Access the graphics bank / access batari labels

[wallaby]

I'm still wrangling with some aspects of DPC+.

 

For example, if I set the player graphics likes this:

 

player0:

%1111111

etc.

 

batari will take that information and store it in the graphics bank with a generated label. I don't know what the label will be called ahead of time. So I can't easily assign another sprite that graphics data. However, a label DOES exist, and if I knew what it was, I could easily assign it to other sprites.

 

A work around is to create a data statement with the graphics data:

 

data mysprite

%1111111

etc.

 

Now I can assign this data to another sprite. But - the caveat is that the data is stored in whatever bank you define it in and not the graphics bank.

 

Can I explicitly place data in the graphics bank so I don't waste it?

[wallaby]

It looks like you can access bank 7 in the normal way which is the graphics bank. Hmm. I'll try putting some data sprites there.

[bogax]

edit: oops goofed it, hopefully fixed now..

the sprite data needs to be page aligned it can't cross a page boundary (in the standard kernel, I don't know about DPC+)

the sprite data label is the line number of the player statement where it's defined

something like

playerL032_0

if it's line 32

you can get the label from a list file if you can coax bB/DASM to produce a list file*

probably the simplest thing is just to define the player with all the sprite data

then read the lo byte of the pointer into a variable and use that

then bB will put the sprite data at the end and adjust things so that it doesn't

cross a page boundary (but data statements are more flexible in some ways)

if you don't want to spend a variable on that, write the pointer lo byte to a screen variable

read the number off the screen then incorporate it into your code as a constant

(in such a way that it doesn't change the player data location or so that you give it the correct

location if you remove a write to the screen that's four bytes to subtract, maybe)

*it's a switch somewhere in the make mechanics

what dingbat thought it was a good thing to remove that!?

it's the most useful thing bB produces second only to the bin

Edited September 17, 2016 by bogax

[RevEng]

Dunno. Listing are enabled by default in my bB build.

 

In case you missed it wllaby, you can already use the "player#-#:" command to share DPC+ sprite definitions with multiple spites.

[bogax]

Dunno. Listing are enabled by default in my bB build.

 

In case you missed it wllaby, you can already use the "player#-#:" command to share DPC+ sprite definitions with multiple spites.

 

to be fair

I don't remember if I had to turn on listing in the version I'm using now (which is bB.1.1d.reveng37)

and I haven't kept up but I know it was off at one time

[RevEng]

If I recall correctly, batari didn't have it enabled, and as a result probably some of my earlier releases.

 

I figured that even if some coders didn't make use of the file, it would make troubleshooting easier. So I enabled it.