Help with coding which sprite to 'take over'

[Birdey]

To MOD's can you please change the name of this topic to "Gray Stone (GStone) Railways, thanks

I have recoloured the normal brown coloured railways with gray looking railwas, therefore creating the look of concrete sleepers, if anyone would like an update or anything else, like different bridges, roads, etc. please post something here, thanks

Birdey

[Original Post]

I am editing some unfinished graphic and i need to know how the setup the .nfo file... i need to figure out how to

make it take over sperfic sprites that aren't bear each other

eg. from sprites 1011 - 1036 with my new graphics then from sprites 1263 - 1266 with other new graphics...

i cant really explain....

ill put my graphics and .nfo files so u can see what i am doing...hopefully

thanks in advanced

Birdey

ps i tried to look at other grf files but they confussed me more i also look through the wiki... but i couldn't really understand it

[MeusH]

What's so special in these graphics? I see just original rail, low detailed original road, bridges, tunnels, crossings and something navy-grey

Is it something with vehicle takeovering?

[Birdey]

it is for my use... i didn't like the old brown rails so i coloured them with todays conreate coulours... i just need some one help to get them working thats all... it has nothing to do with anything regurading gameplay. also it is my first graphic 'thing and i didn't what to have this big project that i would never do... if you have any REAL help i would be grateful

[DaleStan]

The word you need is "replace".

Try just editing trg1[r].pcx, re-encoding, then use GRFDIFF and GRD2GRF. Then decode the GRF file and see what should be done.

[Peter1x9]

Ahhh...I see. You either need to make an action A for each set of contiguous sprites that you are replacing or put multiple sets on one line. I prefer the former since I'm also coding newbie and it is easier to understand.

Also, I like this gravel color better, it matches what the railroads use around here.

On going through your .NFO, I've found some errors that i'll fix.

Errors so far:
1. Your first line is incorrect. The first byte(s) should be the number in front of the last line in your file. (in hex of course)

2. The suspension bridge alignments and concrete bridge alignments were slightly off. (the bridge heads are ok though)

3. Your .pcx is missing one of the railroad crossings (would replace sprite# 1337 in trgr1.grf). I've completely left that section out of the .NFO i'm working on.

4. The last sprite in your .NFO was severely misaligned. Instead of -4 in the yrel, you had a value of -44.

Not necessarily an error, but more of a convention:

In your pcx, each pseudo sprite should have a number with no image under it, so that each image matches the line number in the .NFO. For example, your first sprite should be under #3 instead of #0.



I'll post an updated .NFO and the .GRF that I created from it. The new .NFO will still work with your current .PCX file. If you need me to, i'll fix your .PCX by adding the missing crossing and making the numbers correspond with the images properly.


Edit: file removed, see below for the new version.

[PikkaBird]

In your pcx, each pseudo sprite should have a number with no image under it, so that each image matches the line number in the .NFO. For example, your first sprite should be under #3 instead of #0.

That's not a "convention" at all. The .pcx file you get when you decompile a .grf file is not the same pcx file that was used to create it (and neither is the .nfo the same .nfo file that was written).

[Peter1x9]

Wow, thanks for the info. That will save me a few steps on some other things i'm working on.

[Oracle]

The first pseudosprite doesn't need to be exactly the same as the number of sprites in the file, either - it should be the same, but as long as it's greater than the number of sprites, it doesn't matter too much. I only ever change mine if it's too small or before public releases.

[Patchman]

If it's too large by "n" you waste "4*n" bytes of memory, that's all

[Peter1x9]

I went ahead and added the crossings (and created a replacement for the one you were missing). Have fun


Special note: if you use the US set or anything else that overrides the crossing gates with new ones, it will revert to the old gravel color at the crossings.

[Birdey]

Thanks heaps, i hope it wasn't any trouble, and also how could you tell when it was out of alignment?, and i also missed the crossings because i didn't know how to do that... thanks heaps again, and also how do u make the sprite a bit bigger? or can't you?, or is it too much trouble?

Birdey

[Peter1x9]

Thanks heaps, i hope it wasn't any trouble, and also how could you tell when it was out of alignment?, and i also missed the crossings because i didn't know how to do that... thanks heaps again, and also how do u make the sprite a bit bigger? or can't you?, or is it too much trouble?

Birdey

The only way i've found to align various things is to go in the game and take a screenshot, then modify the xrel and yrel values in the .NFO and go back in the game again. It's pretty much a trial and error type of thing.

In what way do you want to make the sprite bigger? If you mean the whole PCX file, you can resize it in whatever picture editor you are using (I use the Sprite editor for my editing). http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=11720
If you mean each sprite, all you need to do is make it bigger in your PCX file, then change that sprite's ysize, xsize, xrel, yrel values to adjust for the bigger size. Just make sure that your xpos and ypos is adjusted properly if you make the sprite higher and/or wider.