Alright this tutorial is here to get you past any and all animated sprite related things involving Stepmania 3.9 or Stepmania 4. Shit it could apply to just about any animated sprite. Lets start with a few questions:
1. What is a sprite, and Why do I give a shit?
A sprite is a single frame of a 2d image in a game. We give a shit because Sprites have brought us some of the greatest things ever. Super Mario Brothers, Metroid, Panel de Pon, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Pokemon.
2. No no. Why do I care in terms of Stepmania?
Oh. You care in terms of Stepmania because unless you're a genius (you aren't) your entire
theme will probably be sprites.
3. Oh ok. So why do we care about animated sprites?
Because they animate, and add a look of professionalism to your theme. In addition to that, they are be used for some images which change between several of the same things (Such as the wheel notification Icons.)
4. I still don't see why I care.
Then you're dumb and you've probably made a theme that looked like shit in a bucket of urine. Multipart images are a huge part of Stepmania and if you don't think so then you're stupid and probably need to be beaten over the head with a sock full of batteries.
5. Why are you insulting me?
Because you don't get it. You need to understand why you'd want to do this if you want to learn how to do it. Its a good thing to know. Its required if you plan on making your own noteskins. You should learn it and thats final.
6. OK OK you've got me. What do I need to make this work?
I was just about to get to that.
WHAT YOU'RE GONNA NEED
An Image Editor. Screenshots feature Gimp 2.4
A sprite to make. Dick with one for now.
Alright. Things you need to understand:
Computers work really well with numbers that are divisible by 2.
Really really well.
Thats why Stepmania complains hugely every single time you have a number *NOT* divisible by 2. So were going to start with a graph:
Hey check it out we've got a Box.
Its 196x80 pixels. Why these values? Because I can.
THE BLACK BORDERS ARE NOT PART OF THE BOX, THEY ARE JUST AROUND THE BOX TO GIVE MORE WORKSPACE. YOU WANT THE WHITE SPACE IN THE BOX. I'M ONLY POSTING THIS BECAUSE K//ETERNAL IS RETARDED ENOUGH TO ACTUALLY NOT THINK BEFORE HE SAYS THINGS.
Now look at these guidelines as placed by Gimp 2.4
Now this splits that box up into 4 pieces. this is the grid you would use if you were doing a 2x2 image. However you can make as many boxes as you want, as long as they are all EQUAL and as long as they have EVEN DIMENSIONS.
Let me show you.
Ok. Lets call all the Red lines "A" and all the Green lines "B"
All the A lines are equal, and all the B lines are equal. In addition to that, A is an even number, and so is B.
Now do you understand?
Now. Lets look at this second version of the box.
You'll notice that there are now green boxes inhabiting most of the white boxes created by the guide lines. This is what you should consider your "Useable Area". This is because if you scale an image, it scales *BEFORE* it gets cut up, and this can cause artifacts from neighboring cells to appear on your image, and thats no goddamn good. we don't like that.
That white area around the green boxes should ALWAYS be transparent. And you should ALWAYS theme at 640x480, then test at 800x600 for this reason. Now of course there are exceptions to this, if you're doing an 8x1, you can just as easily have it touch the top and bottom and not get artifacts, or on a 1x8, the opposite is true.
Now, Stepmania will animate from Left to Right, Top to bottom. Look at this:
- By the way, if you get this, you could probably beat me at the game involved.
Anyway. Stepmania will always Animate Green -> Red -> Yellow -> Blue -> loop unless a .sprite file is defined to say otherwise. Thats another topic that I don't care about right now, even if you do. On that note, you now know enough about sprite files to make one properly. Using guide lines is important. Try it. they help.
Multipart Sprites for Eric Cartmans (retards) 
