Graphic component expansion

Lafiel

With all the optimizations to the game physics engine done and all I think it's time to look back at the graphics components.
It's not the first time I've suggested this and it may not matter for vanilla and for most mods.
But I'm certain it is needed and has its uses.
In order to reuse sprites and in order to compose graphics it had been necessary to use many graphics components. The main reason being the limited number of subgraphics components.
One reason is that sprites cannot be rotated to a certain angle by themselves and have to use a whole graphic component for that.
Another reason is the limited number of layers and undesired overlap.
I think it's best to combine a list-like solution for chaining custom subgraphics components or groups of sprites that can be merged or flatten according to their order to the desired layer.
Of course this suggestion aims to not increase memory usage while hoping not to impact processing and causing more lag but make things run faster.

Walt

Lafiel One reason is that sprites cannot be rotated to a certain angle by themselves and have to use a whole graphic component for that.

This is probably pretty easy to support. Added to my list.

Lafiel Another reason is the limited number of layers

Why can't you just add more layers?

Lafiel merged or flatten according to their order to the desired layer.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Are you saying that the layer for a sprite should be determined automatically? I don't think this is possible.

Lafiel

Walt More layers can have big impacts when more ship classes come into play.

I imagine it to be something like this

Graphics
{
	Type = Graphics
	Location = [1, 1]
	Compound1
	{
		Layer = "floors"
		Offset = [0.5, 0.5]
		DamageLevels
		[
			{
				File = "floor01.png"
				Size = [2, 2]
			}
		]
		DamageLevels
		[
			{
				File = "floor02.png"
				Size = [1, 1]
				Offset = [0.5, -0.5]
			}
		]
	}
}

Walt

Lafiel Allowing a list of sprites within a single Graphics component is probably easy enough, I'll add it to my list. Auto-assigning to ship layers is not possible.

Lafiel

Walt That's fine the list alone is a huge help.

It would be ideal to have the sprite list-elements able to inherit the sprite codes from text files (which may have animation code).

Lafiel

So as discussed about decals on discord, it would be nice to have a more fine grained rotation option for sprites, too.

Walt

Lafiel Not sure what you're referring to.

Lafiel

Walt A graphics component has Rotation for setting a certain degree.
When composing it forces you to use one graphics component for each sprite for each different angle. So having a feature that works for sub graphics components would allow multiple to be used within one graphics components .