SpriteData

Introduction

"sprite" nodes can be used in several locations:

• Effects
• Minables
• Ships
• System Objects
• Galaxies

Note that while Galaxies do have a "sprite" child node, they only support the "scale" parameter for that sprite.

sprite <name>
	"scale" <number#>
	"frame rate" <fps#>
	"frame time" <number#>
	"delay" <frames#>
	"start frame" <number#>
	["random start frame"]
	["no repeat"]
	["rewind"]
	"center" <x#> <y#>

Name

sprite <name>

The name of the sprite should be a path relative to the images folder, and not including frame numbers, blending mode specifiers, or the ".png" or ".jpg" extension. For example, the "blaster impact" effect is an animation with four frames:

• images/effect/blaster impact+0.png
• images/effect/blaster impact+1.png
• images/effect/blaster impact+2.png
• images/effect/blaster impact+3.png

The <name> for this sprite is "effect/blaster impact". The + in the file names specifies that the images should use additive blending, and the numbers after the + are the frame numbers for the animation.

Scale

"scale" <number#>

Since v. 0.9.15: sprite sets can be universally resized, in case you would like to reuse an existing animation at a different size, with the "scale" attribute. The default scale value is 1.0 (i.e. 100%). For the best results, use a power-of-two increase or decrease, e.g. 0.125 (1/8), 0.25 (1/4), or 0.5 (1/2). Scaling factors that result in odd widths and height generally result in a blurry image, as do scales over 100%. (For most effect sprites, this will not be an issue as they are not very detailed anyway.)

Animation parameters

You can also specify various attributes of the animation. These should be left out if you do not want them:

• "frame rate" <fps#>: frames per second. If no value is provided, a frame rate of 2 will be used.
• "frame time" <number#>: alternative to "frame rate". Specifies the number of game ticks (60 per second) each frame of the animation should last for.
• "delay" <number#>: number of animation frames to delay in between loops of the animation. For example, a four-frame animation with a delay of 4 and a frame rate of 8 FPS will play the animation for half a second, then pause for half a second, then repeat.
• "start frame" <number#>: start at this frame of the animation.
• "random start frame": start at a random frame of the animation.
• "no repeat": once the animation has played through once, stay on the last frame until the effect disappears. If this is not defined, the animation loops.
• "rewind": once the animation has played through to the last frame, play it in reverse. If "no repeat" is also defined, the animation will play forward once, then backward once, then stop at the first frame.

Center

This parameter only applies to ship sprites.

"center" <x#> <y#>

Since v. 0.10.5: specifies the center of rotation of the ship. If not specified, the center of the sprite will be used.