RipaRoo?

[Bill_Loguidice]

How exactly does this thing work? Is it inferring that you can somehow access the graphic sets (animation sets) of games within MAME?

"What Is RipaRoo?
RipaRoo is a tool that will rearrange mame character sets into there respective on screen sizes. Which is handy if you are porting a game to another platform, this means you no longer have to sit there for hours capturing screenshots.
"

http://www.geocities.com/pharg0ne/

Can anyone explain this a bit better?

[xyzzy]

I believe this rips 'sprite strips' from MAME. A sprite strip is one way of storing all the images in a sprite. Think of it as a contact sheet for your character in BMP format. If you get into programming, you will no doubt run across these. In Game Maker you have the option of using sprite strips or gifs for your sprites. GIF's are much easier to use, but I hear there is a small legal problem with distributing your game if it uses GIF technology. Shane? Is this true? So strips may be benficial for a final product.

Anyhoo, it looks like you can rip sprite strips from MAME games with this. That would be oh so cool, as the only other way to get sprites is to very patiently capture a butt-load of screenshots hoping you are quick enough to get every instance.

[xyzzy]

Yep, that's exactly what it is. Just ripped all the sprites from Galaga. Thanks for showing it to us. I'll have to play with it later. Here's how I did it. Install the program, fire up MAME with your favorite game, press F4. A weird pallette will appear. Use the arrow keys to toggle through the 'sprite strips' until you find the one you want. You may have to press the <up> or &lt;down&gt; keys to change the pallette for your sprite set. Once you have the right colors, take a screen shot by pressing F12. The screenshot will be found in the 'snap' directory of the MAME32 directory. If you have a buttload o' files in their like me, make windows show them according to date modified. Go to the bottom and poof, you have a sprite strip from a classic game. Pretty freaking cool. Could be just the thing for your game project, eh?

[Bill_Loguidice]

... Go to the bottom and poof, you have a sprite strip from a classic game. Pretty freaking cool. Could be just the thing for your game project, eh?

Wow, that is great. Thanks for trying it out. I plan on definitely using placeholder graphics and sound in my project since I'd like to get the 'engine' in place for each stage and THEN worry about original art and sound. Now I understand why some contests prohibit remakes with "ripped" graphics. Sounds like it's not too much trouble...

[bytorx1]

GIF's are much easier to use, but I hear there is a small legal problem with distributing your game if it uses GIF technology. Shane? Is this true?

Yes unfortunately the issue with .gif is that it uses lzw compression which h&r block holds a patent on. For years they said nothing while .gif became very popular and supported by most paint software then they whipped out the royalty stick and started going after large websites. You are legally required to negotiate a license with them to use lzw compression in your software. This was viewed as a sleazy, under-handed tactic by many on the internet.

In response, a royalty free format was created by an open source group that is the .png format. Ping is much more robust and is based on the lz77 algorithm like most .zip software, etc... It should be noted that someone figured out how to create .gif files that use rle (run length encoding) after the fact but these compress very poorly in relation to the lzw algorithm.

PNG homepage
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/

zlib homepage (compression lib used in png)
http://www.gzip.org/zlib/