*******************
*Sprite Editor 1.2*
*******************


I. Introduction
***************
Sprite Editor (SE) is a little tool for making animated sprites with some new 
features. Main of them are: 26 positions, independent colors for each 
position, integrated editor & animator, nice design :) and (hopefuly) easy 
manipulation. You can quess why did I do it... Hm, why. Some months ago 
(october 2000) I became an idea to make a cool game for our little Atari, but 
I needed some tool just for making animated sprites. I found only one: Sprite 
I_don't_know_what :) by Lufa/Satantronic which was ...uhm... very primitive 
(sorry ;-) So I started with coding THIS :) SE is ofcoz freeware!

II. Function overview
*********************

Editor:

1,2,3,4 - Set sprite
--------------------
No comment :)

5,6,7,8 - Set color
-------------------
UP/DOWN - select shade of sprite
LEFT/RIGHT - select the color of sprite
RETURN - confirm colors

Arrows - Move cursor
--------------------
No comment :)

CONTROL+Arrows - Move sprite
----------------------------
Hold CONTROL and move cursor - you will move (rotate) the whole sprite

SHIFT+Arrows - (Un)draw line
----------------------------
Hold SHIFT and move the cursor - you will draw a line

SPACE - (Un)draw point
----------------------
No comment :)

H - Horizontal mirror
---------------------
Mirrors the actual sprite by X-Axis. It's depend on 'Big Windows' settings 
(look at 'B' key)

V - Vertical mirror
-------------------
Mirrors the actual sprite by Y-Axis

I - Invert
----------
Inverts the actual sprite - $10 or $20 bytes long (look at 'B' key)

INSERT - Copy
-------------
Copy the complete position ($20 bytes) incl. colors to the another one

DEL - Erase sprite
------------------
Erase the actual sprite - $10 or $20 bytes (look at 'B' key)

CLEAR - Erase position
----------------------
Erase the complete position ($20 bytes). The colors will be preserved

SHIFT+CLEAR - Erase all
-----------------------
Erase all positions and set the color of actual sprite to all positions

P - Position select
-------------------
You can enter A-Z, 26 positions at all...

B - Big windows toggle
----------------------
You can change the actual size of sprite - $10 (16) or $20 (32) bytes. So you 
can edit bigger sprites than can be on the screen (using CONTROL+UP/DOWN)

W - 2 windows toggle
--------------------
Here you can set 2 windows - it's useful when you need wider sprite than 8 
bits. Of course you can have max. of 2 sprites in one window

TAB - Next window
-----------------
Works only if 2 windows are active. In the 1st window you can use sprite 1 or 
2, in 2nd window sprite 3 or 4

M - Animator
------------
Exit to the Animator (the data & flags will be not changed... of course :)

ESC - Quit to DOS
-----------------
No comment :)

CTRL+D - Change actual device
-----------------------------
You can type whole name of device (e.g. D1) or just first letter and press 
RETURN if number is OK

CTRL+L - Load
-------------
SE looks for PM.DAT and COL.DAT files in actual directory and loads them

CTRL+S - Save
-------------
Saves actual players and colors. In fact it's simple memory dump from $3800 to 
$44ff (PM.DAT) and from $3400 to $3467 (COL.DAT)

Note: sometimes, bcoz of bad synchronisation may be fonts and DLI after i/o 
operations corrupted. Simply go to Animator and back to Editor (M key) and 
nice design is back :-) I'm very sorry for this, but it's harder to fix it as 
you could think :-)


Animator:

Animator is 2nd part of my work. It's simplier than Editor, because it was 
coded during 3-4 days. Very nice feature is 'parallel' running - you can 
change speed, size, definition, etc during playing animation! I was very 
suprised when I found it ;-)

D - Define animation
--------------------
Now you can enter letters which represent the position. Maximum is 80, you can 
use DELETE. After typing press RETURN

R - Run animation
-----------------
Pressing 'R' you stop/run playing the animation. If you have set 2 windows, it 
will be detected and sprites 1/2 will be played next to 3/4 

S - Speed option
----------------
1 = positions are changed each Vertical Blank
2 = positions are changed each second Vertical Blank
3 = positions are changed each fourth Vertical Blank
4 = positions are changed each eighth Vertical Blank

Z - Size of sprites
-------------------
It can be normal, double or quad

C - Size correction
-------------------
ON = corrects the shape of pixels (to be squares)
OFF = classic Atari representation: 1 pixel is 1 scan line wide

O - Collisions
--------------
ON = result of collision of sprite 1 and 2 or sprite 3 and 4 is 3rd color
OFF = no collisions, sprite 1 has got the highest priority, sprite 4 the lowest

M - Editor
----------
Exit to the Editor, animation is stopped

ESC - Quit to DOS
-----------------
No comment :)


III. Hardware requirements
**************************
Nothing special - each 8-bit Atari (PAL/NTSC) with 48 kB of memory. Tested 
also under Atari800Win emulator...


IV. Sprites & colors in the memory
**********************************
$3800: sprite 1, position A
$3820: sprite 2, position A
$3840: sprite 3, position A
$3860: sprite 4, position A
$3880: sprite 1, position B ... etc to $44FF

$3400: color of sprite 1, position A
$3401: color of sprite 2, position A
$3402: color of sprite 3, position A
$3403: color of sprite 4, position A
$3404: color of sprite 1, position B ... etc to $3467

It's very simple to make any routine for replaying... if you have any 
problems, contact me, OK?


V. Future plans
***************
Game for Atari XE/F030 - with IMO very original idea, but it will be very hard 
to code... Probably for 320 kB and probably after Falcon version...
Demo/intro/anything_for_the_scene for Atari XE/F030, especially Falcon !!!

VI. Contact
***********
Bug reports, improvements, ideas, money :) send to:

Smail: Miro Kropacek
       Budatinska 23
       Bratislava
       851 05
       Slovakia
       Europe ;-)

Email: mk20432@decef.elf.stuba.sk or
       mikro@atlantis.sk (only in emergency :)


VII. Greetings
**************
Big hello goes to:

XI, Dodo, Lufa, Jookie of Satantronic
Jiri Bernasek aka BEWESOFT
Zdenek Burian of FLOP
Radek Sterba aka RASTER
Tiger of New Generation
BLB of Cobra
Lewis of Aids
Vasco of Tristesse
Dely of Atari Area
Mad Butcher of F2
and all others who keep our Atari scene alive...

VIII. History
*************
v1.0 [07/2001] - first official release

v1.1 [3.8.2001] - sprite animator fixed; options like size or correction are 
now unchanged after switching to editor

v1.2 [6.8.2002] - added save/load function. I was too lazy, but Raster and Mad 
Butcher kicked me to do it:-) Btw look at release date - 1 year after 1.1 
version (in fact I didn't do ANYTHING on little XE... well, Falcon rulez more 
than XE :-)

I hope, you'll enjoy this little tool and wait for my next productions !

MiKRO, 6.8.2002, Bratislava/Slovakia