RO-Blank

I knew that it was that way with headgears, but I wasn't sure that the same applied to wings. So you're saying that doing something like this isn't possible without using a garment slot and editing the lua file? (credits for the image and the content therein go to Nea-Ink)

My newest interest has been in the creation of back items, but I can't seem to find any information on how to go about creating ACTs for them. I assume that may be because there typically isn't much interest in them (except the form-fitting ones) outside of High Rate servers. That being said, I had jumped into this project assuming that it would be a piece of cake, like headgears have been for me in the past. However, I've been running into issues using actOR and actOR2, in the case of the BL, B, and BR views of the sprite. I'm near completion otherwise, though. The issue is basically that no matter what I do, the items will not display on the back of the sprite. They display on the back from the L, FL, F, FR, and R positions, though. I've tried repositioning the character sprite in actOR and actOR2, but it just causes the L, FL, F, FR, and R positions to have the sprite on the front of them (which I do not want). Basically, I want it to be in the rear for L, FL, F, FR, and R positions, while being in the front for BL, B, and BR positions, which is pretty much commonplace. If it explains anything, I'm also one of those spriters who never really used actOR much before to custom write ACTs. I've used it mostly to fix certain glitches in a few of the original ones (for example, Flying Angeling Hat used to have a place where it was a few coordinates off in its animation, though, I'm not sure if that's still the case). Otherwise, when making my headgears, I've just used ACTs from similar headgears and went from there. However, I've literally spent the past 4-5 days on this project trying to get the positioning right for other sprites, while I was having an issue with broken sprites, and I feel like I've done everything within the limits of my knowledge of the program. I've even resulted in actually losing all of my work in the Dir.4-8 option (without the option to undo), but I wanted to try everything to see if I could fix the issue of positioning. Also, I don't know if it makes a difference, but the item is a set of wings, smaller ones. Most of the ones I've seen screenshots of tend to be away from the body, but I wanted these to actually be behind the character and connected. I'm starting to wonder if it's something that's really difficult, because I'm only seeing a few wings out there that are actually connected to the character's back, and not just floating next to their shoulders or something... So can I please get some help with this specific issue? Even pointing me in the direction of a good tutorial for using actOR and actOR2 for back items would be a great help, and greatly appreciated.

The reason I had used the encoding to begin with was because of the fact that it was used in the guide I linked. I know I've used it in the past and things worked fine, but I'm willing to give it a try, and I'll let you know the results. However, I don't think ACTor decoding the sprites are the issue, though. Even in SPR Conview, the images are broken, though they're just showing white where they're broken instead of showing the scrambled sprites like ACTor is. I'm not sure if that makes a difference on your answer or not. Anyway, I'm going to give it a try sometime this morning. Even if I've always used it in the past, it can't hurt to change it if it'll fix the issue. Thanks for the detailed explanation. Edit: Well, if fixed the issue, as well as resulted in smaller SPR files, which is odd, since you said that the encoding part was for compression. Seems like it was doing the opposite, because my SPR is 24.1KB instead of 60.3 now. The only thing that bugs me now is that the files on some of the sprites I tested stretch beyond the preview window on the bottom of ACTor, which they didn't before. I can resize it, though, so it's not too big a deal, but I'm not sure why it's doing that. Anyway, I'd like to leave this topic open for a little while longer before being considered "solved." It may just be me being stubborn, but I know for a fact that I didn't have to turn the encoding off in the past. I still think it might be something to do with my Photoshop settings somewhere, because I've been working with other things, I upgraded from CS3 to CS5, and I've changed a lot of the defaults. I guess I could just restore to default settings, but that wouldn't exactly teach me anything, which would result in further problems in the future. I'm not saying I'm not grateful for your help or anything, but I'm worried that this fix may be nothing more than a "Band-Aid fix," and that I may just run into more problems in the future due to some setting in Photoshop.

Honestly, all I'm doing with SPR Conview is converting SPR to BMP, and BMP to SPR. From SPR to BMP, I'm editing the sprites (where necessary) and going from there. I've not changed nor upgraded my ACTor nor SPR Conview programs from a year ago, so I doubt those are the issue. However, if you believe that they are the issue, I'd like to formally request that you explain your reasoning behind that issue. If I can understand why you've come to that conclusion, then I may be able to solve my problem. The random pixels at the bottom of the sprites apply to frames 1-6, however, frame 7 is completely scrambled, resulting in even the top of the frame being completely re-arranged.

Sorry, I should have specified. The colors are all fine, but the bottoms of some of the frames seem to want to scatter. I actually got frustrated to the point of removing half of the sprite to see if it would fix it. It solved the problem for 6 of the 7 frames. The 7th one was completely scattered regardless. The 1st, 5th, 6th, and 7th frames of the sprite file are broken, but the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th are intact. It's driving me crazy. I really enjoy spriting, so any help I can get; I'll be extremely grateful for it.

I used to work on sprites over a year ago, however, I haven't exactly touched them since then. As much as it hurts my pride to admit it, I simply cannot avoid breaking the frames in the sprites I'm making. I've tried several different ones with the same results. http://rathena.org/board/topic/61862-guide-spriting-101-creating-a-sprite-and-act-file/ ^ Originally, I followed that guide when I learned how to create and modify sprites around two years ago. The only thing that has changed is that I've upgraded from Photoshop CS3 to Photoshop CS5. Thing is, I'm not sure if that's the problem. I've followed all of the instructions listed in the text and screenshots, even matching my own settings to theirs. I've been and loading the color palettes, to using ACTs (I'm still unsure of how to create one manually, but I can modify them), converting from RGB to Indexed colors, saving as an 8-bit Bitmap file, and converting using SPR Conview. Regardless of what I do, for some reason, some (or all) of the frames keep breaking. I'm literally at a loss here, because I cannot figure out what the issue is, neither from memory, nor from that guide. However, I do know that when I first started out, I had this issue, even with the guide. I just can't remember how I corrected it, but I'm assuming that it was something to do with a setting in Photoshop somewhere.