McCloud, how did you create it within a project, do you mean that you are using the whole project as a template or have a separate templates?
Hey Lazarus,
What I meant by this is that before, when I first started working with Wintermute, I wanted to create my own library of characters before doing anything, so I would just open up the Sprite Editor and load my frames to create my sprite files with out ever starting a project yet. But when I actually started building my project in WME and imported my sprite files, none of my sprites worked. I think it had something to do with when you create them and don't have a project to specifiy them in, the links in the .sprite files are not valid. I only brought this up because I'm new to WME and I didn't want anyone else to make the same mistake.
I found that it's better to create your sprites in a WME project, so that the linking of files will be correct. And by "create" I mean that you are just importing your animation images and then creating a sprite file for WME to use that links all your frames together. You will have to use some other program to create your actual characters and animtation with. I can't remember the steps that I took to do this because I'm not at home right now. There is probably several ways that you can do it. I don't think my method would be the best, but I'm still learning. I CAN tell you though, that PNG seems to be the best format to use when working with images, or animation frames in your project. To me, they have good quality, have a small file size, and if you have a program like photoshop, you can do transparencies and png also has an alpha channel. I am currently making my menus, for example, that are semi-transparent. I just like the affect, and it's easy to set up if you have the right program.
It your working with 3D Characters, it's a different story, I'm STILL trying to figure out how I can make my own characters in 3D. I'm starting to think part of my problem is with my video card, it has shared memory and Milkshake keeps freezing up on me. The important thing to now on this, is that it has to be in Milkshake format. Other than that, I don't know, and in order to do the 3d Geometry that is required to use your character in WME, it must be exported as a 3D Studio File (.3ds) I myself, have had problems doing this because most 3d applications that I've used don't export the camera as part of the 3ds file. This creates a problem because without the camera it can't be setup in WME. The 3ds files, by the way, are used to match your 2d rendered backgroud. By doing this, it sets the 3d characters walking planes, blocked objects and way points in 3d space, so that the 3d character matches your 2d rendered back ground perfectly. I have tried several programs, I'm not sure about lightwave, but if you know 3d I guess it won't be that much of a problem for you if you have to use something else to export 3ds so that it includes the camera. But 3D is still new to me and takes me sometime to try and find out what some things are. From what I understand, people here are using 3D Studio and Blender to do this.
Anyway, although i'm a new guy, I hope that some of this information will be helpful to you.
-McCloud
