is the sprite number to test v will then contain a number 0 not stuck or 1 stuck NOTE This routine is not foolproof It will only return a value of stuck if it cannot move in a certain direction If you are using a joystick to control a sprite and you try to move the sprite into som scenery th stuck flag may be turned on for that sprite even though it can still move in other directions A none joystick keyboard controlled sprite will try to free itself by moving in all directions Only when it cannot move in any direction will the stuck flag be set A sprite may look stuck to you however it may be
39. ESS THE COPY KEY iga AND You can now move the cursors around the grid until they intersect on the colour you want to change Press the COPY key to select the desired colour You will then be asked to confirm the colour PLEASE CONFIRM YOU WANT TO CHANGE COLOUR 5 Y N 61 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM If you press N then uou will return to the design grid without out any alterations being made If you press Y you will then be asked CHANGE COLOUR 5 TO NEW COLOUR You must now enter the colour number or letter that you want the old colour changed to After entering this number letter the message will read YOU CANNOT ALTER ANY MISTAKES AFTERWARDS ARE YOU SURE Y N If you press N you will return to the design screen without any alterations being made If you press Y the old colour will be replaced with the new colour and you will return to the design grid WARNING If you alter a colour to a colour that is already being used on the design grid and you try to change it back you will alter all of the colour and not just the colour you originally changed Be careful 9 MAIN MENU Pressing 9 will allow the user to return to the MAIN menu The drawing that is currently in the design grid will be saved to memory NOTES on option 1 If you are storing a large number of drawings in memory keep a careful eye on space left If
40. HIT etc kiln Some of the commands used within the supervisor are relatively slow compared to others As an example the REPORT command has to check every sprite on the screen Plan your game so that only a certain group of sprites could be in collision and limit the REPORT command to this section of sprites Try to keep the sprites as small as possible When defining sprites keep them in a block Keep the sprite numbers as low as possible If you define sprite 0 and sprite 63 and you issue a command that operates on all the sprites ie MOVEALL all the sprites need to b checked even though they may not have been defined If after all this your program runs at a snails pace there are a number of alternatives 1 We will be selling a compiler to convert your BASIC program in to machine code This will dramatically improve the speed of your program 2 If you have knowledge of machine code we will be selling a cutdown version of the supervisor with documentation of all the entry points and variable information Please contact us about any of the above options for availability If you do have problems with the supervisor program please write to us and we will try to resolve the problem as quickly as possible It you have any comments or useful ideas for improvements to the program please contact us if we like the idea you will ia c ceive a revised and updated copy of the program free of h
41. N When you are putting sprites onto the screen randomly you can test to ensure a sprite has not been put onto another sprite 10 A 0 FOR I 2 TO 30 SGET I 3 REPON I 20 SPUT I RND 8 140 RND 8 160 30 30 COLLTEST I A IF A 0 THEN SPUT I GOTO 20 40 NEXT If a sprite is in collision it is removed and the program tries again 23 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM COLLISION DETECTION REPORT v This command is used to check all sprites that are on the screen to see if they are in collision By issuing this command every sprite on the screen that has collision reporting turned on is checked for collision All the sprites that are in collision are stored in a table The variable v tells you the amount of sprites that were in collision when the command was issued Therefore if v returns a value of 0 then none of the sprites with collision reporting turned on were in collision By using this command together with the NEXTREP command the user will have a list of the sprites that were in collision REPORT s1 s2 Qv This command is identical to the REPORT v command except that it will check a range of sprites instead of all the sprites sl is the starting sprite number whilst s2 is the ending sprite number NEXTREP Qv This command will get the next value from the table that was set up by the REPORT command When using this command the variable v
42. ONTROL CODES SENDING TO PRINTER Y N If you want to send control codes to your printer Y key These control codes could be to change printer to a different font etc If you do require control codes sending you should now see displayed PLEASE TYPE EACH INDIVIDUAL CONTROL CODE CONTROL CODE At this point you should enter each control code and press RETURN When you have finished entering the control codes you should press the ESC key t make a mistake press the NOTE DI EL cannot be greater than 63 You will now be asked key DO YOU WANT THE T LINE F should ans is You printer printing wer Y to a PL EASE ENSUR E YOUR PRINT ED CONTROL blank line information then in future you should hey will be displayed along the bottom of the screen You may enter a maximum of 6 control As you enter the control codes If you codes They CODE S this question ENDING TO PRINTER Y N If you find your between answer each piece of N ER IS ONLINE Will now be displayed After chec Your printer should print key AND R PRESS ANY K EY WH EN YOU ARE REA drawings you have selected out the SCRE SEL ECT ED EN king your printer formation on the in EADY TO PRINT press any The information that
43. SDELAY MISSDIST BULLET 32 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING MISSILES We are now ready to define a number of sprites to be used as missiles BULLET ty sp1 sp2 This command defines how many sprites are going to be used as missiles ty is the missile type There are thr separat banks of missiles you may use 0 1 and 2 Sprite 0 has its own bank 0 Sprite 1 has its own bank 1 Sprites 2 63 have their own bank 2 spl is the lowest sprite that can be used as a missile sp2 is the highest sprite that can be used as a missile A sprite can have more than one missile on the screen at the same time EXAMPLE You wish for sprite 0 to have up to 10 missiles on the screen at the same time You way then simply use the command BULLET 0 20 29 This command will define sprites 20 to 29 to be missile sprites To get the sprite to actually fire a missile is simple For sprites 0 and 1 you may simply turn on the fire button using the STIX or KEB commands Everytime the button is pressed a missile will be fired The other way to fire a missile this works with all sprites from 0 to 63 is to use the SHOOT command which will be described a little later NOTE When defining the lower and upper sprite numbers to be used as missiles you should not use these sprites for any other purpose Also the lowest sprite number cannot be lower than 2 The three banks of
44. Sprite 0 and sprite 1 move around the maze under control of the joystick keyboard However the rest of the sprites 2 63 need to be told how to move This command does just that sp is the number of an already defined sprite 2 63 at is the attribute number that determines how the sprite will move he normal sprites 2 63 can either move randomly around the maze chase after sprite 0 1 or flee away from sprite 0 1 lro determine which of these actions the sprite will take please use the following table 1 Random move 2 Chase after sprite 0 1 3 Flee from sprite 0 1 You should use one of the numbers above for the at variable NOTE If you are going to use option 2 or option 3 the nodes can chase flee from either sprite 0 or sprite 1 they cannot chase flee from both sprites The sprite that they are going to chase or flee from is defined with the command on the next page If the sprite that they are going to chase flee is not on the screen then the sprites will assume option 1 until sprite 0 or sprite 1 is put back onto the screen 41 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING NODES NODESPRITE sp This command will determine which sprite all other sprites will chase flee sp is the sprite number 0 or 1 If sp is 0 the sprites will chase flee sprite 0 which is controlled by the joystick If sp is 1 the sprites will chase flee sprite 1 which is controlled by the keyboard NODEON sp This co
45. Sprites Alive Manual Basic Version Submitted by Tommy Pereira on 24 September 2003 Kindly scanned and PDFed by Steve R Sopp Thank you Kevin Thacker for putting it online for everyon on the Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource L S GO http mondodizzy members easyspace com Kiss My ARSEnal Pixel Art Drawrings http dizzypetition members easyspace com Bring Back that Loveable EGG MAIN MENU THE SUPERVISOR Supervisor Program Start sess nesse eee wee a ee 05 Supervisor Appendix I 45 Sereen DAMENSTONS cease sieaa RS E ay soe Se ees dee ates Supervisor Appendix II 46 Error Messages os ss seo sete wig else SO ele e s alae tes we Supervisor Appendix III 48 Advanced USE NOES seusia die Aa ete alate eed Guede Supervisor Command Index 52 THE DESIGNER SUpPErvVisor Program Start aw a ieciseeia eee ee eee we eee 55 Designer Command Index sses a nnes ea ae e 715 I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dawn my long suffering girlfriend Without her patience this program would never have been created THE SUPERVISOR GLEN COOK SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM INTRODUCTION The CPC range of Amstrad computers is supplied with an excellent hardware specification However the BASIC supplied with the computer good as it is does not show off the computer s full potent
46. The rest of the program would set up the sprite and music data If you take a look at the listings of the demonstration programs you will be able to s just how simple they are You should be able to write programs just like them in no time at all SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM AN OVERVIEW OF THE SPRITES AND DRAWINGS It is very important that you understand this page before you start to use the sprite program Take your time to fully familiarize yourself with the points made on this page Without understanding the basics of sprites and this program you will find the program impossible to use to its full extent It is important to familiarize yourself to the difference between a drawing and a sprite The drawing is the actual shape of the character that will be stored in memory The sprite is not an actual drawing but it can be linked to a drawing That may sound a bit confusing but I will give you an example to try and explain what I mean Please bear in mind that every individual character on the screen iS a separate sprite be it a spaceship a man or a missile Take as an example the game of Breakout the game where a ball bounces around the screen knocking out blocks at the top You control a bat at the bottom of the screen and try to keep the ball in play by bouncing the ball off your bat To simplify things all the blocks at the top of the screen are the same shape size and colour Each of
47. again This is the only screen where pressing ESC does not return you to the MAIN menu To return to the MAIN menu when using the design screen you should press ESC to get the above menu and then select function key 9 58 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM fl R ENAM Pressing f1 will allow the user to alter the description of the current drawing After pressing f1 the old description is displayed on the screen The user may now enter a new description If you do not wish to do this press ESC to return to the menu RETURN After entering a new description press to return to the design grid 2 COPY Pressing f2 will allow the user to copy the current drawing to another drawing area This is important for animation as the user can then alter just a small section of the drawing instead of having to do the whole drawing from the start After pressing f2 the user will be prompted to enter COPY THIS DRAWING TO DRAWING NUMB ER If you do not want to copy to another drawing press ESC You should now type in the drawing number you want to copy this drawing to and press RETURN If the drawing number you entered already has a drawing stored there you will be shown the drawing you would overwrite at the bottom right of the screen and asked YOU WILL OVERWRITE THE DRAWING ON THE BOTTOM RIGHT CONTINUE Y N If yo
48. ain If the missile hits a sprite with collision reporting turned on REPON s the missile will stop moving and it will stay on the screen The sprite it has collided with will also stop moving if it was moving We now have two commands that deal with missiles once they have collided with a sprite that had collision reporting turned on MISSHIT v This command store in variable v the number of missiles that are currently in collision and are still on the screen It does not take into account the type of missile If v contains 0 no missiles that are currently on the screen are in collision If v contained the value 3 then 3 missiles on the screen are in collision with a sprite MISSHIT ty v ty is the type of missile 0 1 2 When this command is issued if a missile of the type you specified in ty was in collision the missile will be removed from the screen and v will contain the number of the sprite that the missile had collided with The sprite that the missile had hit will now be able to move again It is up to you to decide what to do with the sprite that the missile hit You have the sprite number in v therefore if you wished to remove that sprite you could use the command SPUT v 34 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING MISSILES It is important that you check regularly to ensure if any missiles have collided with sprites If you do not your game may become cluttered with sprites that
49. are not moving Also if you have only specified to use only a small number of bullets with the BULLET command you may not use the missile sprite again until it is removed from the screen NOTES ON USING THE MISSILES If you should find that when firing your missiles they do not work correctly there may be a number of reasons for this 1 The offset you have chosen is to close to the main drawing When the missile is put onto the screen it collides with the sprite that is firing it You should increase the offset between the sprite and the missile 2 You are not moving the missile fast enough If the missile has not been moved completely away from the main firing sprite and you press th fir button again the next missile will collide with the old missile You should ither increase the delay between firing missiles with the MISSDEL command or include more MOVE routines to move the missile faster or increase the speed the missile moves from within the MISSILE command 3 You are not checking for the missiles colliding often enough As soon as you find a missile in collision you should act upon it You should check for missile collisions REGULARLY Remember the missiles do not remove themselves when they hit something its up to YOU to remove the missile with the MISSHIT command 4 If you find the missile does not fire correctly when you are moving the sprite in the direction you are firing you sh
50. arge 44 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM APPENDIX I SCREEN DIMENSIONS MODE 0 SCREEN CHARACTERS DIMENSIONS 20 x 25 160 x 200 0 19 x 16 152 x 208 1 18 x 28 144 x 224 2 17 x 30 136 x 240 3 16 x 31 128 x 248 4 21 x 24 168 x 192 5 22 x 23 176 x 184 6 23 x 22 184 x 176 ai 24 x 21 192 x 168 MODE 1 SCREEN CHARACTERS DIMENSIONS 40 x 25 320 x 200 0 38 x 16 304 x 208 1 36 x 28 288 x 224 2 34 x 30 272 x 240 3 32 x 31 256 x 248 4 42 x 24 336 x 192 5 44 x 23 352 x 184 6 46 x 22 368 x 176 7 48 x 21 384 x 168 45 OS Www wwos DODANDHDUW SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM APPENDIX II ERROR MESSAGES incorrect number of variables used in command ne drawing number is greater than 63 N ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne nN sprite number is greater than 63 drawing has not been defined sprite has not been defined starting number is greater than finish number sprite has not been on the screen sprite is already on the screen drawing has been defined already sprite has already been defined sprite is outside window coordinates X coordinate equals zero Y coordinate equals zero X coordinate is greater than 32 Y coordinate is greater than 32 variable used is greater than 7 X speed is greater than 10 Y speed is greater than 10 ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne nN screen mode is g
51. bouncing backwards and forwards a matter of pixels and therefore the stuck flag will not be set the sprite is moving SPEEK x y v This command will test a pixel on the screen The x and y are the screen coordinates to test v s will contain the ink number of that particular pixel This command will only work in Mode 0 or Mode 1 SPOKE x y i This command will plot a pixel onto the screen The x and y are the screen coordinates i is the ink You should use the sprites coordinate system Not Amstrad S T SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING AUTOMATIC SOUNDS The supervisor allows for the sprites to automatically generate sounds when certain conditions apply Whenever this condition is met the supervisor will generate a sound There are two commands that deal with automatically generating sounds SOUND nn ch ae te tp np ia du This command is identical to the standard Amstrad sound command with two exceptions The first variable sn is the sound number You can define up to 16 different sound effects 0 15 The only other difference between this command and the Amstrad version is that you must use all the variables sn Sound number 0 15 ch Channels to use and rendezvous requirements 0 255 ae Amplitud nvelope to use 0 15 Ton nvelope to us 0 15 tp Tone period 1 4095 np Noise period 0 31 ia Initial amplitude 0 15 du Duration of sound 32
52. ce The sprite will bounce off the object that it has hit NOTE he default settings for general purpose sprites is to bounce when in collision The default setting for sprite 0 and sprite 1 is to STOP when in collision You may not alter the collision attribute of any sprites defined as missiles The missile sprites will he described in detail later in the manual Sprite 0 and sprite 1 can only STOP when in collision You may not alter the collision attribute for these two sprites If you do try to alter the attribute an error message will be displayed REPON s In order for you to write your program you will need to be able to tell if certain sprites are in collision There are a number of commands to help you achieve this You may not need details about every collision on the screen and this is why we have included the REPON and REPOFF commands The REPON command will turn on the collision reporting for sprite s This collision reporting has no say in what the sprites will do when they collide If the reporting is switched on for a particular sprite and has its attributes set to bounce and the sprite collides with something the sprite will bounce and its sprite number will be remembered 22 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM COLLISION DETECTION If the same sprite has its reporting switched off and it was in collision it would still bounce but the sprite number would not be remembere
53. cting the fil to erase the screen will clear and you will be asked to confirm the file you want to erase PLEASE CONFIRM YOU WANT TO ERASE DATA 1 Yes or No If you decide not to erase that particular file you should Press the N key this will return you to the directory of files screen If you select Y the file will he erased from the disc and you will be returned to the MAIN sprites menu RETURN TO MAIN MENU This option will simply return you to the MAIN sprites menu 67 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM OPTION 5 DRAWING EDITOR After selecting this option you will be presented with a grid of 64 numbers ranging from 0 to 63 These numbers represent the drawings stored in memory Underneath drawing 0 there is an arrow If any drawings hav been defined th numbers of that particular drawing will be a different colour If the colours have not been altered using option 7 the undefined drawing numbers will be blue and the defined drawings will be red At the bottom of the screen in the middle there will be the description of the drawing that the arrow is pointing to If the arrow is pointing to an undefined drawing the screen will display NOT DEFINED Underneath the drawing description is a message Delete Rename Copy ESC to end Pressing the relevant key D R C ESC will enable that function to act on the drawing number the arrow is pointing to
54. d It is best if you keep the number of sprites with reporting turned on to a minimum Some of the collision detection commands are relatively slow therefore the less sprites that they have to test the faster your program will be NOTI Gl The default setting for collision reporting for all sprites is OFF In order to use the collision detection commands the collision reporting must be turned on You cannot turn on the collision detection for missile sprites These sprites have their own detection routines We will deal with the missile commands further into the manual REPOFF s This command is the opposite to the REPON command it will turn the collision detection for sprite s off The following commands all test the collision reporting flag it the flag is turned off and a sprite is in collision the sprite number will not be reported COLLTEST s Qv This command will tell the user whether a particular sprite is in collision s is the sprite number v is the variable that you want the information stored in Please be aware that you must use the just before the variable This is because the sprite program is passing a variable back to basic After using this command the variable you have used will contain a number This number will be either 0 64 128 or 255 O Sprite in collision 64 Collision detection turned off 128 Sprite not on screen 255 Sprite not collided SUGGESTIO
55. d to link the sequences to a sprite You should do this after you have issued an SGET command When you do link a sprite to a drawing the drawing number you should use should be lower than the highest drawing number defined in the sequence Te You have linked drawing 10 to sprite number 0 The sequence you are going to use must have a drawing number in it which is greater than 10 Once the sprite is animated the drawing number is incremented until it is equal to the last sequence number then it is reset to the start sequence number If you issued an SGET command with a drawing number higher than the highest sequence number an error would occur If you wish to use only one drawing for each different direction you should use the same drawing number for both the high and the low values Example You have designed eight drawings of a spaceship one drawing for each direction the ship can move in The sequence command should look something like this SEQUENCE 1 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 ANIMATE s sn This is a command that links a sprite to an animation sequence s is the sprite number sn is the sequence number The sprite should have already been linked to a drawing with the SGET command ANIMOFF s This command turns the animation of sprite s off The drawing that the sprite was using at the time the command was issued will now be frozen ie not animated If the sprite i
56. dio x coordinate Add the y size to the converted Art studio coordinate The result of this should be the coordinates you should type into nodes program Sorry we have ran out of space 51 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM SUPERVISOR INDEX COMMAND PAGE BRIEF DESCRIPTION ANIMATE 29 Link a sprite to a sequence number ANIMOFF 29 Turn animation of a sprite off BULLE 33 Define x number of sprites to be bullets CLEAREP 24 Clear the Report table CLS 12 Clear the screen COLLIDE 22 Define attributes of sprite when colliding with another object COLLTEST 23 Test for an individual sprite in collision COLOUR 12 Turn on the screen colours CSPRITE 2 Erase a sprite from memory DGE 9 Define a new drawing DRAW 11 Load drawings from sprite designer ERASE 15 Clear all information 311 sprites including the drawings EXPLODE 36 Cause a sprite to explode FRAME 31 Wait for frame flyback HIT 25 Report which sprite has hit a particular sprite INKBLACK 12 Change all colours to black KEB 17 Keyboard control for sprite 1 KEBDEF 19 Define keys to operate sprite 1 KEBSPEED 19 Define speed for sprite 1 AZEOFF 43 Turn off all nodes AAZEON 43 Turn on all nodes ERGE 35 erge a new drawing onto existing sprite ISSDELAY 32 Define how fast a missile is fired ISSDIST
57. drawing 1 30 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING MISSILES MISSILE Dn ty Xo Yo Xs Ys This is the command that will link a missile type to a drawing number Dn is the drawing that will fire the missile ty is the missile type 0 1 2 If you require sprite 0 to fire missiles and sprite 0 is animated with drawings 0 to 7 we would need to use 8 MISSILE commands starting MISSILE 0 0 xo0 yo xXs ys and ending MISSILE 7 0 xo yo xs ys Remember the second variable is the missile type and not the drawing number of the missile The advantage of linking a missile to a drawing rather than the sprite for use in different types of game is obvious The game of asteroids has a ship that can rotate through eight directions When you fire a missile you fire it in the direction the ship is pointing and moving However the gam of space invaders has a ship moving to the left and right but the missiles always fire upwards The MISSTYPE command must be issued before you start to use this command Xo and Yo are the X and Y offsets for the missile To calculate the offsets you should use a piece of graph paper or a calculator CALCULATING MISSILE OFFSETS There is a utility on the disc to help you to calculate the offsets This utility is called OFFSETS Full instructions are included within the program To simplify things we shall call the drawing that is going to fire the missile drawing A and
58. e The The The The The The The The The The The The The You You Missile overflow SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM ERROR MESSAGES CONT distance is less than 2 colour is greater than 26 ink is greater than 15 number of spots equals zero explosion increase is greater than 32 explosion limit is greater than 128 variable cannot be zero variable is greater than 9 missile X speed is greater than 10 missile Y speed is greater than 10 missile drawing is greater than 63 missile drawing equals 0 Sprite 0 and Sprite 1 cannot be missiles There are more than 10 missiles defined sprite used for a missile is already defined missile type has been mismatched missile delay is greater than 63 missile distance is greater than 127 missile delay equals 0 cannot do that to a missile sprite cannot alter that on sprite 0 or sprite 1 Type 0 Missile overflow Type 1 Missile overflow Type 2 You The The The The cannot use flashing colours coordinate is outside window x coordinate is outside window y drawings must be defined before the nodes speed cannot equal zero nodes have not been loaded onto the supervisor sprites node speeds have not been defined sprites node attribute has not been defined node attribute cannot equal zero node attribute is greater than 31 sound number can not be greater than 15 amplitude envelope can not be grea
59. e disc for you to use Press any key on the keyboard After a short time you will be presented with a list of the drawing files stored on the disc 1 DATA 2 GAME 3 CREATE NEW FILE This is how a typical menu may look This menu is telling you that there are two drawing files stored on the disc called DATAL and GAME The third option allows you to create your own drawing file Select option 1 by pressing the 1 key After a short delay the MAIN menu will be displayed THE OPTIONS MENU 1 EDIT A DRAWING 2 VIEW THE DRAWINGS 3 ANIMATE THE DRAWINGS 4 DISC OPERATIONS 5 DRAWING EDITOR 6 SPRITE INFORMATION 7 ALTER THE COLOURS 8 CREATE SPRITE DATA 9 END THE PROGRAM PLEASE MAKE YOUR SELECTION We will look at each individual option shortly To select an option press the relevant number You must use the numbers along the top of the keyboard as the function keys on the right have been disabled Select option 2 You will he told the number of drawings defined and the drawing range The program is asking you if you would like to see all the drawings Press Y You are now shown the drawings that are stored in memory at the moment You can use these drawings to experiment with the various options within the program 56 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM If at any time throughout the prog
60. en the tank reverses by swapping drawings the new drawing may cover more of the hit object than the last drawing did To get around this problem you should leave a space behind the drawing that is liable to stick If a stick still occurs try increasing the space to 3 or 4 pixels If this does not solve the problem you will need to redesign your drawing 50 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM APPENDIX IIT ADVANCED USER NOTES The previous page has suggested a way of avoiding collisions by making the drawing size larger than the actual drawing There is another method you may use to prevent animated drawings from sticking together If you draw a box around your drawing in an ink that will nearly always detect collisions ie ink 7 and then set this ink to the same colour as the background colour The user will never see the box however the supervisor will detect whenever that box is in collision and allow the sprite to change direction without becoming stuck We have used this principle in the nodes demonstrations DEMO5 and DEMO6 In case you were wondering how we managed to get the scenery looking like it did in DEMO6 we used the Advanced Art Studio program Its not a simple job and it would take many pages of instructions if we told you how to do it
61. er to clear the current grid but keep the grid in memory After pressing f5 the user will be asked ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CLEAR THIS DRAWING Y N If you press N you will return to the design grid with your drawing still intact If you press Y the drawing grid will clear and you will turn to the design grid K oO PLEASE NOTE You should not clear the grid and then return to the MAIN menu Even though there is no drawing stored in the grid it will still count as a drawing If you intend to return to the MAIN menu without a drawing stored you should use the 4 option and delete the grid from memory 6 DIMENSIONS Pressing f6 will allow the user to alter the dimensions of the current grid You may increase or decrease the size of the grid After pressing f6 the user will be asked OLD DIMENSIONS 16x 20 NEW DIMENSIONS x You should now enter the dimensions that you would like the grid to be If you are enlarging the grid then the design grid will be redrawn with the larger dimensions If you are reducing the grid the area that will be cut off will be shaded This will enable the user to see if they will lose any of the drawing 60 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM After the area to be cut off is shaded the user will be asked WITH DRAWING DIMENSIONS OF 10 x 10 YOU WILL LOSE THE DRAWING DATA IN THE SHADED AREA DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE Y N
62. f drawing information Each file of drawing information takes 36k Try to ensure when you are going to save drawing data to disc you have enough space left on the disc Don t lose sleep over it though the program does check to nsur ther is nough space It just saves you a bit of time thats all The program does its own housework ie it automatically erases any backup copies it creates The drawings are stored in the format filename dal first bank of memory 17k filename da2 second bank of memory 17k filename da3 drawing colour info 2k If you want to store drawing data on a new disk ensure that i is formatted It does not matter that there is no it DISKDATA SPR file on the disc the program will create one If you make a mistake and the disc drive has started DO NOT try to remove the disc It s a had habit and you could lose all the data on the disc The DISKDATA SPR file is erased before it is updated Alter selecting option 4 you will be presented with the menu LOAD DRAWINGS SAVE DRAWINGS ERASE DRAWINGS RETURN TO MAIN MENU BUNE a LOAD THE DRAWINGS After selecting this option the warning message will be displayed YOU WILL DESTROY INFORMATION IN MEMORY CONTINUE Y N If you select N you will return to the above menu 65 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM If you select Y you will see displayed the message that is shown when you first run the progra
63. h screen and mode can be found in Appendix 1 Some of the commands described in the manual will pass values back to BASIC These commands will have the character before the variable name It is VERY important that you include this character when it is shown in a command Failure to do this could result in your program being corrupted and the computer may crash It is important that you save your program before you RUN it If you have made a mistake and you loose your program it is very frustrating to have to type it back into the computer again You MUST use either the ERASE or the RESET command as the first instruction within your program If you are going to use a different size screen to the standard Amstrad screen the LOCATE command will not work correctly You should use trial and error to find the correct value for the LOCATE command SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM SCREEN AND DRAWING COMMANDS SCREEN n This command will allow the user to change the shape of the screen There are nine different screen sizes to choose from these range from SCREEN O to SCREEN 7 To return to the standard screen simply use the SCREEN command with no number after it You should experiment with this command with the border set to a different colour to the paper so you can see the exact shape the screen will take The sizes of the different screens can be found in appendix 1
64. he same time The way you define your sequence is as 1 follows 2 5 These are the eight directions that your 3 9 6 sprite can move in You must define a drawing sequence for 4 7 each direction 8 SEQUENCE sn 11 1h 21 2h 31 3h 41 4h 51 5h 61 6h 71 7h 81 8h This is quite a long command you only need do it once for each sequence and not everytime you want to animate a sprite The 1 and h in the command example are for the low and high numbers of a sequence sn is the sequence number This should not he confused with he sprite number You will learn how to link a sequence to a sprite shortly The sequence number can be between 0 and 15 fs ithin that sequence must have the same x y dimensions Also here should not be any drawings missing The sequences can be repeated for a number of different directions When you define a sequence from low to high every drawing w Example You have designed a number of drawings of a man drawings 0 to 5 are the man walking left drawings 6 to 11 are the man walking right The man can walk left and right The command should look something like this sequence 0 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 6 11 6 11 6 11 6 11 This command sets up sequence 0 If the man happened to start moving at a diagonal the figure would still be animated 28 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM ANIMATING THE DRAWINGS Once you have set up your animation sequences you will then nee
65. he sprite ie If a sprite has a height of ten pixels then it would be no good trying to put it at coordinate 100 8 simply because the sprite would go off the bottom of the screen 14 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM Q ETTING THE SPRITES ON AND OFF THE SCREEN SPUT s This command is used to take a sprite off the screen s is the sprite number If you have taken a sprite off the screen then by using another SPUT s command the sprite will come back onto the screen at the same place that it was taken off In other words the SPUT s command will toggle the sprite off and on the screen Example SPUT 0 100 100 Put sprite 0 at location 100 100 SPUT 0 Take sprite 0 off the screen SPUT 0 Put sprite 0 back onto the screen NOTE In order to use the SPUT s command the sprite must have been put onto the screen initially with a SPUT s x y SPUT s1 s2 This command is identical to the SPUT s command except that it will either remove or put onto the screen a number of sprites sl being the first sprite and s2 being the last sprite It does not matter if you have not defined all of the sprites in the range sl s2 as the program will ignore any sprite that has not been defined SPUTALL This command will remove all the sprites off the screen This is useful at the end of a game when you need th screen clearing IMPORTANT If you have put a sprite onto the screen then y
66. hich to design your drawings You originally have 38100 Bytes Please bear in mind that you also have to write a program to control the sprites in memory as well Once again try to use as little memory as possible The X 01 Y 01 are the coordinates of the cursors within the grid You can move the cursors around the outside of the grid by pressing the arrow keys As you move the cursors around the grid you will note that the X and Y coordinates change To design a drawing you should move the cursors to the square you want a colour on and press the relevant colour key If you make a mistake you may clear it by pressing 0 the background colour on the square you made the mistake on You way notice that when you select a colour the colour you selected appears at the top right hand side of the screen This shows the user the selected colour You may now fill in squares within the grid with that colour by pressing the SPACEBAR To chang th selected colour simply press a different colour number or letter You may now try the options menu To do this press the ESC key once The bottom of the screen will clear and the options menu will appear f1 RENAME f4 DELETE 7 MOVEMENT 2 COPY 5 CLEAR 8 COLOUR SEARCH 3 COLOUR LATCH ON 6 DIMENSIONS 9 MAI ENU o select an option press the appropriate function key ro return to the design grid press the ESC key
67. his consists of a number of squares th number of squares there are depends on the size of the coordinates you selected The squares will also vary in size depending on the drawing dimensions you hav chosen Th grid will always be to a scale size ie a larger version of the actual drawing The area to the right hand side of the design grid is where the drawing will be placed This drawing is normal size At the bottom of the screen is the information area This area informs the user of a number of things DRAWING NO 05 DESCRIPTION BIRD LEFT DIMENSIONS S16 x20 SPRITE SIZE 00360 X 01 Y 01 SPRITE SPACE 12324 SPACE LEFT 3 20776 57 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM The DRAWING NUMBER and DESCRIPTIONS are self explanatory The DIMENSIONS are the x and y dimensions of the grid on the screen The SPRITE SIZE is the amount of memory it will take to store the drawing that you will design on the screen It is important to use as little memory as possible This can be achieved by making sure there are no spaces left around the outside of your drawing If there are spaces left after you have finished your drawing you may alter the dimensions as described later on in the manual The SPRITE SPACE is the amount of memory that all the drawings you have so far designed take up The SPACE LEFT is the amount of memory you have left with w
68. ial in the graphics and sound departments This suite of programs will remedy this by extending the BASIC with a number of extra commands These extra commands will allow the user to manipulate graphics to a far greater extent than was ever possible using the BASIC supplied On the disc there are a number of demonstration programs written entirely in BASIC to show you the type of program that you will be able to create for yourself You do not need to have any knowledge of machine code Try the demonstrations for yourself RUN DEMO1 and press ENTER There are five demonstration programs on the disc They are called DEMO1 DEMO2 DEMO3 DEMO4 and DEMOS After reading through this manual and getting used to the extra commands you will be able to write programs of the same sort of quality as this The program has the following features 1 64 User definable sprites 2 Animation sequencing 3 Smooth pixel movement 4 True collision detection 5 Use of mode 0 or mode 1 6 Joystick or Keyboard control 7 Comprehensive sprite designer 8 Automated commands 9 Simple to understand instructions The program has been designed to eliminate large amounts of BASIC thereby making the programs easier to write and understand This is done by making the sprite program do most of the decision making for you It is quite possible to write a game that only has three or four lines of BASIC for the main loop
69. ill move everytime you press a key This feature is useful to check the slow motion of a sprite to ensure the animation is correct After pressing RETURN on this option the screen will clear and you will then s the sprite being animated To return to the MAIN menu press the ESC key OPTION 4 DISC OPERATIONS It is important for you to know how the information is stored on the disc This should prevent any mishaps and possible heartache On the disk there is a file called DISKDATA SPR This file holds information about the sprite files that are stored on the disk If you decide to erase any of the files off the disc please use th rase function within this option 64 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM If you erase any of the drawing files off the disc without using this option the load menu will still display the file as being present This is because the drawing file names are stored in DISKDATA SPR Only the erase function within this option will erase the relevant information from this file f you erase the DISKDATA SPR file from the disc you will not able to recover any of the drawing data files that might e stored on the disc BE CAREFUL OOH If you wish to copy some drawing files from one disc to another you should load the drawing data file you wish to copy off the disc insert the disc you want to copy it to and then save the fil A blank formatted disc can store 4 sets o
70. instead of displaying a number it shows OUT OF MEMORY you do not have enough memory left to use option 8 on the MAIN menu SHIFTING THE DRAWINGS The user may move the drawings around inside the design grid by pressing the SHIFT key and then the appropriate arrow key If you shift part of the drawing over the edge of the grid it will be lost and you will not be able to recover it OPTION 2 VIEW THE DRAWINGS After selecting this option you will be shown DRAWINGS DEFINED 20 DRAWING RANGE 00 31 DO YOU WISH TO SEE ALL THE DRAWINGS Y N 62 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM This is giving the user certain information about the drawings that have been stored in memory so far DRAWINGS DEFINED lls the user the number of drawings that have so far been designed DRAWING RANGE Tells th user th lowest and highest drawings that have so far been designed If you press Y to the question the screen will show upto 16 drawings If more than 16 drawings have been designed you will see the rest of the drawings after pressing any key If you press ESC whilst the drawings are being displayed you will return to the above option menu Likewise if you press ESC at this menu you will return to the MAIN menu If you press N to the question you will then be asked PLEASE ENTER DRAWING RANGE x You should now e
71. ite under control of the joystick or keyboard This type of control is fine if you want the sprite to move in the direction that you move the joystick space invaders pacman However there are games and situations when you will need to know in which direction the joystick keyboard is pointing without actually moving the sprite in that particular direction Take as an xampl th gam of Asteroids If you move the joystick to the left the ship should rotate anticlockwise instead of moving to the left The way to get around this problem is to establish the position of the joystick keyboard and then act upon this information The commands below will test if a certain direction is being pressed READSTIX k Qv This command will test the joystick to see if is being moved in a particular direction k should contain a number between O and 9 This number will refer to the direction to test 1 If you wish to test to see if the joystick 2 5 is pushed straight up the value of k should be 1 To test for diagonally left 3 9 6 and down k should have the value of 4 ete 4 7 Number 9 tests for the fire button 8 Number 0 tests for NO direction If a value of 0 is returned in your variable it means the joystick is in the central position if a value of 1 is returned it means that the joystick is being pushed in a certain but unknown direction The command will return a value in v This can either be 0 not pressed or 1 pressed
72. ites do not When you are using the node designer program and you come to view your nodes the sprites will only change direction when they hit a node When the paths the sprites are allowed to take are drawn onto the screen and the paths cross each other and there is no node at that point where they cross the sprites will not change direction When all the paths are drawn the directions the sprites can leave the nodes are shown by a light coloured line leaving the node The nodes when designed use up a certain amount of memory The amount of memory they use is displayed after you have saved the nodes for use with the supervisor to disc You will need to make a note of this number When you are calculating the value for your memory command once you have an answer you should then subtract from the answer the amount of memory the nodes will use You should then use the new figure for your memory command We will now go through the supervisor commands associated with the nodes NODE filename This command will load the nodes you have defined with the node designer program into memory You should have already taken into account the extra memory the nodes will use and altered the MEMORY command You can only load the nodes into memory AFTER ALL the drawings have been stored in memory If after executing this command you try to load drawings or DGET drawings into memory an error message will he displayed
73. m PLEASE INSERT DISC WITH DRAWING DATA INFORMATION AND PRESS ANY KEY You should now insert the disc that you would like to load and press any key If you have inserted a disc that does not have a DISKDATA SPR file on it you are given the following options DATA NOT FOUND 1 CREATE NEW DATA DISC 2 TRY ANOTHER DISC It you select option 2 you are prompted to insert another disc and try again Selecting option 1 will create a DISKDATA SPR file on the disc If the disc you inserted has no drawing files stored on it or you have just created a new DISKDATA file you will get the message NO DRAWING FILES STORED AS YET PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE Pressing any key will display the MAIN menu If the disc you inserted had an files on it the files will be displayed along with a number to th filenames lefthand side Typing this number will load the relevant file At the end of the filenames will be a CREATE NEW DATA option This option will allow the user to start a new file which he can save with the save option that is documented next If there has been a mishap and the file you try to load is missing or corrupt the program will check the complete disc to see if any other files are missing If any other files are found to be missing their names will be reported and the DISKDATA SPR file will be updated The user will then be offered a choice of
74. mbered you will not need to define all the colours again you would simply use the COLOUR command as described abov WP This command will clear the screen The screen will change to Mode 2 the screen will revert to its normal size and the pen and paper colours will be changed to make them easier to read CLS If you are going to use a different size screen to the normal Amstrad screen when you issue the normal CLS command a small section of the screen way not have been cleared correctly To clear the screen completely you should use this command 12 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM SPECIAL SPRITES AND HOW TO USE THEM I have spent quite some time trying to decide where this page should appear in the manual On first reading it may seem totally confusing however if I didn t include it near th beginning of the manual you may not understand why some sprites behave differently to others My suggestion is that you should read this page now and then refer back to it when you understand the program a bit more Sprite 0 and sprite 1 are controlled by the joystick and keyboard all other sprites 2 63 are controlled by your program If you do not intend to use a sprite controlled by joystick or keyboard you should not use sprite 0 or sprite 1 The differences between thes special sprites and the more general purpose sprites are as follows e Sprite 0 and sprite 1 will not bounce a
75. mmand will turn on the maze function for a specific sprite All of the sprites do not need to follow the directions the nodes dictate Some of the sprites may ignore the nodes totally Sprites that have been defined as missiles will also ignore the nodes If you try to use this command on a missile sprite an error message will be displayed Before using this command you should hav defined th NODESPEED and the NODEATTR for the sprite T sp is the number of the sprite that will travel the maze You can not use this command on sprite 0 and sprite 1 as they are automatically turned on when a maze is defined NODEOFF sp This command will turn the maze feature off for sprite sp sp can be any sprite number between 2 and 63 NODEALTER x y nd This command will alter the directions a sprite is allowed to leave a node You cannot add extra nodes with this command only alter existing nodes x and y are the coordinates of an already defined node nd is the variable that will hold the new directions that a sprite can move on leaving the node To calculate the new directions use the following table Down Left Right o ANE Decide which directions the sprites can now leave the nod and add up the values to the left of the direction The total should be the value used for the nd variable You can not use a value of 0 eg New direction left right up 1 4 8 Therefore nd 13 42
76. nter the lowest drawing number you wish to see followed by the highest drawing number After entering these two values the drawings will be displayed OPTION 3 ANIMATING THE DRAWINGS After selecting this option you will be presented with a grid of 64 numbers ranging from 0 to 63 These numbers represent the drawings stored in memory Underneath drawing 0 there is an arrow If any drawings hav been defined th numbers of that particular drawing will be a different colour If the colours have not been changed with option 7 the undefined drawing numbers will be blue and the defined drawing numbers will be red At the bottom of the screen there will be the description of the drawing that the arrow is pointing to If the arrow is pointing to an undefined drawing the bottom of the screen will display NOT DEFINED If the drawing is described the x y dimensions of the drawing will be displayed at the bottom left of the screen IMPORTANT NOTE All drawings that are to be animated must have the same x and y coordinates You may move the arrow around the screen by using the arrow keys To select a drawing to be animated press the SPACEBAR The drawing numbers you have selected will be listed along the bottom of the screen If you make a mistake press the DEL key and the drawing number will be removed You may select up to 8 drawings to be animated 63 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM After selecting
77. ooking at the second table when inks 0 to 7 collide with ink 8 they all produce an ink greater than 7 Therefore we can have two colours for background colours however we have limited the amount of foreground colours to 7 If you find it acceptable to only have seven foreground colours and you want two background colours follow these simple instructions The two background inks must be 0 and 8 When you have decided which colours you need for your foreground colours these colours should also be copied into inks 9 to 15 ie ink 1 ink 9 ink 2 ink 10 ink 3 ink 11 ink 4 ink 12 ink 5 ink 13 ink 6 ink 14 ink 7 ink 15 49 Sprite Supervisor Program If you find your animated sprites are sticking to each other or to scenery the following instructions should eleviate the problem Under normal circumstances your drawings should look like this no space around the outside of the sprite The problem of sticking occurs when the sprite changes direction If the first sprite was going up the screen and hits an object it would reverse shown in drawing B You have a tank which is animated to move up and down If you find the tank sticks the screen pictured above with another object the best method to avoid the problem is to make the area around the sprite larger Wh
78. ort amount of memory free Define a sound Report ink at coordinates 53 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM COMMAND PAGE BRIEF DESCRIPTION SPOKE 37 Set ink at coordinates SPUT 15 Put a sprite onto the screen SPUTALL 15 Remove all sprites off screen STIX 17 Joystick control for sprite 0 STIXSPEED 19 Define speed for sprite 0 STUCK 37 Report if a sprite cannot move SWINDOW 21 Define a window for a sprite SXPOS 27 Report x position of sprite SYPOS 27 Report y position of sprite WAIT 27 Pause program WP 12 Change to Mode 2 and alter colours XDIR 27 Report X speed of sprite XEDGE 16 Define the attributes for the sprite hitting the edge of its window YDIR 27 Report y speed of sprite YEDGE 16 Define the attributes for the sprite hitting the edge of its window 54 SPRITES DESIGNER GLEN COOK 55 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM The Sprite Designer program on your system disk will enable you to design 64 multicoloured sprites with ease The program will only run on an AMSTRAD 6128 as the program uses the extra banks of memory To use the program simply insert the correct side of the disc into the drive and type RUN DESIGN You will then be asked to insert a disc containing your drawing data into the drive Don t panic if you do not have any data saved yet We have included a number of sample files on th
79. ou should not try and put that same sprite onto a different part of the screen without first removing the original sprite ie SPUT 0 100 100 SPUT 0 120 30 This is incorrect SPUT 0 100 100 SPUT 0 SPUT 0 120 30 This Is correct RESET This command will reset all of the settings within the program back to their default values The data that links the sprites to the drawings will be erased The drawing data will be kept intact ERASE This command will do everything the RESET command does but it will also erase the drawing data as well THIS COMMAND SHOULD BE THE FIRST COMMAND USED AT THE START OF ANY OF YOUR PROGRAMS 15 This command will determin SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM SETTING THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE SPRITES XEDGE s n the property of the sprite when it collides with the left or right hand screen edge s is the sprite number n is the number that determines what the sprite will do when it hits the screen edg The table below will show you how to set tip the correct attribute NUMBER ATTRIBUTE Disappear 2 Stop 3 Bounce 4 Wrap Disappear Stop Bounce Wrap This command The sprite will be taken off the screen when it hits the screen edge he sprite will stop moving but on the screen stay The sprite will bounce off the screen edge as if it had bit a wall
80. ould increase the offset distance between the main firing drawing and the missile MERGE s d This command may be used once a sprite is on the screen It will swap the drawing that is currently linked to the sprite with another drawing s is the sprite that should be on the screen d is the new drawing number to use The old drawing and the new drawing should have the same X and Y dimensions This command could be used if you do not wish to use the movements that the STIX command allows The STIX command is fine if you want to program a game like Space Invaders if you move the joystick to the left the sprite will move to the left If however you wish to program a game like Asteroids where moving the stick to the left will rotate the spaceship without actually moving it then this command should be used in your program in conjunction with the READSTIX command You should use sprite 0 in this instance even though the sprite is not directly controlled by the joystick 35 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM MORE MISCELLANEOUS COMMANDS SCENERY dn x y This command allows the user to put drawings onto the screen to act as scenery dn is the drawing number the x and y numbers are the coordinates where you are going to place the scenery You may use this command to put borders around games or to put scenery onto the screen The position a drawing is put onto the screen is not remembered and so to remove it yo
81. out passing integer variables back to BASIC is that the variable must be known to the program At the start of the program the variables must contain a number this can be zero ie a 0 v 0 f 10 It is always a good idea to save your program before you RUN it Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that any errors that you make are reported by the error routine there are a few instances were an error might be missed by the program ERROR MESSAGES If the program finds an error then the command the error was found in will be displayed along with the error number The program will then pause and the cursor will appear on the screen It is now up to you to break into the program by pressing the BREAK key once If you press any key other than the BREAK key the program will continue If you have missed pressing the BREAK key and the program has continued you should stop the program by pressing the BREAK key twice You should now sort out the error The error numbers can be found in appendix II fter you have pressed the BREAK key the computer will report REAK IN LINE xxxx This may not be the line in which the rror occurred The error may have occurred in the previous ine If an error occurs in the last statement of a line when he BREAK key is pressed the computer will display the line number as the line following the erroneous line teow ie Your program starts at line 10 and ends at line 25
82. p To do this press option 6 SPRITE DATA and then press Y At the end of the list of drawings will be the total memory used Write down this number 3 Now select option 8 CREATE SPRITE DATA Insert the disc you want the drawings stored to and enter a filename 4 You are now ready to load the drawings into your program Before you do this you must insert a MEMORY command To calculate the memory command subtract the total memory used from 23389 The answer to the sum should be used for the MEMORY command 5 You should now use the DRAW command This will load all of the drawings into memory If you would like the colours to be altered to the colours used within the SPRITE DESIGN program use the COLOUR command We will now describe the DRAW and COLOUR commands in more detail DRAW filename This command can be used in either immediate mode or it can be included within your program This command will load in the drawing information for the filename you supply The drawing data stored on the disc has th fil nam XXXXXXXX DRW Do not include the DRW when you specify the name You should not use this command until you have used the MEMORY command as described abov You may repeat the test shown on the previous page to ensure that you have used the correct value for the MEMORY command deil SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM GENERAL SCREEN COMMANDS
83. ption is to end the program and return back to BASIC After selecting this option the following message will he displayed 73 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM PROGRAM TERMINATION YOU WILL LOSE ALL THE INFORMATION I MEMORY IF YOU END THE PROGRAM I HOPE YOU HAVE SAVED THE DRAWINGS TO DISK END THE PROGRAM Y N Pressing Y will then reset the computer Pressing N will return you to the MAIN menu with the data still antact HAPPY DESIGNING 74 This page was missing from the original PDFs I was sent 75
84. ram you make a mistake ie select the wrong option you can press the ESC key to return to the MAIN menu We will now go through each individual option OPTION 1 EDIT THE DRAWINGS After selecting this option you will be asked PLEASE ENTER DRAWING NUMBER You may type any number between 0 and 63 After you have typed this number press RETURN If the drawing number you have typed is a drawing that has already been defined the program will display the design grid with the drawing displayed in it however if it is a new undefined drawing number you will be asked PLEASE ENTER DRAWING COORDINATES You then have to enter the drawings x and y coordinates You may use any coordinate between 1 and 32 the maximum size of drawing you may use is 32 x 32 PLEASE ENTER DRAWING DESCRIPTION You may enter a description upto 10 characters in length You must enter at least one character for the description or you will not be able to continue with the program After entering a description you will be presented with the design grid This is the screen with which you will design all your drawings Along the top of the screen are the 16 colours that you may use to design your drawings Below these colours are the numbers 0 to 9 and the letters A to F To select a colour you simply press the relevant number or letter In the middle of the screen is the main grid t
85. reater than 1 edge variable equals zero edge variable is greater than 4 collision attribute equals zero collision attribute is greater than 3 collision switch is greater than 1 variable used is greater than 63 left speed is greater than 10 right speed is greater than 10 up speed is greater than 10 down speed is greater than 10 window is to wide window is to narrow X window is to low window is to narrow Y window is to tall colours have not been defined ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne sequence is greater than 15 animation sequence is greater than 10 drawings drawing within sequence has not been defined X dimension within sequence is different Y dimension within sequence is different sequence has not been defined current sprite drawing number is greater than highest number within sequence current X coordinate is different to X oordinate within sequence current Y coordinate is different to Y oordinate within sequence missile type has not been defined missile type is greater than 2 missile type is already defined missile drawing has not been defined missile X offset is greater than 40 missile Y offset is greater than 40 46 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 12 T3 74 715 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 The The The Th
86. s a different drawing associated with it Because we have linked the missile to the drawing rather than the sprite we know which direction to fire the missile in we also know the offset at which to first put the missile onto the screen You are probably totally confused by that description We will now go through the commands associated with the missiles and we will give you som xamples after that There is a demonstration program on the disc called DEMO1 that you can look through to give you a better idea of the commands There are three types of missiles type 0 1 and 2 Type 0 missiles are fired from sprite 0 type 1 missiles are fired form sprite 1 and type 2 missiles are fired from sprites 2 63 MISSTYPE ty d You should have by now defined your drawing s for your missile s You may have a separate drawing for each type of missile or all types may use the same drawing The above command will inform the supervisor of which drawing to use for the missile for each missile type ie MISSTYPE 0 2 MISSTYPE 2 2 This would define missile type 0 to drawing 2 and missile type 2 to drawing 2 Remember type 0 missiles are fired from sprite 0 and type 2 missiles are fired from sprites 2 63 Both are using drawing 2 as the missile drawing MISSTYPE 0 3 MISSTYPE 1 4 This would define missile type 0 to drawing 3 and type 1 to drawing 4 The drawings you design as missile drawings must be above
87. s now moved the sprite will be linked to the last drawing NOTES ON ANIMATION If a sprite hits another sprite whilst it is animated then it is possible for the sprites to stick together This is due to the nature of the animation and the collision detection Under normal circumstances as soon as a sprite collides with another by one pixel the sprite will bounce However if at the time of collision the drawing overlaps the other drawing by more than one pixel due to the change in the shape of the sprite through animation a stick may occur There are a number of things you can do to get around this if it occurs There are some notes towards the back of the manual to help you 29 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING MISSILES There have been a number of commands incorporated within the supervisor program to allow the sprites to fire missiles The commands may seem complicated at first but with experimentation the commands will soon become easy to use You must first design a missile drawing You do this in the same way as you would define any drawing be it a small circle or a more rectangular shaped missile The missile must then be linked to every DRAWING you wish to fire missiles The reason you link a missile to a drawing rather than to a sprite is simple It you have defined a sprite to be a spaceship as in the animation example the sprite can move in eight directions Each of these eight directions ha
88. t and press the number letter of the colour you want to change The new colour will now be displayed in the bottom band You way also alter the background colour by moving the arrow to the colour you would like the background to be and press the SPACEBAR When you are using the design screen you will notice that the information at the bottom of the screen is in mode 2 The colour of the text is initially pink colour 16 You may also alter this colour You do not have to use one of the sixteen colours you have selected for mode 0 To change this colour move the arrow key to the colour you want and press the COPY key The information at the bottom of the selection screen also in mode 2 will change This will enable you to decide if this colour is readable against the background colour 71 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM When you have made your final selection press the ESC key NOTE The colours for the background and the mode 2 foreground cannot be the same if you try to do this the command will be ignored The colours you have selected will be saved along with the drawings therefore you will not need to alter the colours when you load the drawings back into the program The colours will also be saved with the drawing data when you load the drawings into the main sprites program To access the colours in the sprites program use the COLOUR command MODE 1 COLOURS Altering these colours will alter all the men
89. t screen edge e Sprite 0 and sprite 1 will not bounce when they collide with another sprite e Sprite 0 and sprite 1 will behave differently when they are in collision with other sprites e Sprite 0 and sprite 1 have separate missile commands to all other sprites It is very easy to forget when you are writing your programs about these differences I ve done it a number of times If you find one of your sprites behaving differently check your program to ensure you are not using sprite 0 or sprite 1 for any purpose other than joystick keyboard control Sprite 0 is the main character sprite It will operate under control of the joystick Sprite 1 should only be used in two player games or in games which use the keyboard instead of the joystick 13 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM SPRITES DRAWINGS AND PUTTING THEM ONTO SCREEN SGET s d This command will allow you to link a sprite to a previously defined drawing s is the sprite number and d is the drawing number By now you should have your drawings stored in memory To make use of your drawings you must link it to a sprite s may be any non defined sprite in the range 0 to 63 d must be a defined drawing in the range 0 to 63 Using the Breakout game as an example You have defined 3 drawings Drawing 0 is the bat drawing 1 is the ball and drawing 2 is the block We will make sprite 0 the bat sprite 2 the ball and sprites 3 42 the
90. ter than 15 ton nvelope can not be greater than 15 tone period can not be greater than 4095 tone period can not be greater than 31 initial amplitude can not be greater than 15 sprite sound action can not equal zero sprite sound action can not be greater than 4 sound has not been defined sprite number is greater than 1 x coordinate has not been defined node direction is not correct y coordinate has not been defined x coordinate is greater than 383 y coordinate is greater than 247 47 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM APPENDIX IIT ADVANCED USER NOTES Due to the technique used by the supervisor program to detect for collisions collisions between certain inks will not be ignored This can be used to your advantage The following table shows which inks when collided will not register a collision Find the two inks used along the top and the left hand side of the table follow the paths to where the two inks intercept If there is a cross character at the intersection the supervisor will not register a collision We have used Hex notation around the boundrys of the table if you do not understand Hexadecimal then substitute A 10 B 11 C 12 D 13 E 14 F 15 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 cb 8 9 A e Bo ats oD Ee T 0 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 1 x 0 X 0 X 0 X 0 x 0 x 0 X 0 X 0 2 xX X 0 0 xX X 0 0 X X 0 0 xX X 0 0 3 xX 0 0 0 X 0 0 0 xX 0 0 0 x 0 0 0 4 X X X X 0 0 0 0 X X X X 0 0 0 0 5 xX 0 X
91. the missile itself drawing SBI As you should know by now all the sprites are put onto the screen with the origin being the top left hand corner Using either graph paper or by calculating yourself you should make a picture of drawing A You should then picture where you want drawing B to be You should bear in mind that drawing A should not be touching drawing B You should then calculate the distance between the top left hand corner of drawing A to the top left hand corner of drawing B This is the offset you should do this for both X and Y The offsets may be either positive or negative Xs and Ys are the speeds at which the missile will travel You should not try to set the speeds of a missile with the SDIR command 31 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM USING MISSILES The x speed and y speed of the missile need to he signed numbers If you want the missile to travel left along the x axis you should use a negative number for the x speed If you want the missile to travel down the screen you should use a negative number for the y speed By now you should have defined the drawings to be used as missiles and also which drawings will actually fire missiles You should now have decided how far and how often a sprite can fire missiles The next two commands will determine thes factors MISSDELAY ty de This command will limit how fast the missiles can be fired ty is the missile type as described on the
92. the sprites will not reverse direction You can create one way systems within the maze Pleas s the example below Consider a T junction the node path runs up and down the screen and another node path connects from the left At the connection point if the node only allowed the sprite to leave either up or down you have created a one way system A sprite travelling up the path reaches the node and can only continue to travel upwards Another sprite travelling from the left reaches the node and can then travel up or down By constructing a number of junctions a very complex maze can be set up 43 SPRITES SUPERVISOR PROGRAM SP T ED OF YOUR PROGRAM Every effort has been made to make the supervisor machine code routines as fast as possible The problem that occurs with this sort of program is that the more general purpose you make the routines the slower they becom We have tried to speed up the program execution as much as possible by automating many of the commands There comes a time when we have to draw a line The problem with writing games in BASIC is speed You will need to use BASIC to link all the commands within the supervisor together This will slow your programs down It is up to you to write your games as efficiently as possible Try to use the supervisor to do your work for you Incorporate as many of the automated commands as possible MISSILE SOUND EFFECTS MOVE
93. u must clear the screen You may use a drawing any number of times You may use a drawing that is linked to a sprite this does not matter This command has nothing at all to do with the actual sprites The coordinate system used for the scenery is the game system as used by the sprites REMEMBER you cannot go over the edge of a screen EXPLODE spr spot inc lim del This command will make a sprite explode on the screen Whilst the explosion is taking place everything on the screen will stop moving until the explosion dies down spr is the sprite that is to explode it must be on the screen spot is the number of pixels that are put on the screen before th xplosion expands inc is the size of the increase of the explosion in pixels lim is the maximum size of the explosion in pixels del is a delay to slow the explosion down The only way of getting used to this command is to try it with different values to s th ffect it has on the screen spots range 0 32767 average 100 400 inc range 1 32 average 2 10 lim range 10 128 average 20 100 del range 1 255 average 10 100 A program to test th xplode command may look like this 10 MODE 0 LOCATE 1 1 PRINT 0 DGET 0 7 7 20 SGET 2 0 A 0 B S 0 C 0 D S 0 30 CLS 40 INPUT SPOTS A 50 INPUT INC BS 60 INPUT LI w 6 70 INPUT DEL DS 80 WHILE INKEY
94. u select N then you will return to the design screen If you select Y the drawing will be overwritten by the current drawing PLEASE OTE WHEN YOU COPY A DRAWING AND RETURN TO THE MAIN DESIGN GRID THE CURRENT DRAWING IS NOW THE DRAWING THAT HAS JUST BEEN COPIED LOOK AT THE DRAWING NUMBER BE WARNED 3 COLOUR LATCH Pressing f3 will toggle the colour latch between on and off the When The colour latch option is the function that allows spacebar to remember the colour that was last typed in the colour latch is on every the design screen the colour side of the screen is placed you turn the colour latch off the last colour pressed will clear the colour background colour Press ESC to return to desig it wil at the time you press the spacebar in that is at the top right hand at the X Y cursor position If the spacebar will not remember ll instead act as an eraser It X Y cursor position to the n grid 59 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM f4 DELETE Pressing f4 will allow the user to delete the current drawing from memory After pressing f4 the user will be asked ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE THIS DRAWING Y N If you select N you will return to the design grid with your drawing still intact If you select Y the drawing will be erased and you will return to the MAIN menu 5 CLEAR Pressing f5 will allow the us
95. us and messages that are displayed in mode 1 This information is saved when you save drawing data to disc When you select this option you will see displayed BACKGROUND 0 CURRENT 00 CHANGE TO FOREGROUND 1 CURRENT 16 CHANGE TO FOREGROUND 2 CURRENT 06 CHANGE TO FOREGROUND 3 CURRENT 02 CHANGE TO You may now type in the numbers of the colours you want 0 27 When you have entered the four numbers the colours will change and the message ARE THESE COLOURS OK Y N will be displayed If you press N the colours will revert back to the colours that were used before the command was executed You will then be asked to try again If you do not wish to alter the colours press ESC If you press Y in answer to the above question the colours will be permanently changed and the MAIN menu will be displayed OPTION 8 CREATE SPRITE DATA This is the command that will convert your drawings into a form that the main sprites program will understand When you have selected this option the following message will be displayed WARNING YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RETURN THE SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM AFTE YOU HAVE CREATED THE SPRI DA DIO 72 SPRITE DESIGNER PROGRAM YOUR DRAWINGS MUST BE FULLY READY TO BE USED BY THE MAIN SPRITES PROGRA ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CONTINUE Y N

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