removing the background of a sprite

Is there any quick and easy way to remove the background of a sprite using Codea? Is it possible at all even on the iPad? If I do successfully remove the background, does Codea even support transparent backgrounds? I know I have a lot of questions, but this would really help my current project, where the backgrounds are constantly getting in the way of other sprites, making it not as cool looking and efficient as it could be

Hello @edat44. I may have misunderstood your question, but if you are asking: Can the images (bitmaps) used for sprites have transparent (or translucent) pixels (that is, pixels where the alpha (opacity) channel is less than the maximum value of 255)? then the short answer is ‘Yes’.

You may need to be alive to the issues discussed in this past discussion.

Yes, you understood the basics of my question correct. What I want to know is the most efficient and effective way to take all the parts of a sprite that aren’t the actual picture that is wanted (the white around the picture), and turn them transparent? Are there any photo editors for the iPad that do this effectively? (Possiby free ones)

Different people will have their own preferred way of working. My own instinct would be to edit bitmap images on a PC or Mac and then transfer them to the iPad. Many bitmap/photo editors will have tools - of different degrees of sophistication - to allow you to select a region of pixels and ‘delete’ them (replace them with transparent pixels).

@mpilgrem. Would microsoft word work? How about Paint? I’ll try them and reimport my images. Thanks for the info

Hello @edat44. It sounds to me like you have access to a PC. Microsoft Word is not a bitmap image editor and Microsoft Paint is not sophisticated enough to allow manipulation of the alpha (opacity) channel.

You might want to consider the GNU Image Manipulation Program (or GIMP, for short). The application is freely distributed. You can read about it here.

.@edat44 if you want to use paint you can 1/ fill the transparent regions with a givn color 2/ change the pixels with this color to color(0,0,0,0) with Codea so it will be transparent. That’s quick an simple.