Modding Sprites - Going Forward

[norb]

NSD is going to support this tool in upcoming releases:

www.texturepacker.com

It can fit a lot more sprites on the same sized texture. We will still support the old format, but with this tool the memory image is much smaller. We are dropping our low res versions, because we can now show hi res for the same or less memory as the old low res.

We will keep the old files and csv's around for backwards compatibility, but I wanted to give the modders a heads up. We will be releasing the patch with this improvement around the same time as antietam.

This tool takes all the individual frames and crams them into a single png texture. Then it outputs this png as well as a plist xml format file that defines the locations. We then convert the png to dds and we get great results. All members of the team now see hi res sprites, where before some could only use the low res versions on their machines.

I found this tool while writing the NSD iphone game and was amazed with the results. So I converted our engine to load these in and use the plist files.

[Garnier]

Excellent

[Davinci]

I'm sure that there is a reason, but I'll ask.....Why can't the same thing be used on the terrain files?

davinci

[Little Powell]

We're working on that too.

[Davinci]

We're working on that too.

Excellent News - this should help out a lot!

davinci

[2nd Texas Infantry]

Brilliant! This will cut down on file sizes and I am asuming any frame rate hits. Now we know who all the tech geeks are on this forum, because we just replied to a post about compressing Hi res sprite files.
But seriously, this is fantastic! As we say down South, anything to "trim the fat" is a great application.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Hey maybe I'll now be able to break the 90k man barrier. B)