S  W  A  T   3   M  O  D    H  Q    
DATA FILE INFORMATION - CLOSE WINDOW WHEN FINISHED

Sprites.dat

Function

To provide display control for static and animated sprites in various modes.

Format

The sprites.dat file is formatted into tabulated data for all types of sprites. The table is split into these fields:

Name 

The reference name of the sprite to use in-game.

base texture 

The base name of the texture, without extension. .bmp files will be searched for first, .tga files second. If this is to be an animated sprite, you must have the actual texture file names in numbered order, i.e. "smoke0.bmp", "smoke1.bmp", "smoke2.bmp"...

# of textures 

This is the number of textures that the sprite is composed of. Static sprites contain 1 texture, animated sprites have more than 1.

type 

This is the method in which the sprite will be displayed in-game. There are four types of display types:

  • facing: Facing sprites always face toward the player. 
  • upright: Upright sprites always face the player, but will rotate in the y-axis direction only.
  • xform: Xform sprites are program controlled, and are used for muzzle flashes. 
  • shadow: Shadow sprites are used for character shadows.
freq  This is the rate that the textures will be cycled (in seconds per frame) in the case of an animated sprite.
repeat  This flag controls whether or not an animated sprite is repeated after it has finished. Set to 1 to repeat, or 0 to stop the sprite after one cycle.
width  This is the width of the sprite texture.
height  This is the height of the sprite texture.
radius  This is the radius of the sprite in inches. This is usually set to 0.
alpha  This is the transparency level. 1 is fully transparent, 255 is fully opaque. If the texture is a .tga, this is ignored and the alpha channel in the .tga is used instead.
alpha blending  This is the type of blending or replacement that the sprite will use when displaying. There are three types of blending:

  • normal: This is standard replacement blending, for gates, etc. 
  • add: This is additive blending, used for lighting effects like smoke, sparks, etc. 
  • blend: This is color blending, used for decals. 
  • corona: This is a special blending technique used for coronas.

 

Note: .bmp files must be in a 24-bit uncompressed format, .tga files must be in a 32-bit uncompressed format.