[solved] What are mirror sprites?

[Layz]

Some Lf2 Characters have a mirrored sprites, they are just the same as the original ones but turned into right, how does these help? and how can I add the mirrored sprites into the dat file?

hope I post in the right place...

[Alectric]

moved to DC section. This is a DC solution.

i myself dont really know/use the answer.

BUT: mirror sprites are so that you can have the character looking less 2D, because if you notice Deep, he walks one way, and the sword is in his left hand, and then he walks the other way, and his sword is in the other hand. Its for characters that have different details on each side of ther body (left and right)

i hope that even made sense :P

[Silverthorn]

Mirror sprites have been introduced with the latest version of Little Fighter (2.0a). You'll need a little background-knowledge for that:

When LF2 loads the files, it takes the spritesheets and splits them up according to the "instructions" in the dat-file (the omnipresent row/col & w/h values). Those tiles will be saved in your RAM. Additionally, because an object can face both left and right, the tile is being mirrored horizontally. This way you'll have an original and a mirrored version of the same sprite.
Now, what is this good for? Many graphic-cards have had problems displaying the mirrored sprite when, for example, a character faces left. Suddenly, the char is being shown in his ice-frames, is running left while being displayed as burning, and so on. This doesn't really enhance the gameplay, in my opinion.
This is why the flipped versions have been included now. This way, LF2 won't have the chance to mess up during its internal flipping process (during the loading) but simply loads the pre-flipped sprites. And tadah, no sprite-bugs!

That about the reason why they are there. Alec told you what you can do with that "feature". Although I haven't really seen anybody doing this double-effort....

[Layz]

aha, I had a feeling that they may be used for that...

but what should I do if I want to use a mirrored sprites, in the data changer, for example:

<bmp_begin>
name: Deep
head: sprite\sys\deep_f.bmp
small: sprite\sys\deep_s.bmp
file(0-69): sprite\sys\deep_0.bmp w: 79 h: 79 row: 10 col: 7
file(70-139): sprite\sys\deep_1.bmp w: 79 h: 79 row: 10 col: 7
file(140-209): sprite\sys\deep_2.bmp w: 79 h: 79 row: 10 col: 7
walking_frame_rate 3

This is from Deep dat file, he has mirrored sprites but they are not written anywhere in the data, how does the EXE recognize whether this char has mirrored sheets or no?

[Silverthorn]

They all have the typical ending. If I'm not mistaken, they all have the following file-format: {spritename}_mirrored.bmp
Or anything along those lines.

No need to mention it anywhere in the dat-files. The application will detect those files on its own. When they do not exist, it will use the method I described above.


by the way, you can use [code=dc] for DCing-codes inside the forum for proper formatting

[SparK]

something spriters might consider is that if a char have a sword on the left hand, on the mirrored sprites one can edit it to always keep the sword on the left hand.
and as it is a HEXing mater we don't even need to bother changing our Data, it will work naturally =)

[forgetlatios]

@bp: its spritesheetname_mirror
oh and take note that some chars on the mainsite replace the original chars, thus causing the exe to load the mirror sprites as they have not been deleted(or replaced with new mirror sprites).

[8obis]

Actually those mirror sprites don't lload i tryed it with my Rock character all i got was an error deleted the mirror sprites good to go.

~RtXaS~

[SirisRhazael]

But mirror sprites are needed in "extreme" situations only...

2. Fix a critical bug in Geforce 9800 graphics card - Showing wrong sprite
pictures when character facing left.

If you are typical players, this fix has no impact on you.

But if you are LF2 data modifiers, you may be interested to the following
details:

Cause of the bug:
The "left-right" mirror function of DirectDrew is no longer supported by
some new graphics cards (Such as Geforce 9800).

[snorsorbet]

No, the mirrored sprites are always used, unless you modify the execution file.