A creature is made up of 12 sprites, beginning with letters A-L. Each sprite file (.spr) contains ten individual pictures or poses. The exception to this is the head, which has twenty-six poses. The types of sprite files are:
A=head
B=body plus tail
C=left thigh
D=left calf
E=left foot
F=right thigh
G=right calf
H=right foot
I=left bicep
J=left hand and forearm
K=right bicep
L=right hand and forearm
Currently, there are eight different types of norn. The sprite names are made up of a letter and three numbers. The letter, of course, refers to the body part it represents (see the list above). The second character stands for the sex and species of the sprite.
0 for male
1 for male Grendel (only adult, but infant stage)
4 for female
5 for female Grendel (only adult, but infant stage)
The third character is also a number, and represents the stage of life that particular sprite set is used for.
0 for infant
1 for child
2 for adult
6 for senior
The final character is also a number, and represents the type of norn. These are:
0 for Banana (Original game)
1 for Fox (Original game)
2 for Horse (Original game)
3 for Santa (Cyberlife & Santa Project
4 for Purple Mountain (Cyberlife & Life Kit)
5 for Ron (Life Kit)
6 for Forest (Life Kit)
7 for Santa 97 and Easter Bunny (Cyberlife & Santa Project)
Banana: yellow-brown with dark splotches not unlike an over-ripe banana, floppy ears and no hair
Fox: reddish-brown, fox tail, silver hair, male has floppy ears and female has upright ears, bracelets and boots (color sex-dependant)
Horse: rich brown, male has mane and female has blond hair
So a female child with a fox body would use the sprite file B411.SPR in the animations.
Genetically speaking there are only four genes controlling the bodily form of norns. These are: Appearance of Head, Appearance of Body, Appearance of Arms and Appearance of Legs. So body can be different from head, arms and legs; but hand cannot be different from biceps.
Because of the fact that males have different sprites from females, they cannot take on the forms of the opposite sex. Sandra believes this to be hard-coded in the program, and I concur.
Creatures defaults downward on all graphics. So, if only the baby stage sprites are available, the norn will use those throughout its life. Likewise, if only the baby and adult stages are present, the norn will use the baby sprites through childhood, then will switch to adult sprites. Also, if a set of sprites is not available, the game will work its way back through the types above until it finds a set of sprites to use. For example, if a user only has sprite sets 0-2 (the original sets that come with the game) and set 4 (the Purple Mountains), any Santa norns (3) will look like a Horse norn (2), while a Ron norn (5) will look like the PM norn.
Sprites are updated whenever the norn is imported, and whenever the norn reaches a new stage of life.
Greg Poehlein
poehlein@sigecom.net