Sprite editor

Starting with v0.7 of Retro Graphics Toolkit the sprite editor has been improved to make managing large objects that are made of smaller sprites much easier. To do this Retro Graphics Toolkit divides sprites up into two categories:

• Sprites
• Sprite groups

A sprite is simply what the hardware in question can display. This is the smallest unit if you will.

A sprite group contain can contain one sprite or many sprites. How many sprites are in the group is a choice made by the user as there is no set limit. Generally it is best to have each frame in a different group. To get a good idea of what a group entails lets consider a 2D Sonic game and more specifiably lets consider Sonic’s sprite. Sonic is not just one hardware sprite. Instead multiple sprites comprise a group. In the case of Sonic the reason for him being divided up into multiple sprites was to reuse more tiles. Yes that is one reason why you may have multiple sprites in a group however lets consider a fighting game. Generally speaking fighting games have large sprites. To make managing this easier you can have the entire character in one group.