Modding Help Waterfall / Starbound-Style Sprites - Seeking Advice

Oi Oi,

I've come back after quite a long break, and picking up again on trying to learn creating sprites in Starbound Style. I got no experience at all with more Pixely Sprites.

UPDATE:
Well things improved imho, but now there is a new issue, see below.

 

Thanks for the advice!
Initially made it that way after looking at the vanilla game fountain, in hindsight a flawed idea.

By animated steam I mean something similar to the foggy weather effect, where small white steamclouds appear near the ground and drift around.

 

Nice! Gonna check it out. Cheers, you're alright... for a Suit

 

I improved the Waterfall and added various different sizes, but now there's quite a strange error to be seen.
There are 7 sizes, and for some reason the small ones (1-4) are missing frames, while the large ones (5-7) work flawlessly.

> I'm pretty much out of Ideas, simply because the error doesnt make any apparent sense - it's not consistent, sometimes when I place the waterfall it misses a frame like shown in the gif, sometimes there is no "gap" but the animation is off (as in no smooth loop, as if it skips ahead a few frames. The png files contain no error, each Waterfall was made in the same procedure.

{

"frameGrid" : {
"size" : [24, 32],
"dimensions" : [32, 1],
"names" : [
[ "default.1", "default.2", "default.3", "default.4", "default.5", "default.6", "default.7", "default.8", "default.9", "default.10", "default.11", "default.12", "default.13", "default.14", "default.15", "default.16", "default.17", "default.18", "default.19", "default.20", "default.21", "default.22", "default.23", "default.24", "default.25", "default.26", "default.27", "default.28", "default.29", "default.30", "default.31", "default.32" ]
]
},

"aliases" : {
"default.default" : "default.1"
}
}

{
"objectName" : "Special_Waterfall_01b",
"rarity" : "Common",
"category" : "decorative",
"price" : 0,

"description" : "A small, refreshing waterfall.",
"shortdescription" : "Waterfall 01b",
"race" : "generic",


"apexDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"avianDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"floranDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"glitchDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"humanDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"hylotlDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"novakidDescription" : "Placeholder.",


"inventoryIcon" : "Special_Waterfall_01bIcon.png",
"orientations" : [
{
"image" : "Special_Waterfall_01b.png:<color>.<frame>",
"imagePosition" : [0, 0],
"direction" : "left",
"flipImages" : true,
"frames" : 32,
"animationCycle" : 1,
"spaceScan" : 0.1,
"anchors" : []
},
{
"image" : "Special_Waterfall_01b.png:<color>.<frame>",
"imagePosition" : [0, 0],
"direction" : "right",
"frames" : 32,
"animationCycle" : 1,
"spaceScan" : 0.1,
"anchors" : []
}
],

"soundEffect" : "/sfx/objects/fountain1.ogg"

}

{

"frameGrid" : {
"size" : [24, 80],
"dimensions" : [80, 1],
"names" : [
[ "default.1", "default.2", "default.3", "default.4", "default.5", "default.6", "default.7", "default.8", "default.9", "default.10", "default.11", "default.12", "default.13", "default.14", "default.15", "default.16", "default.17", "default.18", "default.19", "default.20", "default.21", "default.22", "default.23", "default.24", "default.25", "default.26", "default.27", "default.28", "default.29", "default.30", "default.31", "default.32", "default.33", "default.34", "default.35", "default.36", "default.37", "default.38", "default.39", "default.40", "default.41", "default.42", "default.43", "default.44", "default.45", "default.46", "default.47", "default.48", "default.49", "default.50", "default.51", "default.52", "default.53", "default.54", "default.55", "default.56", "default.57", "default.58", "default.59", "default.60", "default.61", "default.62", "default.63", "default.64", "default.65", "default.66", "default.67", "default.68", "default.69", "default.70", "default.71", "default.72", "default.73", "default.74", "default.75", "default.76", "default.77", "default.78", "default.79", "default.80" ]
]
},

"aliases" : {
"default.default" : "default.1"
}
}

{
"objectName" : "Special_Waterfall_01e",
"rarity" : "Common",
"category" : "decorative",
"price" : 0,
"description" : "A large and loud waterfall. Nature's answer to showers.",
"shortdescription" : "Waterfall 01e",
"race" : "generic",


"apexDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"avianDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"floranDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"glitchDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"humanDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"hylotlDescription" : "Placeholder.",
"novakidDescription" : "Placeholder.",


"inventoryIcon" : "Special_Waterfall_01eIcon.png",

"orientations" : [
{
"image" : "Special_Waterfall_01e.png:<color>.<frame>",
"imagePosition" : [0, 0],
"direction" : "left",
"flipImages" : true,
"frames" : 80,
"animationCycle" : 1,
"spaceScan" : 0.1,
"anchors" : []
},
{
"image" : "Special_Waterfall_01e.png:<color>.<frame>",
"imagePosition" : [0, 0],
"direction" : "right",
"frames" : 80,
"animationCycle" : 1,
"spaceScan" : 0.1,
"anchors" : []
}
],

"soundEffect" : "/sfx/objects/fountain1.ogg"

}

 

I absolutely love these by the way! Hope you make an official release ^_^ Anyway, I couldn't find any differences in your files. There's no .animation file associated for either, is there? The *only* thing I can guess is that either there's a frame missing/skewed in the actual .png itself, or maybe it somehow requires more frames? In the gif here it looks as though the small waterfall doesn't complete it's animation at all, but just resets every time it blinks.

 

Thanks for checking and the feedback - I absolutely will release this of course, but first it has to work properly.

The only trail I can follow is that I can be absolutely sure the 2 longest ones -always- work properly, while the 5 shorter ones do not

BTW There's already much more than these waterfalls

 

Heya guys and girls.

I don't like to push stuff, but this is only delayed by the smaller waterfall's bugs.
It is a rare case where I gotta say I am completely out of ideas, so if anyone knows why they flicker in the examples above, I'd be very happy.

 

I'm not at home at the moment, but if you are inclined, I can take a look at the files to find out what is wrong. You can pm me the files, it helps if I have the files in front of me for my own concetration.

 

@Everyone

Now also exhausted even unlikely / ignorant ideas I had, don't like to bump, but a late beta release of this mod would already be ready if not for this error.

For anyone who might prove me blind, I have screenshotted the object and frame file, leaving out the descriptions because they are identical.

http://www.charlatan.at/TMP/Waterfalls/Waterfall01a_Frame_Object.png
http://www.charlatan.at/TMP/Waterfalls/Waterfall01g_Frame_Object.png

01a is 384x16 and 01g is 2688x112 respectively. There's no gap in the arrayed frames in the pngs.

@lazarus78

That would be great! I'll send a link over right away.

 

Those sprites look's very nice!! Did you try add a little transparency? Not so much (like a glass), but a little.

Edit.: Did you try if the error persist puting less frames (like 15) in the object file? Maybe the game, for some unknown reason, consider a frame 0, instead of start with 1...

 

Rejoice, lazarus78 has done mother nature a favor and found the problem.

So that everyone knows: Frames have to start at default.0, even if you set the starting one to .1 below. For some strange reason, this only applies to smaller objects, too.

@GonDragon

The ones to the left are fully solid, the ones to the right without a splash already fade to 100% transparency at the bottom.
I might increase the range at which they fade into full transparency tho. And I might make the solid ones just a little (10-20%) transparent too