Re: [AD] Drawing a flipped RLE sprite?

[Evert Glebbeek <eglebbk@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> > I've thought about this before, and from what I could see, it wouldn't
> > require much more than changing the direction flag.
> 
> What do you mean exactly by that ? We probably need to write an entire
> new function.

Yes. What I meant was that AFICS, the difference (to the asm version) 
wouldn't consist of much more than a std instruction to change the 
direction flag before writing the scanlines, assuming the code looks even 
vaguely how I imagine it would look (haven't checked).
Of course, the last time I did anything in assembler was over four years 
ago...

> > Are there any objections to adding such a function to the 4.1 series 
> > (it breaks ABI compatibility, right?
> 
> IMHO a big one: this would be a slippery slope. Why not add all the
> flavours of draw_sprite() then ?

I see your point - my thoughts are as follows:

     draw_lit_sprite 
     draw_sprite 
     draw_trans_sprite 

These have RLE-sprite equivalents.

     draw_sprite_*_flip 

These do not, but that could easily be added

     pivot_*_sprite 
     rotate_*_sprite 
     draw_gouraud_sprite 
     stretch_sprite 

These don't either, and they would be very hard to code directly using RLE 
sprites (maybe draw_gouraud_sprite wouldn't be too hard).

IMHO, rle-sprites are mainly intended for `static' images, such as 
character sprites. You don't ordinarily need to do a lot of fancy stuff 
with those: just draw them, light them or flip them. Following that 
reasoning, a draw_gouraud_rle_sprite should be a good thing too...

Anyway, I'm not suggesting to lift the limitations of RLE sprites over 
plain bitmaps, but to relax them a little: allow the things that can eaily 
be done and leave those that cannot. There are already draw_lit_rle_sprite 
and draw_trans_rle_sprite functions that have really no more right to be 
there than flip_rle_sprite-functions, IMHO of course ;-)

-- 
Evert Glebbeek
e-mail: eglebbk@xxxxxxxxxx   ICQ: 48210348
www: http://www.science.uva.nl/~eglebbk/