Render the current frame of a 2D animation?

Render the current frame of a 2D animation?

NPKing (guest) 22 Aug 2011 23:25

Hi. I'm a student in high school that used these tutorials to teach myself XNA, in which I'm developing a 2-dimensional megaman ripoff for my own entertainment. these tutorials are well written, helpful, and all around good. I have a question that I can't seem to find the answer to though.

In the 2D series part 4, texture atlases, I'm using a modified version of the final code (I made it possible to specify a start and end frame, allowing people to use the same sprite sheet for multiple animations. this is easier on artists, I guess.). I'm trying to find a way to render the current frame of the animation to a texture2D, and I can't find one. The only approach I thought of was to use the source rectangle to get an individual part of the image so that I could then return that small piece of the texture atlas as a Texture2D. Can anyone help me?

Brian (guest) 24 Aug 2011 19:18

Instead of rendering the current animation frame to the screen buffer just render it to a Texture2D. There is a tutorial that shows how to do this on this site. It's under Advanced section -> http://rbwhitaker.wikidot.com/render-to-texture

I think that's what you're trying to do right?

NPKing (guest) 25 Aug 2011 14:15

Thank you for responding. This is what I'm trying to do, and I'm going to try this solution right now, but as opposed to the tutorial I'm using XNA 4, not 3. For XNA 4 I'm going to attempt to use the first of the constructors, using the width and height of the texture instead of the GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters. I hope this works, otherwise I need an explanation as to the other possible constructors and what they do.

NPKing (guest) 25 Aug 2011 14:34

I seem to have hit a small error. I'm trying to use this inside my animation class so that I have a method I can call in another class when I need it. I can't seem to point to the GraphicsDevice in the non-game class. If it's possible, some help would be appreciated in how to do it. If this isn't possible, some help with a workaround would be appreciated.

Brian (guest) 25 Aug 2011 16:10

You'll need to pass the GraphicsDevice object to the class that needs it. The best way to do this is either in the constructor for your class or by sending it directly to the Draw method. Let me know if that works or if I've mixed something up.

Brian (guest) 25 Aug 2011 16:13

Also, I know how to get around the PresentationParameters. Just let me know if you can't get it to work for XNA 4 and if so I'll post a solution. I think you'll figure it out though, it's not too bad. GL :)

NPKing (guest) 03 Sep 2011 03:21

So, I seem to have gotten everything to work the way I want it to, with one exception. The background of the sprite is filled in when I don't want it to be. am I correct in thinking that I fix this by changing the alpha of the color in the background to maximum? If so, how do I do that? I'm not great at the art part of XNA, if that wasn't obvious already.