CL_Sprite question

[powerfear]

So I'm currently using ClanLib 2.3 to make a game. I'm using the CL_Sprite class to display players and etc. But now I'm wondering what's the most efficient way to have a lots of CL_Sprite with the same image. Because I have a couple of animation set I made for each direction. For now I saw you can't just call an empty CL_Sprite constructor and then call CL_Sprite::SetImageData(); to set the image of the sprite because no "new CL_Sprite_Impl()" is done like in other constructor. So then I just decided to pass the ressource manager and a default sprite in the ressource manager to construct the sprite, then I can just call SetImageData to switch animation since it's constructed. But I'm not sure about the efficiency of that, I read the ressource manager cache the sprite when they are loaded for the first time so that should prevent duplication of the same image I think but there was also an issue with that way, when creating a sprite that way from a different thread then the original thread the ressource manager was in it crash. Meaning the ressource manager isn't multi-thread compatible? I overcomed that issue by making a function to shedule sprite creating in first thread that fixed it but I'm still wondering if there would be a better way.

[Jarett Langton]

Create a grid image with all character directions and use an XML to load it. (sprites.xml)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
  <sprite name="character">
    <image file="./sprites/character.png">
      <grid size="32,32" array="4,1" />
    </image>
    <rotation origin="center"/>
    <translation origin="center"/>
    <animation speed="50" loop="yes" pingpong="no" />
  </sprite>
</resources>

Create a an enum or array for each direction as they correspond to the grid.

enum {chr_down, chr_left, chr_up, chr_right};

Create a class or struct to hold the character. You probably do this anyhow.

struct PLAYER
{
    CL_Sprite mySprite;
};

Load the xml when your program inits'

CL_ResourceManager res_sprites("./assets/sprites.xml");

When you create a character who has his own sprite and direction...

PLAYER newPlayer;
newPlayer.mySprite = CL_Sprite(gc, "character", &resspritesui);

When you want to change the characters orientation / facing direction use the enums to set the frame.

newPlayer.mySprite.iSprite_cursor_normal.set_frame(chr_left);

I hope that helps, I'm no expert and I certainly didn't test this code.

edit: I realize this isn't exactly what you wanted but you can just add x amount of sprites in the PLAYER struct for each direction.