What are sprites (sorry, I''m a newbie at this)?

ugk, haven''t you heard of an online dictionary or a search engine?

Far be it from me to chastise for asking a question without giving the answer though. A sprite is a term used for the little 2d pictures used in games. For example, if you had a spaceship, the picture of the spaceship would be a sprite. You might also have sprites for the various weapons, enemies, etc.

Basically any premade picture that is pasted onto the screen is a sprite (as opposed to something rendered dynamically using lots of math or fractals or something)

Correct me if I missed something or made a mistake fellow readers.

Thanx. So I understood you correctly, a sprite is just a pre-rendered image?

a sprite referrs to any object on the screen that is animated. it can be hand drawn or it can be pre-rendered objects or it can be full out 3d. no matter what dimension is, the only criteria is that it is animated and usually counts as an ''object'' rather than a simple tile or whatever, what kindof sprites are you interested in making?

Well, I want both my background (land where u walk) and my characters to be 3d. And u could rotate both around, so I guess both of those would be sprites. And do u know if it''s easier to make cel-shaded images than realistic looking ones?

yaroslavd, obviously you have not done much game work before. Maybe you have done some graphics work before? I am not trying to insult you, but if you don''t know the difference between 3d and sprites, you shouldn''t be here now. You should begin by working on a modification to an existing game. Try something like Unreal Tournament, Quake, or Rainbow Six. Make some skins and then move up to modeling and level building. This will help you to understand how games work much more than reading a book at this point. There are plenty of tutorials on the internet to get you started. Once you have learned about all of that stuff, then you can pick up a book on Visual Basic or C++. Read and work through the book and then you can get a good book on game programming like "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus" by Andre LaMothe. This is how I started and I believe it is the best way to learn. Give yourself about two years to learn all of this stuff, because that''s how long it is going to take to make simple 2d games.

Oh, and by the way, the 3d objects would not be sprites. The term sprite refers to a 2d bitmap image that is placed on the screen. It can be rotated or translated, but only in two dimensions. Once you add a third dimension, everything becomes a wire mesh. Three dimensions take much more math and processing power than two dimensions. Of course, you could always get something like 3d Game Studio if you want to make quick and simple games.

Thanx, Swacky. U r right, I''m kind of new to game programming. I mean, I can and HAVE made 2d games (tank wars), but I am almost clueless about 3d programming. I know C++ (but not Win32, if u could recommend a CHEAP book, I''d appreciate it), Java, and Pascal (lol, useless). So, in a word, it''s not that I don''t know how to make games, it''s just that I''m new to the whole 3d thing.

Well, I would like to help you, but I don''t know anything about 3d programming. I have done some 2d stuff about as complicated as an NES game, but that''s it. I''m still learning too, but you could do it in OpenGL. I hear it is easier than DirectX. You could visit the NeHe site (link on gd.net''s homepage). They seem to have some pretty good tutorials. As far as rendering, I would say that toon shading would only be a pain in the butt. If I were you, I would aim for something on the Quake 1 / Doom technology level. These games get really complex really quick. So be sure to plan it ALL out on paper before you start lol.

hey guys, this might be a bit off topic but since swacky brought it up I thought u might be able to help. how do u rotate and translate a 2d sprite animation? I understand how to do it in direct3d. do u use a 2d matrix or is there a draw function in directdraw? ive looked in directx help and also searched for an article and cant find anything. Im trying to make a helicopter sprite rotate forward and backward in the direction it moves and dont want to have to make a whole bunch of sprites to do this. if u guys could help it would be much appreciated. thanks