Saturday, June 7, 2008

Animation Thru ZSnes

This was an old article I've written on the 30th of October circa 2005 which didn't find its way on the internet.

So, you want to create an animation out of the snapshots you’ve saved from your favorite game in SNES? This simple guide will teach you the basics of saving snapshots in ZSnes, a popular SNES Emulator.

First, load your favorite game. After loading, go to the desired screen and press F1. The game will freeze and then a menu will appear displaying the Miscellaneous Options. From there you can use the following options: Save Snapshot, Snapshot per Increment Frame and Increment Frame Only.

Save Snapshot

When you just want to capture the screen and you probably won’t use it for animation purposes, you can opt to choose this. It isn’t a recommended approach to use this option when you want to capture multiple successive screens because it is quite tedious in doing so. But if you want to do so, just press F1 when you want to save the screenshot.

Snapshot per Increment Frame/ Increment per Frame Only

Snapshot per Increment Frame is a good option if you want to capture the screen as the frame increments. A warning though, if you want to capture in a longer timeframe, it is a good practice to also use the Increment Frame Only option along with it. Successive frame increments do not always mean the animation or movement of the screen is worth saving the screenshot. Increment Frame Only lets you increment the frame one at a time without saving a snapshot of the screen.

Additional Options

Some of these options might be of help to you if you just want to capture a specific object in the screen like the character, enemy and background. Press these keys as you play the game.

1 - BG1 Layer is Enabled
2 - BG2 Layer is Enabled
3 - BG3 Layer is Enabled
4 - BG4 Layer is Enabled
5 - Sprite Layer is Enabled
6 - All Switches Normal

Pressing numbers 1 to 5 again would enable or disable the specific layer. Press 6 anytime if you want to enable all layers again at the same time.

That’s it. The screenshots you’ve made is located at the folder where your ZSnes is located. It may be in BMP or PCX format. If you want to create a GIF file for animating the screenshots you’ve saved, just open your favorite animation editor like Microsoft GIF Animator or Jasc Animation Shop (creator of Paintshop Pro) and compile the screenshots.
Digg Stumble This Del.icio.us Mixx Furl Propeller Simpy Live Twitthis Add To Slashdot Spurl Google Yahoo Reddit Technorati Blinklist Blogmarks Smarkings Ma.gnolia SphereIt Sphinn Feedmelinks

No comments: