Arm Diagram

[Tersius]

Does anyone have a diagram (or even any document for that matter) that describes exactly where in the animations each of the arms go?  I'm having some problems with a sprite I am working on and that would be very helpful.

The sprite will be an angel sprite when it's finished.  I thought it would be as simple as attaching the wings to the main part of the body.  However, Sometimes the arms are drawn behind the body and sometimes in front.  In order to get this working correctly I will need to know exactly which arms go where.  I am crossing my fingers that the exact same arm is never drawn in front in one animation and in back on another.

[Cheetah]

If you use the newest version of ShiShi there is a preview mode. It should give you a pretty good idea of where the arms go. Plus I'm pretty sure the arms that are in front are always pasted on top and the arms behind are always pasted behind.

[Tersius]

Thanks for the tip, but I am aware of the preview mode in shishi.  I have a sprite with some sloppy numbers drawn on the arms to try to figure it out.  I just thought that someone else may have already figured it out and could save me some work.  Guess I'll have to make my own diagram.

[Cheetah]

I tried to get people behind this idea a while ago and it just didn't fly. So yeah if you need it you will probably have to do it yourself.

[Tersius]

I did a lot of testing last night, and even more this morning.  In my testing I came to the conclusion that the dancer uses type2 (I had previously assumed type 1).  This means I ended up testing the front/back positioning of the arms in both type 1 and type 2.  I relied exclusively on ShiShi to test type 1.  However, I used ShiShi and the game (PSP version, although I doubt it makes a difference) to test type 2.

I found out that some of the arms are only used in type 1 while others are only used in type 2. Most of the arms seem to have the same positioning in both types, however there are a few that are different (most notably in the combat animations).

I've decided to post my final diagrams because I think they will be useful for anyone that wants to make very complex sprites.  The notes on each one indicate what the colored boxes represent.

Please let me know if this is useful to you.

[Tersius]

I guess this isn't helpful for anyone

[Vanya]

It's definitely useful. It seems like most of the unused parts are in the compressed areas. Knowing what parts are unused is a good way to decrease file sizes. Thanks for the effort!

[Tersius]

Do we have the capability to compress the sprites?  I thought the algorithm that was used was largely unknown.

On slightly deviated topic.  Does anyone have a diagram / know a quick way to find the exact "sampling rectangles" FFT uses when drawing the sprites?  I've been able to track down the ones for the standing / walking poses at the top, but it is painstakingly slow.

[Zozma]

yes thanks for the diagram, anything like this will help make spriting a lot easier.

shishi does all the compressing/decompressing but its only the attack animations that are fully compressed i think?

[Vanya]

Yeah. That section at the bottom that used to be displayed incorrectly is all compressed. If you don't have the check box on that corrects alignment it's everything from the top of the portrait and below.